DANCING MANIA. A form of epidemic disorder allied to hysteria (q.v.), and evidently the result of imitative emotions acting upon sus ceptible subjects, under the influence of a craving for sympathy or notoriety. There is little doubt that imposture entered to a considerable extent into all the epidemic forms of the dancing mania, which indeed were usually attended by conse quences that showed clearly the presence of impure motives; but there is also evidence that in many cases the convulsive movements were really beyond the control of the will, whatever may have been the original character of the motives that prompted them. Epidemics of this sort were common in Germany during the Middle Ages; in Italy, a somewhat similar disease was ascribed to the bite of a spider called the taran tula (see TARANTISM ) and similar convulsive affections have been witnessed in Abyssinia, India, and even in comparatively modern times and in the most civilized countries in Europe, under the influence of strong popular excite ment, especially connected with religious demon strations. The true dancing mania of the _Middle Ages, however, prevailed chiefly in the crowded cities of Germany.
In July, 1374, there appeared at Aix-la-Cha pelle assemblies of men and women, who began to dance on the streets, screaming and foaming like persons possessed. The attacks of this mania were various in form, according to mental, local, or religious conditions. The dancers, losing all control over their movements, continued whirling in wild till they fell in ex treme exhaustion, and groaned as in the agonies of death: some dashed out their brains against walls. When dancing, they were insensible to ex
ternal impressions, but were haunted by visions, such as of being immersed in a sea of blood, which obliged them to leap high, or of seeing the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary. The frenzy spread over many of the towns of the Low Countries. Troops of dancers, inflamed by intoxicating music, and• followed by crowds, who caught the mental in fection, went from place to place, taking posses sion of the religious houses, and pouring out imprecations against the priests. The mania spread to Cologne. Metz, and Strassburg, giving rise to many disorders and impostures and much profligacy. Exorcism had been found an effica cious remedy at the commencement of the out break; and in the beginning of the sixteenth century Paracelsus, that great reformer of medi cine, applied immersion in cold water with great success. At the beginning of the seventeenth cen tury the Saint Vitus's dance, as the affection was called (see CnonEA), was already on the decline; and it now occurs only in single eases as a sort of nervous affection. For a detailed account of the phenomenon. consult Hecker, The Dancing Mania of the Middle .tges (3d ed., London, 1859).