July 1518, in a part of the Holy Roman Empire called Stasbourg, France the Dancing Plague outbroke when a woman, Frau Troffea started fervently dancing in the streets. If one person fervently dancing wasn't odd enough within the week the number grew to fourteen people, in a months time... 400 people dancing. Some of these dancer died from a heart attack, from a stroke, or exhaustion. The local physicians ruled out supernatural or astrological causes but thought the dancing disease was caused by "hot blood" and that is was natural. Rather than the usual prescription of bleeding they encouraged more dancing. They encouraged my dancing by guiding them to a grain market, open two guidehalls, construct a stage, and even hire musicians to keep them dancing. This dancing mania was recorded in historical documents such as physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and the Stasbourg city council.
A
possible reason for such an odd plague is stress induced psychosis.
Some think the stresses around them, famine, disease, etc. was so
intolerable that it could cause mass psychological illness. This dancing
plague, or choreomania occurred on multiple occasions, the earliest
known incident in 1020 and most recently in the 1840s.
This is obviously the result of an alien bacterium that feeds off the lactic acid produced by human muscles. The bacteria probably resided in another organism's muscles before being ingested by humans. Once inside the human body it quickly multiplies. After their incubation period they stop mitosis and make home in your skeletal muscles. They release electrical and chemical signals that cause the muscles of your body to contract and release, causing the "dancing" effect. By having the skeletal muscles contract and relax over a longer period of time, instead of causing a seizure, the alien bacteria is able to efficiently turn all the energy in the human’s body into lactic acid, instead of using a large amount of energy in a short period of time. After human death, the bacteria becomes dormant and as the human decays, it is eaten by a decomposer, who is eaten by larger animals, and the cycle starts again. The reason this bacteria was not discovered so such a long period of time is clearly represented by the fact that in all the pictures above, none of them have a blue police box in them. There was no Doctor available during that time. Merry Christmas.
ReplyDeleteExactly what I was thinking, Darren.
ReplyDelete