In the year 1518, a woman started to dance down a street. Not a normal dance, but a horrible, tortured looking dance, that kept its grip on her for days. This dance plague spread, and about 400 people were infected with it. Many of them died of exhaustion, heart attacks, and strokes, and nobody knows why. Many people say that it was 'mass hysteria', but that doesn't explain it. One possible reason is stress-induced psychosis. This people had just recently suffered from famine, and some people say that this could have caused a psychological disease. However, how does this explain how it spread to 400 people? Other theories include infected wheat and a trance state.
Another related case of massive hysteria was the Salem Witch trials. This started after a few teen girls participated in a sort of folk magic from a slave named Tituba. These girls started to be very sick, and convulse, and act as if they had been pricked by pins, and in short, acting crazy. These girls started accusing people of being witches, and many people died. The current theory for this epidemic of witch hunting is infected wheat, that caused them to act this way.
E-mail us your opinion on the dancing plague and the Salem witch trials at mulberrytimes@gmail.com.
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