06/24/2026
Mid-Week Muse:
This bizarre and morbid mystery still hasn't been solved!
On June 24, 1374, there was a sudden outbreak of "Dance Mania" which caused several thousands of people in the streets of Aachen, Germany to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion. The "Dancing Mania" was a strange social phenomenon that defies clear explanation to this day. It was recorded throughout the history of the Middle Ages, with the earliest accounts dating from the 7th century.
The symptoms varied, but there was one constant: those who were “infected” moved in groups, performing something similar to dancing as their bodies twitched with spasms, leaving anyone who saw it with a sense of dread. People who engaged in this activity didn’t seem to be aware of themselves, as if they were in some sort of trance. Sometimes the affliction would possess a person for days, weeks, and in some cases months. This was no laughing matter, as those stricken by this peculiar obsession would sometimes die of exhaustion or hunger.
Doctor Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker was an epidemiologist and native of Erfurt, Germany, where there had been a horrible outbreak of the "Dancing Mania" in 1237 that affected a group of children who later died from it. He wrote a book published in 1888, titled "The Black Death and the Dancing Mania" in which he collected numerous accounts of the phenomena, relating it socially to the horrific consequences of the bubonic plague that reached its peak in Europe in the mid-14th century.
The Woodward Library has a copy of Dr. Hecker's Book (re-released in 1970) "The Dancing Mania of the Middle Ages" if you're interested in learning more about this curious and hellish "sickness." It may be found in the library's General Book Collection: https://apsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01APSU_INST/dju5e5/alma991000065629708071
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📸: University Press of the Pacific
