What caused the dancing plague of 1518?
Contemporary explanations for the dancing plague included demonic possession and overheated blood. Investigators in the 20th century suggested that the afflicted might have consumed bread made from rye flour contaminated with the fungal disease ergot, which is known to produce convulsions.
Why did the French dance until they died?
What could have led people to dance themselves to death? 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.
How was the dancing plague cured?
In 15th century Apulia, Italy, a woman was bitten by a tarantula, the venom making her dance convulsively. The only way to cure the bite was to “shimmy” and to have the right sort of music available, which was an accepted remedy by scholars like Athanasius Kircher.
Who was the first person to get the dancing plague?
The most famous outbreak of Dancing Plague occurred in July 1518 in Strasbourg, France when a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing in the street. She kept on dancing night and day, and within four days, she was accompanied by 33 others.
When did the dancing plague end?
September 1518
The dancing plague of 1518, or dance epidemic of 1518, was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire from July 1518 to September 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for weeks.
What is St. Vitus dance illness?
Vitus Dance, chorea minor, infectious chorea, or rheumatic chorea, a neurological disorder characterized by irregular and involuntary movements of muscle groups in various parts of the body that follow streptococcal infection.
Why is it called St Vitus dance?
The name St. Vitus Dance derives from the late Middle Ages, when persons with the disease attended the chapels of St. Vitus, who was believed to have curative powers. The disorder was first explained by the English physician Thomas Sydenham.
What were the main symptoms experienced by those suffering from dancing mania?
Throughout, those affected by dancing mania suffered from a variety of ailments, including chest pains, convulsions, hallucinations, hyperventilation, epileptic fits, and visions. In the end, most simply dropped down, overwhelmed with exhaustion. Midelfort, however, describes how some ended up in a state of ecstasy.
Is Saint Vitus dance still around?
In the current nomenclature Saint Vitus’ dance or chorea (from the Greek χορεíα for dance) has been largely displaced by the eponym Sydenham’s chorea.
What was the dancing plague of 1518?
(Show more) dancing plague of 1518, event in which hundreds of citizens of Strasbourg (then a free city within the Holy Roman Empire, now in France) danced uncontrollably and apparently unwillingly for days on end; the mania lasted for about two months before ending as mysteriously as it began.
What happened in the year 1518 in Europe?
In early September the mania began to abate. The 1518 event was the most thoroughly documented and probably the last of several such outbreaks in Europe, which took place largely between the 10th and 16th centuries. The otherwise best known of these took place in 1374; that eruption spread to several towns along the Rhine River.
What caused the hysteria of 1518 in Strasbourg?
When combined with the horrors of disease and famine, both of which were tearing through Strasbourg in 1518, the St. Vitus superstition may have triggered a stress-induced hysteria that took hold of much of the city.
Was the Spanish fever of 1518 the only one?
The fever of 1518 was not the only episode, as there were at least seven other cases of it in the same region during the medieval period and even one in Madagascar in 1840.