contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree
diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which
supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the
disease, not even excepting the tympany, had disappeared, or that the
disorder itself had become milder in its attacks. The physicians never,
as it seems, throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, undertook
the treatment of the dancing mania, which, according to the prevailing
notions, appertained exclusively to the servants of the Church. Against
demoniacal disorders they had no remedies, and though 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.

It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the St.
Vitus' 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' dance into three kinds: First, that
wh