00:00This virus pushed the people of Strasbourg to dance until their death.
00:02In July 1518, a dancing plague struck the city of Strasbourg, also known as the Dancing Epidemic.
00:07This inexplicable phenomenon pushed hundreds of people to dance relentlessly day and night for more than a month.
00:12Some succumbed to heart attacks, brain vascular accidents, or simply to exhaustion.
00:16It all started with a woman named Fro Troféa, who started dancing in a street in Strasbourg for several days in a row.
00:21In a week, 34 other people started dancing, and in a month, there were around 400.
00:26Desperate by the situation, the authorities of the time thought that the solution was to encourage dancing.
00:30They hired musicians and set up public spaces, but this approach aggravated the exhaustion of the victims and amplified the crisis.
00:36It was not an isolated case. Between 1200 and 1600, around twenty similar episodes were reported in Europe, although less spectacular.
00:42The last reported case would have taken place in Madagascar in 1863.
00:45To this day, scientists still fail to explain with certainty the causes of this strange epidemic.
00:50Hypotheses go from poisoning by a hallucinogenic mushroom like the Ergo de Seigle to a collective psychogenic disorder,
00:55which can be triggered by difficult living conditions and religious beliefs of the time.
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