Five hundred years ago, a bizarre mania seized the city of Strasbourg in France. Hundreds of citizens became compelled to dance until they became unconscious or died from exhaustion. This unusual event, called the Dancing Plague of 1518, became known to be one of the oddest epidemics to be recorded in world history.
Deadly Dance Craze
The dancing plague of Strasbourg happened in July 1518 when the residents were struck by a sudden and uncontrollable urge to dance. Scores of people danced to pipes, drums, and horns, hopping from leg to leg and spinning in circles under the summer heat.
From a distance, the scene looked like carnival revelers, but closer inspection revealed a horrendous sight. The dancers had flailing arms, distant eyes, and spasmodically convulsing bodies. Their ragged clothes and pinched faces got soaked in sweat, with blood seeping from swollen feet into leather boots and wooden clogs. This event was the most deadly and best documented of the related contagions which broke out along the Rhine and Moselle rivers since 1374.
Eight years after the plague, physician and alchemist Paracelsus visited Strasbourg and became fascinated by its causes. According to his Opus Paramirum written in the 1530s, it all started with a woman named Frau Troffea. According to this account and other chronicles, Frau Troffea had started dancing on July 14, 1518 on the narrow street outside her home. She had no musical accompaniment but simply began to dance.
Ignoring her husband's pleas, Frau Troffea refused to stop, continuing for hours until the sky turned black and she collapsed of exhaustion. The following morning, she was up again on her swollen feet and danced before thirst and hunger could register. After six days, the woman was still going without sleeping or eating.
Frau Troffea's non-stop dancing would have been cause for alarm, but dozens of other people suddenly joined her in her relentless act. It started with a crowd of 34, but by the end of the month, it was 400.
As a response to this craze, the Strasbourg city council built stage and hired musicians in the hopes of wearing the dancers out. They believed that the people had fever called "hot blood" which could only be cured by dancing it out. However, the performance only encouraged more citizens to join the dancers. The strange episode finally ended in September when the dancers were taken to a moutaintop shrine to pray for absolution.
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What Caused the Deadly Dancing Plague?
Modern historians have argued that the Strasbourg dance is a result of ergot poisoning. Ergot is a kind of fungus which grows on rye and less commonly on other crops such as wheat. When baked into bread and consumed by humans, it produces harmful effects that are similar to LSD, or even deadlier. Ergot poisoning does produce psychoactive effects, and it's more likely to kill its victims than give them the endurance to dance for a month straight.
Other scholars argue that the epidemic belongs to a class of poorly understood psychological phenomena known as mass psychogenic illnesses, or mass hysterias. This condition is thought to come about as a group response to stress.
According to Dr. John Waller from Michigan State University Department of History, Strasbourg residents experiences acute distress in 1518. This was brought by the succession of appalling harvest, high grain prices, spread of syphilis, and recurrence of leprosy.
One problem with mass hysterias is that they occur too rarely to be observed in the field. There is also no way to predict when they will happen. Their cause and treatment will remain mysteries of human psychology.
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