The dancing mania, which spread through a large part of Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although it eventually attacked persons who were seemingly in robust health, yet had its origin in disease. Dr. Hecker, who has given the most complete account we have of this strange mania, in his _Epidemics of the Middle Ages_, says that when the disease was completely developed the attack commenced with epileptic convulsions. 'Those affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange contortions. They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in clothes bound tightly round their waists; upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack.... While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses; but they were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits, whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards 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.' The epidemic attacked people of all stations, but especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors; yet even the most robust peasants finally yielded to it. They 'abandoned their labours in the fields as if they were possessed by evil spirits, and those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately from time to time, at certain appointed places, and unless prevented by the lookers-on, continued to dance without intermission, until their very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rushed headlong in rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that by the high leaps they were thus tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted. As soon as this was the case they fell, as it were, lifeless to the ground, and by very slow degrees recovered their strength. Many there were who even with all this exertion had not expended the violence of the tempest which raged within them; but awoke with newly revived powers, and again and again mixed with the crowd of