A photo from open sources
Thanks to medicine, the words “measles”, “scarlet fever”, “diphtheria” in modern man does not cause an attack of horror. No longer do smallpox vaccinations. (WHO declared eradication of infection in 1980) The names of some diseases are simply forgotten. Who, except historians, remembers that Europe once shook the epidemics of “dance plague “?
Strasbourg Crazy
A photo from open sources
In the early days of 1518, a resident of Strasbourg, Frau Toffea went to the market square and began to dance under her alone audible to the music. The townspeople in horror rushed scattering: came to the city dance plague. In less than a week, more than one danced in the square 30 people. Towards the end of June, “knees were thrown out” on the streets of Strasbourg already more than 400 people, and their number grew.
The unfortunate did not eat, did not sleep, but everyone danced and danced, breaking legs in the blood. Fallen, dying of exhaustion, strokes and heart attacks in fear and despair they prayed for help, but not for a minute interrupted their dance marathon. Doctors regaled dancing powders and drugs, but there was no sense in it. IN the city cathedral priests and parishioners prayed incessantly the recovery of the sick and the salvation of the city.
In the end, the magistrate made a harsh but necessary decision: plague dancers forcibly loaded into carts and taken outside cities. What was their further fate – is unknown, but none of They did not return home. After that, the epidemic began to decline and to the beginning of September, everything calmed down. From the nightmare that hit the city, eyewitness accounts, sermon texts, notes of doctors and minutes of meetings of the Strasbourg magistrate.
Timeline of the Plague Dancers
The dancing plague has visited Europe more than once.
In 1021, the inhabitants of Dessau in Germany danced.
In 1237, two hundred people danced frantically on a bridge in Utrecht (Netherlands) until the bridge collapsed.
In 1337, in the city of Steigerwald (Germany), victims of dance plague became more than 100 children. Those of them who have not died from dancing, before end of life suffered from sudden cramps.
1370 – the epidemic again covered Germany and the Netherlands.
In 1374, a dance plague hit several villages along Rhine, and then swept all of northeastern France and territory current Luxembourg and Belgium.
In 1470, the disease was brought to Italy, where it was entrenched. the name “tarantism”.
And the Strasbourg insanity was not the last: in 1728 the year the dance epidemic appeared in Paris.
What made people dance (dance, i.e. perform ordered movements, not twitching convulsively) – and remained a mystery. Scientists agree that the dance plague – a consequence of a violation of the human brain. But what was cause? It’s impossible to find out: the last case of dance Fever was recorded in Madagascar in 1840. Though…
What happened in Tanzania
January 30, 1962 in Tanganyika in a boarding school for girls on In the lesson, one of the students burst into unreasonable unbridled laughter. After her, another two burst out laughing. Toward the end of the day, a hysterical laugh 95 out of 159 schoolgirls were reached. Attacks continued from several hours to several days. Girls gasped, lost consciousness. The school was closed. Several students went home – and took infection with you: among the inhabitants of the surrounding villages were fixed cases of rampant fun. A total of 217 were infected human. The mysterious epidemic spontaneously died out by the end of May. A blood test was performed on the victims, the chemical composition of the products, water and even air – no deviations were detected. Cause the epidemic of laughter has remained a mystery.
But what if the dance plague and the epidemic of laughter have in their based on the same reason?
Germany Netherlands Epidemics
