ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes knowledge of the phenomenon and discuss thoughts regarding the nature of the phenomenon, reviews the heated controversy surrounding its very consideration as a cofactor in the onset of illness, and shows that conditions favoring mass psychogenic illness at the workplace. A differential diagnosis sometimes needs to be made between widespread neurotoxic illness and mass psychogenic illness, a strange sociological phenomenon with which health professionals, investigators, labor leaders, and managers often have to deal. The term “sick building syndrome” is used to describe symptoms associated with the occupation of sealed buildings— that is, those that depend on air conditioning for normal ventilation. Mass psychogenic illness is difficult to study scientifically. It is unfortunate that epidemiologists, sociologists, and biologists do not meet more frequently to appreciate each other’s potential contributions to the understanding of this phenomenon.
