Comments on: The Dancing Plague Explained

By: Dippynikki

Dippynikki — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:57:25 +0000

Haha I see my theory that dancing is a primal compultion, actually has a little evidance to support it. As cave men drilled holes in their skulls to cure headaches, we dance as a cure as well. I’m begining to see it’s in our nature

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:00:18 +0000

@Siobhan, you beat me to it! I had that song goinjg round my head as I read it. It’ll be stuck there for days now! lol.

By: Siobhan

Siobhan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:41:24 +0000

I blame the Lord of the Dance….

‘Dance, dance where ever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance said he’

By: JenC

JenC — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:35:30 +0000

I think I saw this on Buffy the Vampire Slayer…

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:13:20 +0000

“Authorities prescribed ‘more dancing’ to cure the tormented movers”

It is evil and wrong that I find that line so incredibly funny.

By: PaulJ

PaulJ — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:04:27 +0000

There was a short piece about this on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme in September last year.

By: Ms G

Ms G — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:16:58 +0000

I wonder how correct these writings have been from way back. I vaguely remember having heard about the belgium incident and an hour ago they showed on tv an incident in which 1 guy started dancing .. followed by approx. 400 people.

We do this dancing stuff all the time ofcourse … if they check people’s facial expressions when really into the music and dancing they will show fear and such at times as well …

Tribes here and there will trigger these ‘trance’-like states via dancing as well as we know.

Lots of not so weird examples there.

Till you drop dead? Happens still at times.

The media back then may have been not so much different than now .. not always that correct .. not willing to see the truth as then there is nothing to tell, no news.

If crowds start dancing the people in it normally know what they are doing and why. They dont know always to what limit they were willing to dance .. get out of theirselves … into that other state .. at times with a little help of some drugs ..

David Bowie asked us to do it …

By: Flapjack

Flapjack — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:32:01 +0000

Whooshdemon – Damn, they stole my idea! In future I’ll copyright all my fraudulent moneyspinners!
Only one problem with using asprin… asprin allergies affect a small minority of folks, but then again, you probably still have a better rate of survival than you get with the class A alternatives!
And I guess unlike my vitamin C’s, asprins don’t have that giveaway orangey tang …

By: Statchie

Statchie — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:19:26 +0000

Weird…I just found out this past Easter that my Dad had St. Vitus Dance as a kid. (I’m 31 now, which is why I mention…seemed like something I shoulda known earlier for some reason.) He said that at the time (some 60 years ago now) the treatment was seeing a chiropractor (which surprised me) and riding horse for a few hours a day as it was thought that the jostling of the spine would help. He remembers knocking off his mothers hat a couple of times and being literally strapped to the bed so he didn’t hurt himself. He had to be held down and put in a sort of headlock by his parents in order to be fed. I thought it all very interesting, so thought I’d share with you since we’re all reading this article. Unusual to be sure.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:02:53 +0000

@ Tom P – lol, you beat me to it.