Dancing Plague of 1518

[Joe]

The dancing plague of 1518, or dance epidemic of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace, in the Holy Roman Empire from July 1518 to September 1518.

The outbreak began in July 1518 when a woman called Frau Troffea began to dance fervently and uncontrollably in a street in Strasbourg. According to Ned Pennant-Rea, "Frau Troffea had started dancing on July 14th on the narrow cobbled street outside her half-timbered home.

As far as we can tell she had no musical accompaniment but simply 'began to dance' ... some of those who had witnessed her strange performance had begun to mimic her, and within days more than thirty choreomaniacs were in motion, some so monomaniacally that only death would have the power to intervene."

Troffea kept up the constant dancing for a week. Soon, three dozen others joined in. By August, the "dancing plague" had claimed 400 victims.[4] Dancers were beginning to collapse. It is said some even died from a stroke or heart attack.

The victims' movements were described as spasmatic with many convulsions and their bodies were left drenched in sweat. Their arms would thrash violently and some noted that their eyes were vacant and expressionless. Blood would pool into their swollen feet and they would eventually bleed into their shoes.

Often, there would also be cries for help from the affected. If the victims did not succumb to a heart attack, they would collapse from extreme exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. There were as many as 15 deaths per day during the outbreak’s peak, but the final number of fatalities is unknown today.

No one knew what caused this reaction, which meant no one understood how to remedy it. By early September, the outbreak began to subside, when the dancers were sent to a mountain shrine to pray for absolution.

Wonder what caused this, maybe possession? Usually that's just one person though. Apparently similar outbreaks of "dancing mania" occurred in other parts of Europe, including in Aachen in 1374.

 

[Mayb]

Can it be duncional, affected by fungus ? there is something which calls Convulsive Ergotism by consuption of rye contaminated by fungus
This type primarily affects the nervous system and can lead to symptoms like tremors, spasms, hallucinations, and in severe cases, convulsions and involuntary movements such as dancing or twitching.

 

[Gaby]

I'm reminded of Sydenham's chorea in rheumatic fever. It's uncontrolled movements of the body within the context of the microbe's toxin. Here's a demo:

When the child is standing, it does look like he's dancing.

So if one bacteria can produce this, I would imagine other microbes affecting the motor's centers in the nervous system can produce a dance too.

 

[iamthatis]

I've also thought of the hospital staff dancing during covid as a similar thing. There's also the Ghost Dance, where American Indians would dance for days, depriving themselves of food and water, then collapse and receive visions - it was supposedly a ritual to end the European occupation. Then there's the Crane Dance, which we all know is a shamanic technique to channel certain energies. So yeah, what gives with all this dancing? Some sort of instinctual bad-times energetic phenomenon? Like a Shamanic attempt to channel that spreads by social contagion? That was my best guess.

 

[Mayb]

I've also thought of the hospital staff dancing during covid as a similar thing. There's also the Ghost Dance, where American Indians would dance for days, depriving themselves of food and water, then collapse and receive visions - it was supposedly a ritual to end the European occupation. Then there's the Crane Dance, which we all know is a shamanic technique to channel certain energies. So yeah, what gives with all this dancing? Some sort of instinctual bad-times energetic phenomenon? Like a Shamanic attempt to channel that spreads by social contagion? That was my best guess.

The combination of the stressful conditions of the time (such as famine, disease, and the oppressive environment) may have led to a shared psychological breakdown, manifesting as compulsive dancing / mass hysteria

 

[ivanb]

This is taken from wiki.

Tarantism​

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Main article: Tarantism
Tarantism, as a ritual, is supposed to have roots in the ancient myths. Reportedly, victims who had collapsed or were convulsing would begin to dance with appropriate music and be revived as if a tarantula had bitten them. The music used to treat dancing mania appears to be similar to that used in the case of tarantism though little is known about either. Justus Hecker (1795–1850), describes in his work Epidemics of the Middle Ages:

A convulsion infuriated the human frame [...]. Entire communities of people would join hands, dance, leap, scream, and shake for hours [...]. Music appeared to be the only means of combating the strange epidemic [...] lively, shrill tunes, played on trumpets and fifes, excited the dancers; soft, calm harmonies, graduated from fast to slow, high to low, prove efficacious for the cure.<a href="Tarantella - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>10<span>]</span></a>

The music used against spider bites featured drums and clarinets, was matched to the pace of the victim, and is only weakly connected to its later depiction in the tarantellas of Chopin, Liszt, Rossini, and Heller.<a href="Tarantella - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a>

While most serious proponents speculated as to the direct physical benefits of the dancing rather than the power of the music, a mid-18th century medical textbook gets the prevailing story backwards, describing that tarantulas will be compelled to dance by violin music.<a href="Tarantella - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a> It was thought that the Lycosa tarantula wolf spider had lent the name "tarantula" to an unrelated family of spiders, having been the species associated with Taranto, but since L. tarantula is not inherently deadly,<a href="Tarantella - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a> the highly venomous Mediterranean black widow, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, may have been the species originally associated with Taranto's manual grain harvest.

 

[bianca etezete]

my first thought: detox-reaction

 

[ivanb]

This is taken from wiki.

my first thought: detox-reaction

Interesting that the communities compassion and integration of this poor victims through cathartic music and willful dance relieved many of them of this plight!

 

[Alejo]

I was thinking about a dissease of some sort, or even Tourette's syndrome. Mostly because dancing has changed so much in history that what people might consider dancing in the 16th century would probably look very different to what we consider dancing today.

 

[ivanb]

I was thinking about a dissease of some sort, or even Tourette's syndrome. Mostly because dancing has changed so much in history that what people might consider dancing in the 16th century would probably look very different to what we consider dancing today.

Yes I understand your good point...
Many years ago I met a student and artist from NYU who wrote a doctoral thesis on this historical epidemic that struck their victims especially young women. if I recall correctly, she went on to say that the relief came through Dionysian aerobic rituals accompanied by tambourines, that encouraged the relief of a toxic symptoms, and also psychotic episodes, from trauma and despair. And subsequently the ritual became a cultural dance, which she became an expert performer of.

 

[brandon]

There's also this, which is quite different so I don't know if it could be related, but I always wondered.. This stuff could've made for a good X-Files episode!

https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Leaping-French-Canadian-Lumberjacks-of-Maine

A dramatic startle response among French-Canadian forest workers drew the interest of medical sleuths. More than a century later, there is still no consensus on what was going on. The problem still shows up occasionally.

In the late 1800s, reports started to emerge from the logging camps about a very strange behaviour exhibited by some of the French Canadians; if they were startled in any way, they started jumping uncontrollably. Other exaggerated startle responses included “screaming, flailing the arms, hitting, or throwing objects” (National Organization of Rare Disorders, NORD).

Word reached neurologist Dr. George Millard Beard, and he headed to Moosehead Lake in central Maine, where there were cases. He saw for himself the strange antics of these woodsmen but was at a loss to explain them. He noted that the syndrome began in young children and lasted a lifetime, although symptoms became milder with age. It almost never occurred in women.

Beard wrote, “The individuals were not able to prevent themselves from starting, striking, dropping, jumping, and repeating words or sounds once another person startled them with sudden exclamations or commands. Some, when addressed quickly in a language foreign to them, would echo the phrase, even to the point of quoting from the Odyssey or Iliad.”

Robert E. Pike wrote about life in the logging camps; he suggested the leaping was caused by inbreeding in French-Canadian villages. In his 1967 book Tall Trees, Tough Men, he noted that “If a jumper was shaving, or whistling, or just sitting on a riverbank, and someone came up behind him suddenly and cried, ‘Jump into the river!’ (or ‘into the fire,’ if there was a fire), in he’d jump.”

It was quite common among other loggers to prank the jumping Frenchmen into their extremely startle responses; apparently, they found it amusing. Experts say that if sufferers experience an increased frequency of the startle response, it becomes more severe.

In the 1960s, a Canadian neurologist named Reuben Rabinovitch said the syndrome sprang from the conditions in lumber camps. Men were isolated and bored, he theorized, and the jumping was a conditioned reflex to their environment. The obvious question is, then, why were only French-Canadian lumberjacks affected?

The fact is that the mystery of the behaviour of the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine remains just that―a mystery.

Bonus Factoids​

• This strange syndrome has been observed in other cultures. In Louisiana, it’s called Rajun Cajuns, a name that has been co-opted for several other purposes. A Case of the Leaping Ague of Angus-shire was described by the Scottish surgeon John Crichton in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1818.
• The French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who gave his name to the syndrome characterized by involuntary twitches, tics, and swearing, suggested the Jumping Frenchman disorder was of a similar origin. Later research has found the two afflictions are probably not connected.