Jumping Frenchmen of Maine

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is the name given to a group of nineteenth-century lumberjacks in the Moosehead Lake region of Maine who exhibited a rare disorder of unknown origin, later also used as the name for the disorder itself, an exaggerated startle reflex that produces uncontrollable, involuntary jumping and sudden movements throughout the body. The condition was first described by the neurologist George Miller Beard in 1878, and it shares some symptoms with other startle disorders.