Dancing plague of 1518
16th century mass dancing mania in Strasbourg
The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was when a massive case of dancing mania happened in Strasbourg, Alsace (now modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire in July 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for days.
The outbreak began in July 1518 when a woman began to dance randomly in a street in Strasbourg.[1] Some sources claim that, for a short time, the plague killed around fifteen people per day;[2] however, the sources of the city of Strasbourg at the time of the events did not mention the number of deaths, or even if there were any deaths.[3]
References
change- ↑ Viegas, Jennifer (1 August 2008). "'Dancing Plague' and Other Odd Afflictions Explained". Discovery News. Discovery Communications. Archived from the original on 13 October 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
- ↑ Waller J (February 2009). "A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania". Lancet. 373 (9664): 624–625. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60386-X. PMID 19238695. S2CID 35094677. Archived from the original on 2014-11-08. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
- ↑ Clementz, Élisabeth (2016). "Waller (John), Les danseurs fous de Strasbourg. Une épidémie de transe collective en 1518". Revue d'Alsace - Fédération des Sociétés d'Histoire et d'Archéologie d'Alsace. 142: 451–453.
