what caused the dancing plague


Those who became convinced that demons had entered their souls were prone to fall into dissociative states in which they did exactly what theologians and exorcists said the diabolically possessed do.

What caused it?

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS95MUxGX3NuMg&episode=NDY5ZmIxZGU2YTdmNGM5OTc3ZjJmZWE1YTQxNTU1YTE, This is interesting, I've never heard of this. It appeared as though those affected were having involuntary leg contractions, something still seen in a small portion of psychiatric … Now I Know is a free daily newsletter; In the decade before the dancing plague of 1518, famine, sickness and terrible cold caused widespread despair in Strasbourg and its environs (Rapp, 1974). It was clear to observers that they did not want to be dancing. And for that matter, the disease didn’t originate there. We don’t know for certain what caused the Dancing Plague, but there are a handful of credible theories. Some believe that a fungal infection spread in the area; the fungus caused people to, effectively, spasm, as if they were dancing. Others think the entire incident, minus perhaps Frau Troffea’s six-day dance, was an episode of mass hysteria, with no physiological cause at all. We can be more confident, I think, in saying what did and did not cause this strange phenomenon. Dan Lewis Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobility is! //]]> Along with the merchants, pilgrims and soldiers who plied these waters, news and beliefs travelled, too.

And even though she stopped, others continued, and they were joined by even more people. They ordered the clearing of an open-air grain market, commandeered guild halls, and erected a stage next to the horse fair. While mass hysteria and LSD from old rye bread that people ate have been put forward as explanations, do historians have any idea what may have caused this strange incident? All rights reserved. Others soon joined her, and eventually over 400 people were afflicted, with some of them dying from heart attacks or exhaustion. A classic case is “spirit possession”, in which people act as if their souls have been taken over by a spirit or deity. censored news reports detailing the flu’s impact, Spain — a neutral nation in the war — had no problem reporting the truth.

The most credible explanation, in my view, is that the people of Strasbourg were the victims of mass psychogenic illness, what used to be called “mass hysteria”. She danced all day long and then some, continuing for an unimaginable six days straight — without music or rest — before stopping. Few events more vividly reveal the bizarre extremes to which our brains can take us when in the grip of collective fear.  

These were ideal conditions for some of the city’s needy to imagine that God was angry with them and that St Vitus stalked their streets. We don’t know for certain what caused the Dancing Plague, but there are a handful of credible theories. But what we do know is that Frau Troffea was about to start a trend — a scary one. To these locations they escorted the crazed dancers in the belief that by maintaining frantic motion they would shake off the sickness.
The same fungus has also been implicated in other major historical anomalies, including the

Even good things can be bad in the extreme. ), The claim that the dancers were religious subversives is improbable – it was clear they did not want to be dancing. From the Archives: Tanganyika’s Laughing Epidemic: Another one which was no laughing matter — at least not figuratively. }); Thanks! Such beliefs in supernatural agency can have dramatic effects on our behaviour.

What caused it? Except, maybe, for the Dancing Plague of 1518. These observations could certainly apply to what happened in Strasbourg in 1518.

It was probably a curious thing for onlookers to see — not only was she the only one dancing, but there wasn’t any music playing.

Social and religious conflicts, terrifying new diseases, harvest failures and spiking wheat prices caused widespread misery. Want to learn all sorts of interesting things?

The Cocoliztli Epidemic of 1545–1548 reduced Mexico’s population by 80%.

an exhibition at Strasbourg’s Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame, A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518.

It was there, over the course of three roasting-hot months in 1518, that several hundred people developed a compulsion to dance. Five centuries ago, the world’s longest rave took place in Strasbourg – a ‘plague’ of dancing that was fatal for some.

In the following weeks, say the chronicles, most ceased their wild movements.

Rather, it’s one of the oddest epidemics to be recorded in world history. If the dancing mania really was a case of mass psychogenic illness, we can also see why it engulfed so many people: few acts could have been more conducive to triggering an all-out psychic epidemic than the councillor’s decision to corral the dancers into the most public parts of the city.

And for some reason, others joined in. The rich burghers who ran the city were not amused. This results from consuming food contaminated with a species of mould that grows on damp rye and produces a chemical related to LSD. No, it wasn’t a joke either. A poem in the city archives explains what happened next: “In their madness people kept up their dancing until they fell unconscious and many died.” The council sensed it had made a mistake. No one knows for certain, but a couple possible explanations exist. One modern theory is that the afflicted accidentally ingested a toxic mold that grows on rye called Ergot. According to the BBC, “at the height of the dancing mania, 15 residents were dying each day from strokes, heart attacks, and sheer exhaustion.”.
A toxic and psychoactive chemical in ergot fungi, which grows commonly on grains in the wheat family (such as rye). Dancing Plague Causes.

According to historian John Waller, the explanation most likely concerns St. Vitus, a Catholic saint who pious 16th century Europeans believed had the power to curse people with a dancing plague. Just what was happening? “By August,” History Channel continues, “the dancing epidemic had claimed as many as 400 victims.” And while Troffea survived her dance-a-thon, not all were so lucky. One particular idea appears to have lodged in the cultural consciousness of the region: that St Vitus could punish sinners by making them dance. //
So what could have caused people to literally dance themselves to death? Those in the grain market and horse fair kept dancing under the full glare of the summer sun in a scene as demonically outlandish as anything imagined by Hieronymus Bosch. Nicol Valentin.

The authorities tried to cure them by allowing them to keep dancing - they even paid for musicians to perform for them. Most likely caused by food-poisoning.

From an outsider’s perspective, though, it looked like the flu struck Spain much harder than anywhere else, and the “Spanish flu” moniker was born — and stuck — as a result. aax_getad_mpb({

I thought A Time to Dance, A Time to Die was a pretty good book about it. Investigators in the 20th century suggested that the afflicted might have consumed bread made from rye flour contaminated with the fungal disease ergot , …

Modern researchers pore over those notes to develop theories as to what caused this bizarre incident. Follow.

We’ll never know why she started dancing and what passersby thought when they saw her flossing or doing the Macarena or twisting or whatever they did in 1518.

Their visibility ensured that other cityfolk were rendered susceptible as their minds dwelt on their own sins and the possibility that they might be next. This weird chapter of human history raises plenty of hard-to-answer questions. One of the most prominent theories is that victims suffered from ergot poisoning, which was known as St. Anthony's fire in the Middle Ages. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed for the causes of dancing mania, and it remains unclear whether it was a real illness or a social phenomenon. For some time, ergotism looked like a good contender. The dancing went on and on until – to the horror of the crowds who gathered to watch – some of them collapsed and perished on the spot.

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