Respectable historians have presented us with the following curious account of the Abderites or Inhabitants of Abdera.

It is reported, that in the reign of Cassander, king of Ma-cedon, they were so pestered with frogs and rats, that they were obliged to desert their city for some time: and Lucian tells us, that in the reign of Lysimachus, they were for some months afflicted with a fever of a most extraordinary nature, whose crisis was always on the seventh day, and then it left them; but it so distracted their imaginations, that they fancied themselves players. After this, they were ever repeating verses from some tragedy, and particularly out of the Andromeda of Euripides, as if they had been upon the stage; so that many of these pale, meagre actors, were pouring forth tragic exclamations in every street. This delirium continued till the winter following; which was a very cold one, and therefore fitter to remove it. Lucian, who has described this disease, endeavours to account for it in this way: - Archelaus, an excellent player, acted the Andromeda of Euripides before the Abderites, in the height of a very hot summer. Several had a fever at their coming out of the theatre, and as their imaginations were full of the tragedy, the delirium, which the fever raised, perpetually represented Andromeda, Perseus, Medusa, etc. and the several dramatic incidents, and called up the ideas of those objects, and the pleasure of the representation, so strongly, that they could not forbear imitating Archelaus' action and declamation: and from these the fever spread to others by infection.