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. But all evidence points to a complete hysteria where when just seeing one woman all took up the dance. [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.
