The Dancing Virus

I know by merely reading the title of this post you think i'm taking the mickey, but this may well be one of the most un-fabricated entries i will ever write. While it is not a conspiracy theory as such, The Dancing Virus does fall under the category of "unexplained phenomena". Aside from its mind-blowingly vague categorization, it also has a significant amount of documentation confirming its occurence, which include "physicians notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles and notes issued by the Strasbourg city council". Now Strasbourg is certainly a city of prestige being not only the headquarters for the Council of Europe but also the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines. So the idea that it is just the French taking the piss is unlikely, particularly in a country known to take themselves very seriously. So with that in mind, please read.....

Yes, very seriously.....

On just an ordinary July day in Strasbourg 1518, a seemingly sane woman named Frau Troffea walked out onto a street and started to dance, yep dance. Alright pretty normal thus far, the poor lady just felt like a little jig right? Now thats all well and good, but something isnt quite 100% when that same lady continues her jig for 6 days straight! The lady is clearly mentally unwell though, isn't she? and this is where the story ends? Well as many of us have come to know, the simplest answer isn't necessarily the right answer.... Over the next week 34 people joined her out on that very same street, forming the first ever street dance crew! Within a month 400 were shimmying down the streets of Strasbourg, and (i assume) everyone else in town was terrified with this legion of dancers who could not be persuaded to stop. As this continued just about everyone of the 400 people had danced themselves to death from either heart attack, stroke or exhaustion. But why?

All things considered, the people of Strasbourg got off easy...

What i find makes this story and so many other "creepy stories" unsettling, is the fact it was such an innocent and generally positive activity that caused their death. The list of possible causes were extensive, yet each failed to explain key characteristics in the behavior those 400 people exhibited.  After physicians ruled out the "genius" suggestions of astrological and supernatural causes, a popular theory was that it was a case of mass hysteria (not the shit muse song). Mass Psychogenic Illness, which can arise after severe psychological stress, seemed likely. A lot of the community had been struggling through famine, malnutrition and the necessity to kill off beloved farm animals. However experts are still baffled as to why such mental stress would surface in the form of dancing. Furthermore, there was no consistency amongst those involved, with the afflicted representing a diverse socio-economic sample.

Other theories, both equally disconcerting, were ergotism and St Vitus' dance. The former suggesting the 400 had eaten ergot laced bread. However ergot is a fungal hallucinogen, and as well as inducing delirium and seizures, the mushroom also causes a loss of blood supply to the limbs. This would have made a complex coordinated action like, say, dancing close to impossible. St Vitus dance on the other hand was a medievil term used for curing seizures, and in my opinion falls to close to the category of supernatural bullshit. The dance was induced rather than being voluntary and occured after being presented with an image of the St Vitus. This practice was however, generally used to treat children and once again was a unlikely to be the ailment of people representing a diverse social sample. So yes, to this day what caused 400 people to dance themselves to death in the streets of Strasbourg has yet to be determined. But i have developed my own theory to explain the second most horrifying dance related event of the last 500 years, after of course...

Why???

The Tarantella. Originating in the historical southern Italian region of Taranto, it is now considered just a nice little folk dance, its roots though, are planted in something far more terrifying. Something that may well explain the events of 1518. The dance itself is the result of a condition referred to as Tarantism. You see Taranta was teaming with poisonous spiders affectionately named Lycosa Tarantula. The spiders venom, (lets just see if this sounds familiar to you) is said to have the following effect, "an irresistible need for a a wild and rapid twirling motion bringing the victim to the point of exhaustion". Now your thinking, "yeah that all sounds plausible, but how did the spiders get all the way from the south of Italy to the north of France?" Well, with further research i looked up european trade routes from around the same time and what do you know? There are some very direct trade routes between the two cities! See for yourself....

 

Something i should have mentioned before is that this is a one off event! Nothing similar has happened since. I'll leave you guys to mull that one over for a while. 

So there you have it, The Dancing Virus and while I'm sure my theory offered no more  of an explanation than those before me, just remember this: Next time you are out at a club and everyone around you is dancing like a complete fuck stick, this bloke is probably somewhere close by.......