TIL about the dancing plague of 1518 in Strasbourg where hundreds started to dance maniacally without any known reason, some even dancing to their death.

submitted by Jashfior from (en.wikipedia.org)

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Simplest explanations, frankly, are the most plausible. Simplest here? Just a meme of people partying, and people not in on it making shit up. Claiming people died or were "possessed" and other such ridiculous absurdities just sells more of whatever manuscript you've written, and makes it more popular. The more mundane explanation is "a whole lot of incredibly bored overworked people threw a very large ongoing party".

[–]GConly 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Could have been ergotamine poisoning.

[–]hennaojichan 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Some believe [who?] the dancing could have been brought on by food poisoning caused by the toxic and psychoactive chemical products of ergot fungi, which grows commonly on grains (such as rye) used for baking bread. Ergotamine is the main psychoactive product of ergot fungi; it is structurally related to the drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and is the substance from which LSD-25 was originally synthesized."

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Probably mange.

[–]Chipit 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A mass psychogenic illness. These things just happen in cultures when things are screwed up. Our current "trans" issues are the exact same thing, a mass psychogenic illness. People mutilating their organs and getting sterilized because of some stuff they saw on the internet.

[–]Scrubjay 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A space alien came down and told them "Dance, or we're going to time-teleport you to 2020." That, or they let the mushrooms grow in their wheat again.