If there is an epidemic in history that happened in Strasbourg in 1518. At this point, legends that have survived to this day say that 50 to 400 people danced uncontrollably in the streets of the city for several days. But the most dramatic account, supported by later history, claims that this frenzied dance claimed 15 lives a day.
Doubts about the numbers. Historian Elisabeth Clementz wanted to review everything that happened at this point, and to do this she consulted the oldest sources we have. The clearest example is on July 15, 1518, when the notary Sebastian Brant recorded the case of a woman suffering from “St. Vitus’ disease”, who could not stop dancing and infected other people with her ‘rhythm’.
This first phenomenon is known in history as “Frau Trophia”, although the name is almost certainly a historical invention. It was coined by the doctor Paracelsus, who baptized women with a word in Greek meaning “he who spins”, but does not seem to have much significance.
There are more doubts. Besides this invention of the name, there is also the problem with the number of cases that have reached us till date. And the fact is that, if we review the documentation that we have today, we find that no patient deaths were recorded or patients were not counted. Only we have some names that come from families who had to ask the authorities for financial help.
But what is important is that, according to Brant’s records, only fifty people danced there day and night. An image that is quite far from the 400 that has reached us through popular culture.
Origin of information Here it is quite important, since if it has reached us so distorted, it is important to know where it failed. And these figures do not come from a document dated 1518, but rather we had to wait for a chronicle written in 1580, more than six decades after the event. And it took another century for another writer to add the details of some dying during this dance.
public view. Another major historical error surrounds the response of the Strasbourg city council, as there are academics and media outlets who have argued that local authorities exacerbated the outbreak by assembling dancers in public squares and setting up platforms in markets.
But the evidence we have in the archives says nothing of this, since the patients were apparently not placed on any public stage. What happened was that the authorities decided to isolate them in different rooms to avoid contagion.
This is the reason. Once the exaggeration is cleared up, the important thing here is to know why there were people who didn’t stop dancing. For decades, poisoning by ergotine, which is present in ergot, was attributed, but today it has been discarded.
The dominant hypothesis in psychiatry is “combined psychogenic illness” because there is previous literature suggesting that prior to 1900, massive episodes of psychomotor agitation and dissociation due to extreme tension and stressful environments were quite common.
Picture | Wikimedia
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