n. a 15th-century psychological epidemic in which mass hysteria swept all over Germany, Holland, and Italy. It was characterized by an unexplainable yet collective compulsion among people to bite each other. Later interpreted as a mass psychogenic illness.
BITING MANIA: “Way back in the 15th century, the biting mania first started with a German nun who developed that strange compulsion of biting other nuns in the monastery.”