What was the dancing plague of 1518 ?

 

From July to September 1518, the Holy Roman Empire's dancing disease (or dance epidemic) struck Strasbourg, Alsace (modern-day France). Between 50 and 400 people went to the dance floor for days.

Events:

    

The outbreak began in July 1518, when a woman began fervently dancing in a Strasbourg street. The outbreak began to fade in early September.

   The victims danced, according to historical documents such as "physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and even notes published by the Strasbourg city council."

The reason behind this is unknown.

 

   According to historical records, after a single woman began dancing, a number of primarily young ladies joined in, and the dance did not seem to die down. It continued long enough to draw the notice of the Strasbourg judge and bishop, and a group of doctors eventually intervened, admitting the sick to a hospital.

    Similar events are supposed to have occurred throughout the mediaeval period, especially in Kölbigk, Saxony, in the 11th century, where it was thought to be the result of demonic possession or divine judgement. A woman was bitten by a spider in 15th century Apulia, Italy, and the venom caused her to dance convulsively. The only method to get rid of the bite was to "shimmy" and listen to the correct music, which was recommended by experts like Athanasius Kircher.

Demonic possession and hot blood have been proposed as recent explanations.

Controversy:

 

The question of whether or not people danced to their deaths has sparked debate.

   

  Some sources suggest that the plague killed about fifteen people per day for a period of time, although the city of Strasbourg's sources at the time of the events did not record the number of deaths or even if there were fatalities. There do not appear to be any sources from the time period that mention any fatalities.

     John Waller, who has produced multiple journal papers on the issue and the book A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518, is the main source for the claim. All of Waller's sources that mention deaths are from later reports of the events. The identity of the first dancer (either an anonymous woman or "Frau Troffea"), as well as the number of dancers involved, are also unknown (somewhere between 50 and 400). Lady Troffea is the first dancer in four of the six chronicle stories.

Modern Theories:

• Food poisoning: 

Some speculate that the dance was induced by food sickness caused by the toxic and hallucinogenic chemical compounds of the ergot fungus, which grows commonly on grains used for manufacturing bread (such as rye). Ergotamine is the principal hallucinogenic component of ergot fungus; it shares molecular similarities with the drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and was initially made from it. The same fungus has also been linked to other significant historical events, such as the Salem witch trials.

However, John Waller in The Lancet argues that "this theory does not seem tenable, since it is unlikely that those poisoned by ergot could have danced for days at a time. Nor would so many people have reacted to its psychotropic chemicals in the same way. The ergotism theory also fails to explain why virtually every outbreak occurred somewhere along the Rhine and Moselle rivers, areas linked by water but with quite different climates and crops". 

• Stress-induced mass hysteria:

This might have been a flourishing example of psychogenic movement disorder in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic disease, involving many people with the même bizarre behaviour suddenly. In an epidemic, the behaviour spreads quickly and widely. Such behaviour, caused by the rutheless years (even by the harsh standards of the early modern era), of the Alsatians could have been due to high amounts of psychological pressure.

Waller speculates that dancing was "stress-inducing psychosis" on a mass scene, as people were hungry and ill and the people tended to be superstitious in the region where they danced. In the same region during the mediaeval era seven additional cases of dancing plague were reported.