Dalrymple makes an interesting new diagnosis in his latest Global Warning column at the Spectator.
Reading an account by the historian John Waller of the Dancing Plague in Alsace in 1518 recently, I could not help but notice the interesting but perhaps incomplete parallels with our own time.
Economic conditions in Strasbourg were dire in 1518 when a woman called Frau Troffea started dancing in public and continued for days on end until she was exhausted and had damaged her feet severely. Several hundred people soon joined her; the madness was collective.