senweiler; and it is probable that in the south-west of Germany the
disease was still in existence in the seventeenth century.

However, it grew every year more rare, so that at the beginning of the
seventeenth century it was observed only occasionally in its ancient
form. Thus in the spring of the year 1623, G. Horst saw some women who
annually performed a pilgrimage to St. Vitus's chapel at Drefelhausen,
near Weissenstein, in the territory of Ulm, that they might wait for
their dancing fit there, in the same manner as those in the Breisgau did,
according to Schenck's account. They were not satisfied, however, with a
dance of three hours' duration, but continued day and night in a state of
mental aberration, like persons in an ecstasy, until they fell exhausted
to the ground; and when they came to themselves again they felt relieved
from a distressing uneasiness and painful sensation of weight in their
bodies, of which they had complained for several weeks prior to St.
Vitus's Day.

After this commotion they remained well for the whole year; and such was
their faith in the protecting power of the saint, that one of them had
visited this shrine at Drefelhausen more than twenty times, and another
had already kept the saint's day for the thirty-second time at this
sacred station.

The dancing fit itself was excited here, as it probably was in other
places, by music, from the effects of which the patients were thrown into
a state of convulsion. Many concurrent testimonies serve to show that
music generally contributed much to the continuance of the St. Vitus's
dance, originated and increased its paroxysms, and was sometimes the
cause of their mitigation. So early as the fourteenth century the swarms
of St. John's dancers were accompanied by minstrels playing upon noisy
instruments, who roused their morbid feelings; and it may readily be
supposed that by the performance of lively melodies, and the stimulating
effects which the shrill tones of fifes and trumpets would produce, a
paroxysm that was perhaps but slight in itself, might, in many cases, be
increased to the most outrageous fury, such as in later times was
purposely induced in order that the force of the disease might be
exhausted by the violence of its attack. Moreover, by means of
intoxicating music a kind of demoniacal festival for the rude multitude
was established, which had the effect of spreading this unhappy malady
wider and wider. Soft harmony was,