tarantism (tarantizm)

[Also tarentism; as It. Taranto, Tarentum (see tarantula and tarantella ), + -ism.] A dancing mania; specifically and originally, a dancing mania of the south of Italy in those who had been bitten by a tarantula, or thought they had been, and their imitators. When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely,. the subjects of Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching recandescence of the poisoning. O. W. Holmes , A Mortal Antipathy, xiv. tarantism us (tar-an-tis'mus), n. [NL.] Same as tarantism .