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The Unsolved Mystery of 'The Dancing Plague'
In 1518, People “danced themselves to death” for no obvious reason in Strasbourg, France. One woman started it, and others joined her. Within a month, there were 400 people involved. After hearing this...... The first thing which comes in my mind is.... This is strange......Why did this happen?.... what caused this situation is still a mystery.
In July of 1518, a woman referred to as Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg, France and began dancing it lasted between four and six days she wouldn't eat or drink during this period. By the end of the week, 34 others had joined her. After this authorities were worried and so they consulted local physicians to ask why was this happening. The physicians said that this was quite 'common' and the cause was 'HOT BLOOD' Yes....hot blood and to cure this they need to drain our access blood from the victim's body. Yes, this is what they suggested.... This may sound stupid but what else can we expect from them...... but it was difficult for them to do so because the victims won't stop dancing so they suggested that they should let them dance so that blood's temperature would come down and they would automatically stop dancing. To do so, stages were built, instruments were arranged and even professional dancers were called to perform with them, but this technique horribly backfired and more and more people started dancing and about 14 people lost their lives. By this the City Council concluded that the theory of 'Hot blood' was nothing but stupidity and then they did something which we can now call much more stupid. They connected this dancing plague with a superstition....I mean again, what else can we expect from them..... They said they the victims were dancing due to curse, St Vitus's curse........After a month the number of cases was 400 and As a response they banned all the activities which they thought was contributing towards it, like music,gambling and also Any event which involves dancing was prohibited, even in marriages playing drums was not allowed because they were considered loud....... Worst affected people were sent to St Vitus's church and surprisingly some of the victims stopped dancing. The priest would make them wear red shoes and they were given a cross to hold in one hand and surprisingly some of them recovered from this dancing mania after this..... But this was also true that many people recovered without any treatment........this wasn't the only incident where people would dance uncontrollably and even die, similar incidents took place in Aachen in the year 1374 and it spread like wild fire.... Victims would dance in circles by holding hands for hours until they fell on the ground due to exhaustion.....Here the story was different they believed 'Demonic possession' was the root causes and so priest were called and the victims were given bath in holy water.
But when they couldn't find a specific reason for all this, they tried to take a easy way out.... What is it?? .....They blamed woman for this....
In 1526, around ten years after this incident a physician paracelsus visited Strasbourg....According to him forced natural dancing was an involuntary physical response like an reflex which could be caused due to certain parts of the body are manipulated.... But because it was 1526, For good measure he also blamed the women.....he said that Women started this in order to avoid the household chores which they were supposed to do....... I mean Yaa, this is what everyone does...... simply start dancing on street with bleeding feet to avoid some household chores.....RIGHT??
What could have possibly caused this...... Curse?? hot blood?? women??
Modern theories include food-poisoning caused by the toxic and psychoactive chemical products of ergot fungi, which grows commonly on grains in the wheat family that was used for baking bread. Ergotamine is the main psychoactive product of ergot fungi,it is structurally related to the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, and is the substance from which LSD-25 was originally synthesized. 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. Also The ergotism theory 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". Waller speculates that the dancing was "stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level, since the region where the people danced was riddled with starvation and disease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven other cases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during the medieval era.
This could have been a florid example of psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, which involves many individuals small groups to almost 1,000 people suddenly exhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidly and broadly in an epidemic pattern. This kind of comportment could have been caused by the elevated levels of psychological stress, i.e. the despair caused by the ruthless years the people of Alsace were suffering. This psychogenic illness could have created a chorea, a situation comprising random and unintentional movements that flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas were labeled in the Middle Ages referring to the independent epidemics of "dancing mania" that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of the plague.
Just to make the dancing plague a bit more bizarre, there were at least seven other cases of it in the same region during the medieval period, and one in Madagascar in 1840.
What according to you would have causes this??
I won't call this as one of the deadliest incident in our history, but it is one of the weirdest incident I can Think of.........
What caused this is still a mystery......
Do write your opinions about this ....
In July of 1518, a woman referred to as Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg, France and began dancing it lasted between four and six days she wouldn't eat or drink during this period. By the end of the week, 34 others had joined her. After this authorities were worried and so they consulted local physicians to ask why was this happening. The physicians said that this was quite 'common' and the cause was 'HOT BLOOD' Yes....hot blood and to cure this they need to drain our access blood from the victim's body. Yes, this is what they suggested.... This may sound stupid but what else can we expect from them...... but it was difficult for them to do so because the victims won't stop dancing so they suggested that they should let them dance so that blood's temperature would come down and they would automatically stop dancing. To do so, stages were built, instruments were arranged and even professional dancers were called to perform with them, but this technique horribly backfired and more and more people started dancing and about 14 people lost their lives. By this the City Council concluded that the theory of 'Hot blood' was nothing but stupidity and then they did something which we can now call much more stupid. They connected this dancing plague with a superstition....I mean again, what else can we expect from them..... They said they the victims were dancing due to curse, St Vitus's curse........After a month the number of cases was 400 and As a response they banned all the activities which they thought was contributing towards it, like music,gambling and also Any event which involves dancing was prohibited, even in marriages playing drums was not allowed because they were considered loud....... Worst affected people were sent to St Vitus's church and surprisingly some of the victims stopped dancing. The priest would make them wear red shoes and they were given a cross to hold in one hand and surprisingly some of them recovered from this dancing mania after this..... But this was also true that many people recovered without any treatment........this wasn't the only incident where people would dance uncontrollably and even die, similar incidents took place in Aachen in the year 1374 and it spread like wild fire.... Victims would dance in circles by holding hands for hours until they fell on the ground due to exhaustion.....Here the story was different they believed 'Demonic possession' was the root causes and so priest were called and the victims were given bath in holy water.
But when they couldn't find a specific reason for all this, they tried to take a easy way out.... What is it?? .....They blamed woman for this....
In 1526, around ten years after this incident a physician paracelsus visited Strasbourg....According to him forced natural dancing was an involuntary physical response like an reflex which could be caused due to certain parts of the body are manipulated.... But because it was 1526, For good measure he also blamed the women.....he said that Women started this in order to avoid the household chores which they were supposed to do....... I mean Yaa, this is what everyone does...... simply start dancing on street with bleeding feet to avoid some household chores.....RIGHT??
What could have possibly caused this...... Curse?? hot blood?? women??
Modern theories include food-poisoning caused by the toxic and psychoactive chemical products of ergot fungi, which grows commonly on grains in the wheat family that was used for baking bread. Ergotamine is the main psychoactive product of ergot fungi,it is structurally related to the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, and is the substance from which LSD-25 was originally synthesized. 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. Also The ergotism theory 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". Waller speculates that the dancing was "stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level, since the region where the people danced was riddled with starvation and disease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven other cases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during the medieval era.
This could have been a florid example of psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, which involves many individuals small groups to almost 1,000 people suddenly exhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidly and broadly in an epidemic pattern. This kind of comportment could have been caused by the elevated levels of psychological stress, i.e. the despair caused by the ruthless years the people of Alsace were suffering. This psychogenic illness could have created a chorea, a situation comprising random and unintentional movements that flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas were labeled in the Middle Ages referring to the independent epidemics of "dancing mania" that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of the plague.
Just to make the dancing plague a bit more bizarre, there were at least seven other cases of it in the same region during the medieval period, and one in Madagascar in 1840.
What according to you would have causes this??
I won't call this as one of the deadliest incident in our history, but it is one of the weirdest incident I can Think of.........
What caused this is still a mystery......
Do write your opinions about this ....
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