The “Dancing Plague”
One day in 1518 in Strasbourg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, a woman started spontaneously dancing in the street, and she only stopped dancing when she collapsed from exhaustion.
Other townsfolk began joining in as well, jerking their limbs in every which way. More and more people danced until blood flowed from their shoes and bones ruptured the skin on their feet.
Soon, 15 people lay dead from heart failure, dehydration because of the non stop dance and infections from the wounds on their feet.
Elders theorized that the dancing was a punishment for their sins by Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dancers.
They took the dancers to worship at Saint Vitus’s shrine in nearby Hellensteg. Remarkably, the cure worked.
Today we know that this is due to an abnormal movement called Chores which can occur as a complication of Rheumatic fever.
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 