hough some at first did promulgate the opinion
that the malady had its origin in natural circumstances, such as a hot
temperament, and other causes named in the phraseology of the schools,
yet these opinions were the less examined as it did not appear worth
while to divide with a jealous priesthood the care of a host of fanatical
vagabonds and beggars.

SECT. 5--PHYSICIANS

It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the St.
Vitus's dance was made the subject of medical research, and stripped of
its unhallowed character as a work of demons. This was effected by
Paracelsus, that mighty but, as yet, scarcely comprehended reformer of
medicine, whose aim it was to withdraw diseases from the pale of
miraculous interpositions and saintly influences, and explain their
causes upon principles deduced from his knowledge of the human frame. "We
will not, however, admit that the saints have power to inflict diseases,
and that these ought to be named after them, although many there are who,
in their theology, lay great stress on this supposition, ascribing them
rather to God than to nature, which is but idle talk. We dislike such
nonsensical gossip as is not supported by symptoms, but only by faith--a
thing which is not human, whereon the gods themselves set no value."

Such were the words which Paracelsus addressed to his contemporaries, who
were, as yet, incapable of appreciating doctrines of this sort; for the
belief in enchantment still remained everywhere unshaken, and faith in
the world of spirits still held men's minds in so close a bondage that
thousands were, according to their own conviction, given up as a prey to
the devil; while at the command of religion, as well as of law, countless
piles were lighted, by the flames of which human society was to be
purified.

Paracelsus divides the St. Vitus's dance into three kinds. First, that
which arises from imagination (_Vitista_, _Chorea imaginativa_,
_aestimativa_), by which the original Dancing Plague is to be understood.
Secondly, that which arises from sensual desires, depending on the will
(_Chorea lasciva_). Thirdly, that which arises from corporeal causes
(Chorea naturalis, coacta), which, according to a strange notion of his
own, he explained by maintaining that in certain vessels which are
susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence produce laughter, the
blood is set in commotion in consequence of an alteration in the vital
spirits, wh