quently relieved patients in a
less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts
affected. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to
external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions,
their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and
some of them afterward asserted that they felt as if they had been
immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high.
Others, during the paroxysm, 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. In Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of Belgium
the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their waists girt
with cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over, receive
immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. This bandage was, by the
insertion of a stick, easily twisted tight. Many, however, obtained more
relief from kicks and blows, which they found numbers of persons ready
to administer; for, 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 a