Some 500 years ago, one of the most interesting mass death cases in the world took place. A group of people in the city of France, known today as Strasbourg, caught a deadly virus. But it’s not the kind of virus you think it is.
This virus was causing people to dance like crazy. People who danced like crazy without eating, drinking, sleeping or talking eventually died as you can imagine. So why? Let’s take a look.
How did people dance to death begin?
It all started on a hot summer day in Strasbourg, France. A handful of people started dancing in the squares. This handful of people had their arms swinging all the time, their bodies were still, and their clothes were soaked with sweat. This dance did not stop anymore and continued until the next day.
At first, the number of people who stopped eating and drinking was small, and the tiredness and pain of these people could be seen on their faces, but they still did not stop dancing. It was too late when the governing authorities stepped in, because the dancers were not a handful of people, but hundreds of people.
According to the physicist Paracelsus wrote in 1530, this dance virus in Strasbourg started in July 1518 when a lonely woman left her house and danced for a few days, and the event spread to hundreds of people within a week.
According to the doctors of that period, why did people start dancing to death?
In this event, recorded in 1518, the number of dancers reached thousands, and the crowd gathered to watch them saw a few of the dancers fall to the ground with a bang. People were starting to die because they no longer stopped dancing, did not eat, drink water and sleep. So why?
The rich and nobles who came to the city to see the event did not enjoy this situation at all. In fact, writer Sebastian Brant wrote his poem Ship of Fools on this event. He and his high-ranking friends consulted with local doctors, who diagnosed that the dance was caused by ‘overheated blood’ in people’s brains.
What did the authorities decide when people were dancing to death?
High-ranking people end up ‘dancing more!’ they came to their decision. They ordered the evacuation of an open-air market in Strasbourg, confiscated the guild halls, and erected a stage next to the horse fair. They guided the people who danced like crazy to these places, believing that they would get rid of the disease. Even pipers and drummers were hired and people continued to dance in these venues on hot summer days.
But it didn’t work and people danced again until they passed out or even died. The authorities realized that they had made a mistake and banned music and dancing in public. The dancers were taken to a temple dedicated to St Vitus, located in a moldy cave in the hills above the town of Saverne, near the centre. In the weeks that followed, most of the dancers stopped their wild moves and the epidemic was over, according to the archives.
Indeed, according to modern scientists, why did these people dance to death?
According to various scientists, this mysterious ‘dancing plague’ that took place in Strasbourg in 1518 was caused by overconsumption of food contaminated with a type of mold that produces an LSD-like chemical that grows on moist rye. . These types of foods cause terrible hallucinations and violent twitches.
However, according to other scientists who are in the majority, it has nothing to do with any chemical. The most correct reason for this ‘dancing plague’ is ‘mass hysteria’, which is a psychological illness. So what is mass hysteria?
Epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, refers to contagious dissociative events that occur under conditions of anxiety in large groups of people or institutions. Examples of this are mass fainting, which is usually seen in schools, or when everyone feels sick after someone is sick.
Why were people in Strasbourg feeling anxious?
So why did people at that time feel under anxious conditions? Because religion. Among the people, the temple of St. There was a popular belief that Vitus would punish sinners by dancing. So St. Vitus had a curse and it worried people.
People were dancing to make up for their sins by dancing thinking they were sinners, but they never stopped. Life in Strasbourg in the early 1500s fulfilled another essential condition for the outbreak of this psychological illness: difficulty in living.
Social and religious conflicts, dire new diseases, harvest failures, and rising wheat prices have caused widespread misery. The year 1517 was very difficult for Strasbourg, the next summer the orphanages, hospitals and shelters were overflowing with the helpless and the poor. These are that some inhabitants of the city were angry with the god and St. They were ideal conditions for them to imagine Vitus prowling the city streets.
Fortunately, the dance epidemic of 1518 was the last of its kind in Europe, and nothing like it happened again. What are you thinking? Please do not forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments.
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