Dancing plague of 1518

An episode in Strasbourg in the summer of 1518 in which dozens of people reportedly danced uncontrollably for days. Its cause remains disputed.

Strasbourg: A city in northeastern France, historically part of the Holy Roman Empire and known as Straßburg in German. The dancing outbreak occurred in this city, then under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire.
Ergotism: A poisoning syndrome caused by consuming grain contaminated with ergot fungi. Ergot poisoning has been proposed as a cause, but its typical effects do not neatly explain prolonged dancing.
Frau Troffea: The woman commonly identified in later accounts as the first dancer in Strasbourg in 1518. Accounts describe her dancing in the street before others joined, though details vary among sources.
Historical epidemiology: The study of past disease patterns using historical records and epidemiological methods. It provides methods for evaluating an outbreak documented before modern medical surveillance.
Alsace: A region in northeastern France whose political control shifted between French and German states. Strasbourg lies in Alsace, a region whose history shaped the city's political setting.
Psychogenic movement disorder: Involuntary movements associated with psychological factors rather than a recognized neurological disease. This diagnosis offers one possible account of the reported loss of voluntary control.
Paracelsus's account of the dancing plague: A sixteenth-century physician's retrospective interpretation of the Strasbourg dancing episode. It preserves a distinctive explanation, but was written after the event and is not a contemporary eyewitness record.
History of medicine: The study of how medical knowledge, institutions, and practices have changed over time. Changing medical categories affect how the dancers' reported symptoms are interpreted.
Paracelsus: A Swiss physician and alchemist whose writings challenged established medical authorities in the sixteenth century. His later account offered an early interpretation of the dancers' behavior.
Stress: A physiological and psychological response to demands or threats that challenge an organism's capacity to cope. Researchers have suggested that hardship and fear made Strasbourg residents vulnerable to a collective crisis.

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