The Dancing Mania was, in fact, no new disease, but well known in the Middle Ages, of which many wondrous stories were traditionally current among the people.
‘It now struck me that there was certainly much delusion in all this, and that much must be owing to panic and imitation.’
Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection.