Just as the Great Fire of London took place one year after the Great Plague broke out, in the 14th Century, Germany and Latvia were still burying their dead from the Black Death, or bubonic plague, when they were hit by a strange epidemic—often called Dancing Mania, St. John's Dance, or St. Vitus' Dance—that caused thousands of people to literally "dance" themselves to death. Due to the spasmodic jerkings and twitchings of the "dancers," it was thought at the time that the victims were possessed by demons. German physician Justus Hecker provides a 19th Century analysis of two of the 14th Century's most devastating and astonishing pandemics.

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