Emily Chan
According to a historian named John Waller, a Catholic saint known as St. Vitus may have had something to do with the mass dancing episode.
In the 16th century, many Europeans believed that the saint could curse people with a dancing plague. During that time, disease and famine were also running rampant through Strasbourg.
So, the St. Vitus superstition may have set off the dancing hysteria, which came about as a group response to stress called mass psychogenic illness.
Another suspect was ergot poisoning. Ergot is a toxic fungus that grows on damp rye. When it is baked into bread and eaten, it can produce spasms and hallucinations, although it isn’t likely that ergot poisoning would give people the strength to dance for days on end.
