The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1854-03-31
THE DANCING MANIA.


THE MIDDLE AGES" They were scourges,
the names and history of which alone remain
to the people of the nineteenth century,
The human family is now occasionally thin
ned by the loathsome smallpox the insidous
yellow fever, and that most dreadful of mo-
dern epidemics, the Asiatic cholera but all
Nations and countries are now exempt from
The BLACK DEATH "rHE SWEATING
Sickness" and the DANCING MAMA"
DoFoE, BocCAcIo, and hundred other
writers have made Us familiar with the ter
| rors of the black DEATH or PLAGUE, and
we still read with profound horror, of its
| sweeping off in one year nearly a quarter Of
the population of Europe and of Asia, but OF
the "DANCISG MANIA" not so much is
known. For that reason we have collected
the following facts relating to that strange
epidemic from the article in Blackwood, to
which we have referred
The dance of ST. Virus has long ceased
to be a dangerous or alarming disease
Occasional instances of it occur even now,
but it yields readily to the educated skill
of the physicians of the nineteenth cen
fury. In the fourteenth century when the
physician was still an astrologer, a necro-
mancer. charlatan, and an alchemist this
dance was Il dangerous and wide spread cpl
demic. Then it defed the prSsers of the
priest, and the skill of the quack. But as
the following instance will show, it was
speedily checked in the eighteenth century
| In 1872 mt .r1r1 IN, 7 cl.
land, put mouse in the bosom of another
girl, who had a great dread of such small
deer. The fright threw her into commissions,
and she exhibited all the phenomena of the
dancing epidemic for twenty four hours
Other females were speedily seized with it
the circle of wild frenzied dancers, literally
dancing the dance of deah in all its fearful
mazes. and paroxisms of pain, enlarged ::
| embracing first three or four, next six, then
| twenty-four, and then threatening the whole
| neighborhOod. The victims of this strange
mania. could scarcely be restrained from
tearing their hair, and dashing their brains
| out against the walls and floor
But the English doctors happening to be
rather more scientific than the physicians of
the fourteenth century, the epidemic was
checked at once. DIR. ST. CLAIR, when all
other remedies had failed, took with him to
Lancashire, a portable galvanic battery, and
by series of strong electric shocks, exor-
cised the devils that had for half century
turned a deaf ear to the prayers of the Ca
tholic clergy. A few heavy galyanic charges
drove all the imps of ST. Virus out of Eng
land.
But during the dark and superstitious mid
die ages, i'll consequence of its horrible ra-
wages. and general prevalence, it rank ked
with such scOurges as the "Black Death or
Plague and the Sweating Sickness
Its existence, from period of remote antioui
ty, is limited at by many writers. A disease
very similar to the ST. VIRUS DANCE, pre-
vailed first in Italy, and elsewhere in the
South of Europe, but it was not, however, so
horrible a scourge as that of Northern Eu-
rope. There are cases of it mentioned as
having occurred in early times in Great Bri-
tain, but the familias of ST. VIRUS soon went
out of England.
1t seized upon the Germans and the Dutch
and made those naturally inert and phlegma-
tic people perform the widest and most hor-
rible dances that Dutchmen ever performed
before or since. 1t prompted people with
greater circumference than attitude to per-
form gymnastic feats, that have never since
been witnessed on the tight rope or else
where. The epidemic in Germany spread
like fire in prairie. The sight of the victim
OF these 60flet dances-dedicated to ST. VI
TUs-usually put all the spectators in motion.
Hundreds were Serywhere to be seen, foam
ing, yelling, screaming and dancing, as if
they were possessed with the spirits of ten
thousand lunatic dancing masters 1t extend
ed all over Germany, and put all of the sur
rounding countries in motion Death, with
his fearful dread baton of office, was every
where the master of ceremonies at all of
these horrible and demoniacal uuadrilles
polkas and waltzes. He alone put an end to
the frightful performances in the large maio-
rity of instances.
The victims were dancing all over Europe.
In 1874 there were people assembled at AK
la Chapelle, multitudes of them, afflicted by
this epidemic, perfectly insane, dancing in
the streets, in the churches, in the hotels.
shops, private houses-in a word every
where. While dancing they neither saw nor
heard-were insensible of all external impress
sions-but believed that they were haunted
by spirits, whose names they shrieked ou
during their paroxysms of convulsive activi
ty. All regarded the epidemic with horror
in those superstitious days, and the belief was
universal that the sufferers were afflicted bv
devils and evil spirits. Relics and holy wa
ter, prayers and professions, were in vain
employed by the clergy to expel the dancing
imps of ST. Virus. They were formally ex.
oreised by the Catholic priests in shockingly
canine MoNAsTIc LATIN +" to come forth
butthey perversely disregarded both religious
and profane persuasions, holding holy water
and the apoehryphal bones of dead saints in
sovereign contempt. In the city of COLOGNE.
there were five hundred maniacs dancing in