Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

The Dancing Plague of 1518

The dancing plague (or danceepidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania thatoccurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (now modern-day France), in the HolyRoman Empire in July 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people tookto dancing for days.

Events

The outbreak began in July 1518 when awoman began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg.

Historical documents, including"physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regionalchronicles, and even notes issued by the Strasbourg city council"are clear that the victims danced. It is not known why.

Historical sources agree that there wasan outbreak of dancing after a single woman started dancing, a groupof mostly young women joined in, and the dancing did not seem to diedown. It lasted for such a long time that it attracted the attentionof the Strasbourg magistrate and bishop, and some number of doctorsultimately intervened, putting the afflicted in a hospital.

Controversy

Controversy exists over whether peopleultimately danced to their deaths.

Some sources claim that, for a period,the plague killed around fifteen people per day; however, the sourcesof the city of Strasbourg at the time of the events did not mentionthe number of deaths, or even if there were fatalities. There do notappear to be any sources contemporaneous to the events that make noteof any fatalities.

The main source for this claim comesfrom John Waller, who has written several journal articles on thesubject and the book A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: TheExtraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518. The sources citedby Waller that mention deaths were all from later retellings of theevents. There is also uncertainty around the identity of the initialdancer (either an unnamed woman or "Frau Troffea")and the number of dancers involved (somewhere between 50 and 400).

Modern theories

Food poisoning

Some believe the dancing could havebeen brought on by food poisoning caused by the toxic andpsychoactive chemical products of ergot fungi, which grows commonlyon grains (such as rye) used for baking bread. Ergotamine is the mainpsychoactive product of ergot fungi; it is structurally related tothe drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and is the substancefrom which LSD-25 was originally synthesized. The same fungus hasalso been implicated in other major historical anomalies, includingthe Salem witch trials, although ergot alone would not cause unusualbehavior or hallucinations except when combined with opiates.

However, John Waller in The Lancetargues that "this theory does not seem tenable, since it isunlikely that those poisoned by ergot could have danced for days at atime. Nor would so many people have reacted to its psychotropicchemicals in the same way. The ergotism theory also fails to explainwhy virtually every outbreak occurred somewhere along the Rhine andMoselle rivers, areas linked by water but with quite differentclimates and crops".

Stress-inducedmass hysteria

This could have been a florid exampleof psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or masspsychogenic illness, which involves many individuals suddenlyexhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidlyand broadly in an epidemic pattern. This kind of comportment couldhave been caused by elevated levels of psychological stress, causedby the ruthless years (even by the rough standards of the earlymodern period) the people of Alsace were suffering.

Waller speculates that the dancing was"stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level, sincethe region where the people danced was riddled with starvation anddisease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven othercases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during themedieval era.

This psychogenic illness could havecreated a chorea (from the Greek khoreia meaning "to dance"),a situation comprising random and intricate unintentional movementsthat flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas (St. Vitus'dance, St. John's dance, tarantism) were labeled in the Middle Agesreferring to the independent epidemics of "dancing mania"that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of theplague.