Reproduction of the original.

The Black Death and The Dancing Mania. The account of "The Black Death" here translated by Dr. Babington was Hecker's first important work of this kind. It was published in 1832, and was followed in the same year by his account of "The Dancing Mania." The books here given are the two that first gave Hecker a wide reputation. Many other such treatises followed, among them, in 1865, a treatise on the "Great Epidemics of the Middle Ages." Besides his "History of Medicine," which, in its second volume, reached into the fourteenth century, and all his smaller treatises, Hecker wrote a large number of articles in Encyclopædias and Medical Journals. Professor J.F.K. Hecker was, in a more interesting way, as busy as Professor A.F. Hecker, his father, had been. He transmitted the family energies to an only son, Karl von Hecker, born in 1827, who distinguished himself greatly as a Professor of Midwifery, and died in 1882.

In the time between the 14th and 17th centuries, the mainland of Europe suffered numerous disasters, including those of biological origin. One of the most mysterious of those phenomena was dancing mania, also called the dancing plague. It involved groups of people dancing erratically until they collapsed from exhaustion and injuries. People often danced in significant numbers, sometimes including thousands of participants. The well-documented phenomenon doesn't have a clear explanation up to date. The 19th-century German physician Justus Hecker provided research on dancing mania and connected the phenomenon to the plague.

The work focuses on two of the most devastating phenomena ever suffered by the European population. The deadly plague known as "Black Death" spread in late 1340s while the "Dancing Mania" persisted from the 13th to 17th century where throngs of people suffered from a psychological problem. An analysis of both these maladies that shook the foundations of European society has been presented here.

The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania