There are some such incidents in history, about which neither science can explain nor any religion has its definition. Such incidents get included in human history and only stories are made about them. One such incident was Dancing Fever aka Dancing Plague. This was the incident which has remained a mystery for 500 years as to how someone starts dying while dancing. The dancing plague was a disease about which scientists tell different theories, but still, they are not able to give information.

Today we are talking about this dancing plague which scared everyone in 1518. It was strange thing that a girl started dancing and more than half of the villagers followed her. These people danced for many days and then died of exhaustion while dancing.

Where was the dancing plague spread?

This dancing plague was spread in Strasbourg, Alsace, which is currently a part of France. During that time it used to be a part of the Roman Empire and this plague lasted not for one or two days but for three whole months. No one was aware of what was happening between July 1518 and September 1518.

How many people came in the grip of this dancing plague?

It is believed that around 50 to 400 people became a part of it during that period. Some of those who died had been dancing for weeks. There is no information about what the true figure was. Some reports believe that this plague killed at least 15 people every day in that area and other reports say that those who died while dancing, this is not confirmed, but many people were dancing in their last moments.

How did the dancing plague start?

It is about July 1518 when a girl named Frau Starts dancing in her house. No one knows what day it was, but she started dancing profusely for several hours. She became so engrossed in dancing that she came out of her house. She started dancing in the street and what happened after that was very strange

Frau went on dancing and people were watching her. It was surprising that seeing her dancing her friends, relatives and neighbors also started dancing. Suddenly at that time, the crowd started gathering and in no time the crowd started dancing.

This madness continued and many people including Frau died while dancing. More than 30 people became victims of this plague and there was a stir in the surrounding areas.

This process continued even after the death of so many people and in that period many quacks-like people tried to cure the dancing people but people failed. This cycle kept on increasing one after the other and death started happening every few days due to dancing.

Witchcraft and Satan's presence or some mental illness?

If people do not talk much about psychology today and there is a lack of awareness, then imagine what will happen in 1518. At first, people thought that Frau had gone mad, but when this process did not stop, then it was called witchcraft or the shadow of some devil. Ivan Crosier, a professor at Edinburgh University, researched it and it was named the Month of Hysteria.

Another professor, Timothy Jones, tried to give a reason for this. According to him, the weather in France during that time was too much. There was severe heat, drought, destruction of crops and at the same time heavy rains and hailstorms etc. used to trouble the people. When the weather was bad, people were troubled by diseases like venereal disease and cataracts, and there was also talk of plague. During that time the number of mental patients had increased and people were suffering for their lives.

This may be one reason why so many people have taken to dancing. However, no concrete reason for this has been found to date. There is not much awareness about mental illnesses even today and hence it is difficult to understand what happened during that time.

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