Hello Steemians, I´m back! I apologize for these almost three weeks without posting, I've been busier than ever, and I had to dedicate myself solely to my studies. But having finished that for now, I find myself with some free time and a desire to share my wisdom with you, my dear audience. To begin, I bring you a new series about diseases and individual clinical cases whose causes or treatments are still unsolved, imaginatively (very ...) titled "Medical Mysteries", written with my usual style. I hope you like it!

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I love medicine. I have to, to be able to dedicate years of my life to this career full of suffering, sleepless nights, and days thinking of painless ways to end it all and be able to rest. This is the main reason why the subjects of my posts are of medical nature, however, I will not lie to you: the secondary reason is that not only do I love to write about this, but it is also a practically infinite subject, so I'll always have something interesting about which to publish, so if someday I disappear completely, at least it will not be for lack of ideas (maybe it will be because they eliminated access to the internet in Venezuela. It seems dystopian, but recently they blocked pornographic pages, so you never know).

Within this interminable topic there are many cases of strange diseases, about which I also write a series of articles (I could not avoid the self-promotion, sorry), although in spite of the rarity of these pathologies, the great majority of them already have a determined cause and a specific treatment. But unfortunately (and fortunately for Dr. House writers), there are some conditions so unique as to make you believe in the existence of black magic and gypsy curses, and about which I plan to write. Not wanting to extend this introduction, I bring you:

Medical Mysteries: The Dancing Epidemic of 1518

We all have a song that we just cannot hear without having an almost uncontrollable desire to dance, at least until it goes viral and it begins to disgust us to hear the first few notes (I'm looking at you, _Despacito _). Something similar happened to Frau Troffea in Strasbourg, France, one day in July in the year 1518, only without music, and in the middle of the street. Not so similar, in retrospective.

That day Frau woke up, ate her daily breakfast of frog legs with an extensive variety of cheeses and a glass of wine, and as there were few entertainments in sixteenth-century France except wishing that there was some kind of magic box that showed moving images , she went out, presumably to watch a mime show on the corner of her house (I admit knowing very little about French culture), and began to dance uncontrollably on the street before the confused looks of the other inhabitants, probably not at rhythm of this song, but then again, maybe yes.

She continued to dance as if she were possessed by the spirit of Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, as the hours turned into days. Soon, more people joined her, as if it were a Broadway musical, but without the spontaneous irruption of music, and they continued dancing without stopping until they literally fell dead on the streets, creating severe problems for the obituary writers of the time; Death is a serious matter, but being honest "death by dancing" does not look very serious.

"May he rest in peace, his dance moves were to die for"

Mrs. Troffea died after about 6 days, a fact that is more surprising when taking into account the fact that maintaining such physical effort for that long should be quite impossible; theoretically, she should have died just after 3 days. Apparently she had some new moves that she was just dying to show. However, this dance epidemic did not stop with the death of Frau; on the contrary, it began to grow exponentially. At the end of the first week there were 34 dancers, a month later, they were 400, dancing on the street under the summer sun.

Those afflicted by this strange condition were fully aware of their actions, they danced involuntarily, crying out in pain from physical exhaustion, and begging for help (and for the invention of stereos as to not look so ridiculous dancing without music), but no matter how hard they tried, they could not control their bodies, like a fat guy physically incapable of not taking that Big Mac to his mouth. Now, surely you are wondering, didn´t anyone do anything to help them? Yes, technically. The response of the authorities was similar to that of your deadbeat friend who tells you that the cure for a hangover is to keep drinking: let them dance it out until they got tired of it. This was not exactly the best response to the epidemic.

They took all the afflicted to a special stage in the center of the city, presumably while dancing the choo choo train, and they paid professional minstrels and dancers to entertain the act, hoping that everyone would get bored one day and return to their homes. What actually happened is that they began to die in large quantities due to heart attacks and physical exhaustion; sixteenth century medicine at its best. Their literally had some killerdance moves. Although they were right in one thing: indeed one day everything ended almost as suddenly as it began, and those who remained alive continued with their lives as if nothing had happened, with feet full of calluses but some prodigious calves that became the envy of everyone.

All this sounds like inventions of a society in which the internet did not exist and in which the only hobby was to create false stories to leave the people of the future scratching their heads, but not only is it a real and well documented fact, it has occurred on several occasions throughout history; there are records of dancing epidemics in the German towns of Kölbigk, in the year 1021, and in Erfurt in 1247, in addition to numerous outbreaks in France and western Germany in 1374. They all happened in the same way; one or more people began to dance suddenly and spontaneously for weeks, continuing until their bodies surrendered to fatigue and died or were unable to move, and one day ended abruptly. But what can cause something as bizarre as this?

First, something became clear by observing the afflicted: they all danced against their will, and some even asked for help (why nobody ever thought of tying them all to a bed is another great mystery), therefore a theory has been proposed that the causative agent may have been a type of fungus that causes muscle spasms and hallucinations when ingested, but it also has the side effect of impeding rhythmic and complex movements, such as dancing. But there is another detail that can lead to a possible diagnosis, or at least to an answer that is not "a wizard did"; the victims were in an altered state of consciousness similar to a trance, in which they hardly felt the physical exhaustion and pain in their feet being destroyed by hours of dancing (the shoes of the time were notoriously uncomfortable, it was a bad century for Nike), which is why another cause for the epidemic is now suggested, an outbreak of mass hysteria.

Mass hysteria is basically a group of people having anxiety attacks at the same time, like when the person sitting next to you on the bus starts scratching and you also start to feel itchy, but on a large scale. It manifests as a series of mental and physical symptoms that spread in a domino effect in crowds, and that depending on the situation in which it appears, but cause real alterations in the physiology of those affected by it. It is caused by stress, mainly, and it occurs more commonly in young girls in the presence of teenage pop stars (says science, not me), but it can also happen in men and adults; you just need a strong enough trigger, like someone who shows signs of an infectious disease in closed spaces, group threats, or seemingly supernatural events.

Or a concert by the 16th century Justin Bieber

Generally it does not require treatment and it yields with time, although as most of those affected are not studied when they are suffering the condition and rarely go to consultation after the effect has ended, there is little concise data regarding ways to prevent or cure it. But what could have triggered a mass hysteria on such a scale and manifested with such unique symptoms?

Remember, things were a little different 500 years ago; Stress was the daily bread, as they all lived under constant threat of famine and diseases such as syphilis, leprosy, and the now classic black plague. In addition, in the Western Europe of this period reigned a religiosity that could become extreme, in which practically everything that was not praying and repenting for the hours in which there were not praying was a sin, and a feudal system that was not exactly fair with the majority of the population, adding all of this up there is little surprise that the life expectancy was between 30 and 40 years. And we complain because our Smartphone charges too slowly.

Knowing this it may seem possible that the poor quality of life made Frau say "fuck it all" and go out to literally dance it out to death, spreading her hysteria to several spectators. But, why dance? Why not cry, shout, fall into a catatonic state, or let off steam in the sixteenth-century equivalent of Facebook? (carving words in some bench, I suppose). An explanation for this has been sought based on the study of the religious beliefs of the time, in which curse stories were common, causing sufferers to lose control of their bodies and fall into a trance, dancing and singing while they were possessed by demonic entities. Experts theorize that the fact of believing in curses of this type caused people to begin to demonstrate the symptoms in the face of high levels of stress, and it only took a single individual believing he was cursed and beginning to demonstrate his best dance moves in the streets of his village for others to follow, causing a large-scale epidemic. In short, believing that they were affected by a curse, their mind fabricated the symptoms (just like it fabricated the belief that your ex really loved you). Our mind is our worst enemy, indeed.

Although this is the most reasonable explanation, it is impossible to prove its veracity, and it does not explains how the altered state of consciousness was able to prevail until it caused the death of those afflicted, since one would assume that the survival mechanism would normally take control in those conditions. But, it is either that, or some medieval wizard was very bored.

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References:

• A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania

• Mystery explained? Dancing plague of 1518

• Collective Hysteria: What is it and how is it produced?

• What is mass hysteria?

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If you enjoy medical-themed articles, or general curiosities, remember to follow me, there is much more on the way! And as always, I leave my thanks to @steemstem and @air-clinic for their constant support to all scientific content; you inspire us to keep improving.