Drareg
Member
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2016
- Messages
- 4,772
We are not far off this level of hysteria at this point, people in those times would have gone to other villages telling the locals they witnessed a dancing plague and were probably labeled conspiracy theorists.
The disinformation campaign was alive and well for the dancing plague also!
The "experts" say it was from starvation induced stress, dancing for days while on an empty stomach, sounds like an ancient form of keto.
"The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred 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".
"Controversy exists over whether people ultimately danced to their deaths.
Some sources claim that, for a period, 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 fatalities. There do not appear to be any sources contemporaneous to the events that make note of any fatalities".
The main source for this claim comes from John Waller, who has written several journal articles on the subject and the book "A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518". The sources cited by Waller that mention deaths were all from later retellings of the events. There is also uncertainty around the identity of the initial dancer (either an unnamed woman or "Frau Troffea") and the number of dancers involved (somewhere between 50 and 400)
"This could have been a florid example of psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, which involves many individuals suddenly exhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidly and broadly in an epidemic pattern.[4] This kind of comportment could have been caused by elevated levels of psychological stress, caused by the ruthless years (even by the rough standards of the Middle Ages) the people of Alsace were suffering.[2]
Waller speculates that the dancing was "stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level, since the region where the people danced was riddled with starvation and disease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven other cases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during the medieval era.[5]
This psychogenic illness could have created a chorea (from the Greek khoreia meaning "to dance"), a situation comprising random and intricate unintentional movements that flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas (St. Vitus' dance, St. John's dance, tarantism) were labeled in the Middle Ages referring to the independent epidemics of "dancing mania" that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of the plague".
The disinformation campaign was alive and well for the dancing plague also!
The "experts" say it was from starvation induced stress, dancing for days while on an empty stomach, sounds like an ancient form of keto.
"The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred 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".
"Controversy exists over whether people ultimately danced to their deaths.
Some sources claim that, for a period, 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 fatalities. There do not appear to be any sources contemporaneous to the events that make note of any fatalities".
The main source for this claim comes from John Waller, who has written several journal articles on the subject and the book "A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518". The sources cited by Waller that mention deaths were all from later retellings of the events. There is also uncertainty around the identity of the initial dancer (either an unnamed woman or "Frau Troffea") and the number of dancers involved (somewhere between 50 and 400)
"This could have been a florid example of psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, which involves many individuals suddenly exhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidly and broadly in an epidemic pattern.[4] This kind of comportment could have been caused by elevated levels of psychological stress, caused by the ruthless years (even by the rough standards of the Middle Ages) the people of Alsace were suffering.[2]
Waller speculates that the dancing was "stress-induced psychosis" on a mass level, since the region where the people danced was riddled with starvation and disease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven other cases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during the medieval era.[5]
This psychogenic illness could have created a chorea (from the Greek khoreia meaning "to dance"), a situation comprising random and intricate unintentional movements that flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas (St. Vitus' dance, St. John's dance, tarantism) were labeled in the Middle Ages referring to the independent epidemics of "dancing mania" that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of the plague".
. It reminds me of the vegan smoothie dance (no hate @vegans 
).
