Dancing plague of 1518
The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a massive case of dancing mania that happened in Strasbourg, Alsace (now modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire. In July of 1518, somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for days.
The outbreak began in July 1518 when one 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. All evidence points to mass hysteria caused by people seeing the first woman dance. [3]
References
- ↑ 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.
