Strange Dancing Epidemic in 1518 | A deadly "Flashmob" in the Middle Ages

STRANGE DANCING EPIDEMICS

It is the story of a deadly “flashmob” in the Middle Ages which continues to intrigue specialists.

Strasbourg, summer 1518. In the narrow streets of the city and in the squares, dozens of people dance frantically to the rhythm of tambourines, violas and bagpipes. But the atmosphere is not festive. The scenes are even "terrifying", writes the historian of medicine John Waller in The Dancing Plague (Sourcebooks editions), a reference work on the subject, published in 2009.

[This picture is collected from Wikimedia Common which is licensed under CC 1.0]

Women, men and children with this strange “dancing mania” cry out, begging for help, but cannot stop. They are in a trance. The symptoms are shown as “vague eyes; face turned to the sky; their arms and legs moving with spasmodic and tired movements; their shirts, skirts and stockings, soaked in sweat, stuck to their emaciated bodies, ”describes John Waller. In a few days, the cases multiply as a virus spreads, sowing fear and death in the Alsatian city. Up to fifteen dancers died every day, according to a witness at the time, victims of dehydration or cardiovascular accidents.

It was a woman, Frau Toffea, who opened the ball for this dancing death on July 14. Epidemiologists would call her "patient zero", the first individual infected during an epidemic. The fate of this woman was traced by Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician and alchemist, known as one of the founders of toxicology. Fascinated by this collective episode, he came to the scene in 1526 to investigate.

[This picture is collected from Public Domain Review By Ned Pennant-Rea]

UP TO 400 DANCERS

This July 14, 1518, therefore, Frau Toffea begins to jiggle, alone, in the streets. Despite her husband's pleas, fatigue, and bloody feet, she continued for six days and nights, just interspersed with a few naps. In the meantime, other people have joined in the dance. As of July 25, 50 individuals are infected, they will be in total more than 400. The verdict of the doctors is in the direct line of the humoral theories of the time: the disease is due to a "too hot blood". The city council then decides to cure evil with evil. Space is left for the dancers and dozens of professional musicians are hired to accompany them, night and day.

Serious public health mistake! By showing off the dancers in this way, the authorities are only promoting contagion. Faced with failure, the council turned around at the end of July: the platforms were dismantled, the orchestras banned. But the phenomenon will not end until a few weeks later, when the dancers will be escorted to Saverne, one day from Strasbourg, to attend a ceremony in honor of Saint Guy, protector of patients with chorea (abnormal movements).

[This picture is collected from The Guardian By John Waller]

ERGOTISM OR COLLECTIVE HYSTERIA?

After almost five hundred years, this episode continues to intrigue specialists. Because it is not a legend. The dancing mania in Strasbourg, which is neither the first nor the last dance epidemic, is one of the best documented. It is even the only one to have been able to be reconstituted so precisely, underlines John Waller, probably because it arrived after the invention of the printing press, in a city having formalized a bureaucracy.

In total, about twenty comparable episodes were reported between 1200 and 1600. The last would have occurred in Madagascar, in 1863. A variant, tarantism, has also been described in Italy: the disease occurred after a hypothetical bite of the spider Lycosa tarentula, and dancing (tarantella) was an integral part of the treatment.

Over the centuries, several scenarios have been put forward to explain the Strasbourg epidemic: ergotism (poisoning by rye contaminated with a mycotoxin), heretical cult, demonic possession, or even collective hysteria. For John Waller, context played a major role. Trance phenomena, he writes, are more likely to occur in individuals who are psychologically vulnerable, and who believe in divine retribution. However, these two conditions were met in Strasbourg. The city had been struck by an unusual succession of epidemics and famines; and its inhabitants believed in Saint Guy, able as much to inflict as to cure diseases, by dancing in particular.

[This picture is collected from The Guardian By John Waller]

THE ANCESTOR OF RAVE-PARTIES?

Could a dance epidemic break out in the 21st century? Unlikely, according to Bruno Falissard. Today's conversions are rather gastroenterological or rheumatological manifestations, “reasonably” compatible with the data of science. This does not prevent the emergence of collective forms. For example, it is questionable whether the epidemic of minor forms of gluten intolerance observed in many countries is not actually a collective conversive manifestation. "

Some dare to draw a parallel between these dancing manias and the monster rave parties of today during which the dancers can sway in a trance, at the risk of falling from exhaustion. But there are some fundamental differences: the use of recreational drugs is a big part of clubbers' trance. And the latter is probably more euphoric than the terrified choreomaniacs of the Middle Ages.