“Is not thirst more contagious through imitation than hunger? I think it is. This may explain the rapid strides of alcoholism. Although gourmandism has also increased, as we may infer from the more varied and abundant diet of the middle classes, of the labourer, and of the peasant, its advance has certainly been slower. The same drinks may be in vogue over a great stretch of country (tea in one place, wine in another, beer here, mate there, etc.), whereas the greatest diversity may still prevail in local viands. Is thirst more or less contagious than sexual desires? I think less so. Debauchery is the first vice to develop, even before alcoholism, in large gatherings of men and. women or in newly populated cities. Movements of the leg, and especially movements of the upper part of the body, are still more easily communicated. The impetus of marching together is one of the great military forces. The soldier’s tendency to keep step and march with his fellows is innate before it is obligatory. It has been proved through careful tests that everybody in the same village walks on an average at the same rate of speed. As for characteristic manners and gestures, they are much more readily transmitted than peculiarities of gait among people who are accustomed to live together. This is partly the reason why in modern hospitals hysterical convulsions readily take on the character of an epidemic, like the diabolical possessions in the convents of the past. The vocal function, like all functions of intercourse, is eminently imitative, particularly on its intellectual side, in diction and pronuncation, not in the timbre of the voice.1 Accent is also transmitted. But this happens gradually and during youth. Every city retains a characteristic accent long after its food and dress have become like those of other cities. Yawning, I mean the yawn of boredom, whch has a mental cause, is much more contagious than sneezing or coughing.”

“Plutarch, in his Treatise de hide et Osiride,’ states, that the division of Osiris into fourteen parts was a mythological mode of expression for the different phases of the moon during the increase and decrease of that orb. Mr. Maurice observes, that this ‘manifestly alludes to the different degrees of light which appear in the moon, and to the number of days in which she performs her course round the earth.”

https://dn760002.eu.archive.org/0/items/cu31924000219505/cu31924000219505.pdf