m, saw the heavens open and the Saviour
enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of
the age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.

Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced with
epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless,
panting and laboring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly
springing up began their dance amid strange contortions. Yet the malady
doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was modified by
temporary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical contemporaries but
imperfectly noted the essential particulars, accustomed as they were to
confound their observation of natural events with their notions of the
world of spirits.

It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from
Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighboring
Netherlands. Wherever the dancers appeared, the people assembled in
crowds to gratify their curiosity with the frightful spectacle. At
length the increasing number of the affected excited no less anxiety
than the attention that was paid to them. In towns and villages they
took possession of the religious houses, processions were everywhere
instituted on their account, and masses were said and hymns were sung,
while the disease itself, of the demoniacal origin of which no one
entertained the least doubt, excited everywhere astonishment and horror.
In Liege the priests had recourse to exorcisms and endeavored by every
means in their power to allay an evil which threatened so much danger to
themselves; for the possessed, assembling in multitudes, frequently
poured forth imprecations against them and menaced their destruction.

A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at
Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the number of those
possessed amounted to more than five hundred; and about the same time at
Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been filled with
eleven hundred dancers. Peasants left their plows, mechanics their
workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels,
and this rich commercial city became the scene of the most ruinous
disorder. Secret desires were excited and but too often found
opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by
vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a
temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their