Post by hi224 on Apr 19, 2021 21:49:10 GMT
Dancing yourself to death sounds like some kind of curse in a storybook, but for the town of Strasbourg, Alsace (modern-day France), it became a brutal and nightmarish reality.
It all started on July 14th, when reports indicate that one woman, Frau Troffea, had started inexplicably dancing on the street outside her home.
Ignoring her husband's pleas for help, she reportedly danced for hours on end until she collapsed and then continued dancing the next day. She apparently danced for four days straight, drawing a crowd and attracting quite a bit of attention from the locals. It was sometime after this that authorities, finally deciding to intervene, sent her in a wagon thirty miles away to Saverne, with the hopes she might get “cured.”
Unfortunately, however, some of the people who had watched Troffea began exhibiting the same strange behavior — dancing endlessly, without any rhyme or reason.
Within a few days, the number of dancers had grown to be at least 30, which prompted further action from the now panicking officials.
Bizarrely, the conclusion was made that the victims were suffering from “overheated blood,” a condition that they believed could be treated by, funnily enough, “dancing it free” of your system. What followed was an attempt at a cure by the council, who ordered their citizens to “transform their guild halls into temporary dance floors.”
Of course, this only exacerbated the problem and, within a month, the plague had apparently seized roughly four hundred citizens. There were reports of extreme exhaustion and dehydration, which is what led to the majority of the deaths. At its peak, the plague was said to take 15 lives a day, though the final death toll is still unknown.
Eventually, the authorities in charge decided to send the afflicted on the same thirty-mile trip Troffea had gone, where they would perform some kind of “ritual” that involved being placed into red shoes while being led around a wooden figurine of St Vitus. Eventually, for reasons unknown, the dancing subsided, and the horrible plague would come to an end almost just as mysteriously as it had appeared.
And while the whole situation sounds akin to a wild children’s story, it wasn't the first time (or only time) it had happened, and the bizarre phenomenon still has many historians and scientists scratching their heads.
PROMINENT THEORIES:
- MASS HYSTERIA
The loose definition of hysteria is the presentation of physiological symptoms as the result of psychological distress, and it is still the best (and most widely accepted) explanation we have for what happened back then.
Between famine, smallpox, and syphilis, the people in Strasbourg were dealing with a lot during that period. Combine that amount of stress with superstitious beliefs, and it might have acted as some kind of stressor for mass hysteria to present itself in the form of extreme and uncontrollable dancing.
Another example of mass hysteria in history? The infamous Tanzanian laughter epidemic of 1962, to which they still haven’t found a cause.
- CONTAMINATED BREAD
It is possible that the afflicted may have eaten contaminated rye bread, contained with the fungal disease ergot, which can lead to symptoms that include vomiting, confusion, spasms, convulsions, unconsciousness, and death.
So, those impacted might have actually been poisoned, and perhaps the doctors misunderstood the convulsions and spasms as "dancing."
- Other, fringe theories include demonic possession and the original diagnosis of “overheated blood” on the brain.
Fortunately, today, we have a much better understanding of the human mind than we did all those years ago. If something like this were to happen now, they certainly wouldn't prescribe more dancing as the solution.
Still, one has to wonder at the power and mystery involved with the human brain, and the strange, sometimes ridiculous ways it can malfunction.
Sources:
www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jul/05/bizarre-dance-epidemic-of-summer-1518-strasbourg
www.britannica.com/event/dancing-plague-of-1518
www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(09)60386-X/fulltext
publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dancing-plague-of-1518
It all started on July 14th, when reports indicate that one woman, Frau Troffea, had started inexplicably dancing on the street outside her home.
Ignoring her husband's pleas for help, she reportedly danced for hours on end until she collapsed and then continued dancing the next day. She apparently danced for four days straight, drawing a crowd and attracting quite a bit of attention from the locals. It was sometime after this that authorities, finally deciding to intervene, sent her in a wagon thirty miles away to Saverne, with the hopes she might get “cured.”
Unfortunately, however, some of the people who had watched Troffea began exhibiting the same strange behavior — dancing endlessly, without any rhyme or reason.
Within a few days, the number of dancers had grown to be at least 30, which prompted further action from the now panicking officials.
Bizarrely, the conclusion was made that the victims were suffering from “overheated blood,” a condition that they believed could be treated by, funnily enough, “dancing it free” of your system. What followed was an attempt at a cure by the council, who ordered their citizens to “transform their guild halls into temporary dance floors.”
Of course, this only exacerbated the problem and, within a month, the plague had apparently seized roughly four hundred citizens. There were reports of extreme exhaustion and dehydration, which is what led to the majority of the deaths. At its peak, the plague was said to take 15 lives a day, though the final death toll is still unknown.
Eventually, the authorities in charge decided to send the afflicted on the same thirty-mile trip Troffea had gone, where they would perform some kind of “ritual” that involved being placed into red shoes while being led around a wooden figurine of St Vitus. Eventually, for reasons unknown, the dancing subsided, and the horrible plague would come to an end almost just as mysteriously as it had appeared.
And while the whole situation sounds akin to a wild children’s story, it wasn't the first time (or only time) it had happened, and the bizarre phenomenon still has many historians and scientists scratching their heads.
PROMINENT THEORIES:
- MASS HYSTERIA
The loose definition of hysteria is the presentation of physiological symptoms as the result of psychological distress, and it is still the best (and most widely accepted) explanation we have for what happened back then.
Between famine, smallpox, and syphilis, the people in Strasbourg were dealing with a lot during that period. Combine that amount of stress with superstitious beliefs, and it might have acted as some kind of stressor for mass hysteria to present itself in the form of extreme and uncontrollable dancing.
Another example of mass hysteria in history? The infamous Tanzanian laughter epidemic of 1962, to which they still haven’t found a cause.
- CONTAMINATED BREAD
It is possible that the afflicted may have eaten contaminated rye bread, contained with the fungal disease ergot, which can lead to symptoms that include vomiting, confusion, spasms, convulsions, unconsciousness, and death.
So, those impacted might have actually been poisoned, and perhaps the doctors misunderstood the convulsions and spasms as "dancing."
- Other, fringe theories include demonic possession and the original diagnosis of “overheated blood” on the brain.
Fortunately, today, we have a much better understanding of the human mind than we did all those years ago. If something like this were to happen now, they certainly wouldn't prescribe more dancing as the solution.
Still, one has to wonder at the power and mystery involved with the human brain, and the strange, sometimes ridiculous ways it can malfunction.
Sources:
www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jul/05/bizarre-dance-epidemic-of-summer-1518-strasbourg
www.britannica.com/event/dancing-plague-of-1518
www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(09)60386-X/fulltext
publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dancing-plague-of-1518
