On July 14, In 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea in the French town of Strasbourg started dancing. Very soon she was surrounded by a large crowd. Certain people clapped, certain people laughed while certain others just stared at her. The event was extremely interesting because Troffeau could not control her dancing. She neither started it not did she know how to put an end to it. Rather, she was suffering from a disease named as dancing plague. To everyone’s surprise, she kept dancing for six days. Every night she would collapse because of exhaustion with her socks and shoes soaked in blood but would get up the next morning only to begin dancing again.
In Europe, dancing mania was not a new disease. It had been in existence since the 7th century though it reached its peak in the 15th and 16th centuries. It killed several people and infected thousands of people. The exact number of casualties in Strasbourg remains to be known till date. Though one chronicle suggests that as many as fifteen people died every single day.
As per modern medical terms, dancing mania was a psychogenic disease, a type of illness which caused physical abnormality due to psychological factors. Though no instance of dancing mania has been reported since the 19th century, other psychogenic diseases are common. They take the form of body aches or seizures due to prolonged emotional distresses or sudden shocks.
In the 15th and 16th centuries the science behind the dancing plague was unknown. Therefore, societies offered varied explanations, like a spider bite or demonic possession or wrath of God and so on.
Historical instances of dancing mania
As per E L Backman’s book Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine (1952) the outbreak of dancing plague occurred as early as the seventh century. As per Backman one of the first incidents was the one that had occurred in a Saxon town named Kolbigk in which certain people started dancing in a graveyard and then they were cursed by a priest to continue dancing for a year. A similar incident was reported by Giraldus Cambrensis, a historian in the year 1188. According to him in a religious ceremony at a church in South Wales dozens of people danced in a churchyard till they fell to the ground. Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker, a German medical writer, in his book The Black Death and The Dancing Mania (1888) described that in 1374 at Rhineland (Germany) people made circles with hand in hand, and danced continuously for hours together and appeared to have lost all control over their senses. They kept dancing until they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion.
When dancing mania was at its peak, it impacted five to eleven hundred people. Most of them recovered bodily control within ten days but others suffered a relapse one or more times.
Modern theories of dancing mania
Food poisoning
Some believe that this mania could have been caused because of food poisoning of ergot fungi which produces psychoactive chemical products. This ergot fungi grows on grains like rye. However, Ergot alone does not possess the capability to cause unusual behavior except when combined with opiates.
However, as per John Waller this theory is unlikely as those poisoned by ergot could not have danced for days at a time. Nor so many people would have reacted in the same manner to the psychotropic chemical.
Stress-induced mass hysteria
This could have been a mass psychogenic illness, involving many individuals suddenly having bizarre behavior. This behavior spreads in an epidemic pattern. This could have been caused because of high levels of psychological stress.
This "stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level was probably the outcome of starvation. This psychogenic illness could have created unintentional movements of body parts. This was being labeled as "dancing mania".
Does as per you psychogenic illnesses not occur anymore?
There is no evidence that suggests that mass psychogenic illnesses have reduced. The form could have changed. For example, in 2019 certain schoolgirls in Malaysia started shouting as they claimed to have seen the face of evil.
Tags: Info Desires, Dance Pandemic, Dancing Plague, Dancing Mania
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