Dance plague
Dances of St. Vitus. Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Younger based on his father's drawings
We have all heard about Spider-Man, the fictional hero of the Marvel universe. Peter Parker was bitten by a spider, and the guy acquired the abilities of a superhero - he shot webs, crawled on walls, etc. And then a tarantula bites you... and you start dancing! It’s good if you just dance, and the demons in your head won’t allow you to throw something like that out.
Outbreaks of tarantism
XI century, southern Italy. The first mention of the dancing plague dates back to this segment. And several women were subjected to it. Everyone blamed the Apulian tarantula, which bit either one or several. True, the venom of such a spider is no worse than the venom of a bee. History knows about a dozen more cases. For example, XIV century, Aachen. The dancers hold hands and dance in circles. There are not that many of them, but the city authorities are worried about it. They invite priests, who read prayers and pour holy water over the dancers. No sense. The plague somehow disappears on its own. But I liked the next case.
Imagine, summer 1518, Strasbourg. A young Frau comes down the stairs of her house, dancing strangely. He goes out into the street and dances, despite the gaze of others. And so on all day. Next to me is my husband, who is probably embarrassed. He doesn’t want to dance, and he can’t calm his wife down. What a shame in their town! And she dances and dances, sleeps a little and then dances again! Her legs are all bleeding, and a crowd is gathering around her. Over time, 30 people also danced around her for no reason. The plague spreads and crushes about 400 people. The city council was just rubbing their heads because they didn't know what to do about it. No one knew. The only thing they understood was that the dancers were very bad. The dancing is convulsive, the legs are bleeding, the faces are disfigured by pain. Daytime temperatures are rising, and more and more people are becoming infected. And every day more than a dozen die.
Some sufferers grabbed swords and cut off their arms and legs. Others wrapped themselves in vines or carried branches dipped in water. The dances could last for several days; this required a lot of wine. A little sleep and eating allowed us to break away from dancing for a while.
What about doctors? Having discarded some assumptions, they decided that the problem was some kind of hot blood. It goes to the brain, which begins to melt inside. The solution is bloodletting. But try to catch these dancers! They can't stop. The doctors scratched the top of my head and realized that this was definitely not a solution. In the neighboring city they called musicians to play for these poor people, and extras so that the dancers would not get bored. Well, you never know, they feel like fools. And then the left-wing people will dance nearby. The musicians, good people, sped up the rhythm, and the poor patients were forced to dance even faster! Why they didn't slow down is still unclear. In short, this didn't help either. Well, or it helped if they wanted to quickly get rid of the patients by exhausting them.
Since science is powerless, there is only one reason – God’s punishment. Residents of Strasbourg are mired in lust, theft, deception and other mortal sins. So, we must repent. And all brothels and gambling houses should be closed. The city authorities did just that. They also gathered all the dissolute people and drove them out of the city. I don’t know about you, but this situation with expulsion and other methods of treatment makes me very happy. Well, imagine a simple burgher who likes to party with prostitutes on Fridays, drink beer and play cards. On other days, in addition to work, he does about the same thing, but to a lesser extent. And here he, along with his friends and prostitutes, are expelled from the city. Just because of some people dancing with demons.
Okay, we kicked them out. But the dancing continues. What should be done in place of a decent head of the city and his entire administration? As before, look for ways to replenish the treasury. And this brethren decided that music should be banned and a tax on dancing should be introduced. Those who swing their hips to the beat will pay money. The exception is weddings. You can dance there to your heart's content. Such bans didn’t help much either.
The authorities continued to think. Somehow, all the sick were loaded into carts and taken to Mount St. Vitus. He was famous for the fact that they wanted to boil him alive and feed him to a lion, but he came out of the cauldron and tamed the wild animal. And subsequently he began to treat people with diseases of the limbs. Well, what if he helps here? And the dancing began to fade away. Whether the saint helped or people were simply tired and no longer had enough strength for reflexes is unknown. We know from history that tarantism flared up with renewed vigor every summer; Once bitten, a person was never completely cured.
But this is not the end of the story. Ten years later, the famous scientist Paracelsus arrived, who was interested in studying this phenomenon. Of course, he was not familiar with the concepts of reflection and psychosis. Therefore, I decided that women are to blame for everything. As often happened in those days. Allegedly, he found out that our poor Frau’s husband had asked her to do some household chores, but she didn’t want to. Well, it’s clear that women danced day and night, making their feet bleed in order not to do household chores.
Tarantism in Italy
Tarantism was widespread in southeastern Italy. According to legends, the poisonous power of the spider caused dizziness, nausea and abdominal pain that occurred several hours after the bite. The patient was attacked by apathy. The only remedy for this suffering was sound therapy. The victim's relatives brought in musicians to provide healing. The main instrument was a drum with rattles, assisted by a flute, pipe, guitar and violin. Those who had little strength listened to the music while lying down. The healthier ones started dancing. But, according to eyewitnesses, this dance was more reminiscent of convulsions.
This custom is so deeply ingrained in the culture of Salento and other regions of southern Italy that the Catholic Church, unable to overcome it, allowed such treatment. She made Saint Paolo her patron. Anyone who was healed was obliged to make a pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Paolo and tell everyone about the divine miracle. That is, the church decided: if you cannot defeat the enemy, make him your ally. And the people quickly began to believe that prayers and faith in God save one from tarantism. If dance is secondary, then it is better not to neglect it.
It is known that many victims of the disease were helped by a certain melody played at a fast tempo. Even the sheet music has been preserved. Nowadays this genre of music is called tarantella. And it's popular in Italy.
In 1753, violinist Stefano Storace described the disease:
“I was learning a tune... the man began to move and stood up quickly as lightning, and looked as if he had been awakened by some terrible vision. He was wildly surprised that he was still moving every joint of his body; but as I had not yet learned the whole tune, I stopped playing, not thinking that it would have any effect on the man. The moment I stopped playing, the man fell and screamed very loudly, distorting his face, legs, arms and other parts of his body, scratching the ground with his hands and writhing in such convulsions that clearly indicated his painful suffering.”
The phenomenon attracted philosophers, ethnologists, anthropologists and doctors; each of them tried to delve deeper into the argument. They looked for logical explanations, focused research on all sorts of cause-and-effect relationships, drawing attention to the real poisonousness of the spider, mental disorders, sociocultural structures, the real possibilities of music, sexual needs, hysteria, and so on. But there were no clear answers. Even when someone believed they had found them, others were quick to disprove them.
As a result, scientists still cannot give a definite answer - what is tarantism? We have not seen such psychosis for almost 200 years - the last known case was in Madagascar in the middle of the century before last. But we know other mass unreasonable things - self-immolation, suicide and self-flagellation. Perhaps there is something in common with tarantism.
Dancing mania during a pilgrimage to the church in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Engraving by Hendrik Hondius after a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The causes of psychosis could be hysteria, which was easily transmitted between people with an unbalanced psyche, carbon monoxide poisoning from forest fires, or ergot, which acts as a drug. We can only guess what it really was. And we will have to close this page, like hundreds of others from history, with more questions than answers.
Information