A gripping tale of one of history's most bizarre events, and
what it reveals about the strange possibilities of human nature
In the searing July heat of 1518, Frau Troffea stepped into the
streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. Bathed in sweat, she
continued to dance. Overcome with exhaustion, she stopped, and then
resumed her solitary jig a few hours later. Over the next two
months, roughly four hundred people succumbed to the same agonizing
compulsion. At its peak, the epidemic claimed the lives of fifteen
men, women, and children a day. Possibly 100 people danced to their
deaths in one of the most bizarre and terrifying plagues in
history.
John Waller compellingly evokes the sights, sounds, and aromas;
the diseases and hardships; the fervent supernaturalism and the
desperate hedonism of the late medieval world. Based on new
evidence, he explains why the plague occurred and how it came to an
end. In doing so, he sheds light on the strangest capabilities of
the human mind and on our own susceptibility to mass hysteria.
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