The Plague of Dance

 

The Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Mumbai and also the Drug Rehabilitation Centre of India, merely discussed an odd activity which took place in the 15th century. Do you know someone who was so passionate about dancing that they danced to their death? This thought in itself seems unbelievable. Surprisingly enough this kind of event has happened in the past. This is one of the strangest events that took place in the course of history and science still seeks explanations for why such an event occurred, an event which does not have any scientific backing.

The Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Mumbai discussed that this event took place in the year 1518 during the medieval era. It was named as the dancing plague. You must have heard about the black death which occurred before the dancing plague in the 1340s. It was caused due to the fleas living on the back of black rats which killed more than 50 million people in Europe wiping out 60% of their population.

But unlike the black plague, the outbreak of the dancing plague took place in a very unusual manner. This happened when out of the blue a lady named Frau Troffea started dancing on a warm day in the streets of Strasbourg, France. Her dancing continued for a week. And this is where things took an odd turn. Slowly the people around her also started dancing. This behaviour grew so contagious that by the end of the week 400 people had joined this dancing mania. Just imagine people from your city vigorously dancing like there was no tomorrow! And I don't mean this in a good way.

Soon the authorities in France became concerned as they were unable to stop it and as it was spreading at an unimaginable pace. The people continued dancing uncontrollably day and night. The doctors tried to figure out the reason behind this eccentric behaviour and why it affected everyone collectively. For some bizarre reason, the authorities thought the only way to stop this hysterical behaviour was more dancing! A big stage and musicians were arranged and people were encouraged to dance even more. And for obvious reasons, this did not work and things got worse.

People were helpless as they had been dancing for weeks now, unable to stop themselves. Soon exhaustion started kicking in which was then followed by illnesses. Slowly people started falling ill and many of them were hit by heart strokes. This went on for about 2 months. It is said that the dancing plague managed to kill at least 15 people a day.

After the idea of “more dancing" had miserably failed. The authorities thought that it was probably a curse cast by a mystic force because of sinful acts of gambling, prostitution. The immoral people were driven out of the city. The dancers were then taken to the Virus to pray for their liberation. Within the span of a few weeks, the dancing declined and people were slowly back to normal. Till date, no one knows what caused this kind of unusual chaos amongst the people. It ended just as how it began. Which is still a puzzle?