250 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



how utterly unnatural is the manner of life in monastic com- 

 munities will not need the evidence derived from the spread 

 of such preposterous habits to be assured that in convents 

 the perfectly sane mind in a perfectly healthy body must be 

 the exception rather than the rule. 



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 re- 

 mained 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 seden- 

 tary life, such as shoemakers and tailors \ yet even the most 

 robust peasants finally yielded to it They 'abandoned 



