At the same time there
was a prohibition against wearing red garments, because, at the
sight of this colour, those affected became so furious that they
flew at the persons who wore it, and were so bent upon doing them
an injury that they could with difficulty be restrained. They
frequently tore their own clothes whilst in the paroxysm, and were
guilty of other improprieties, so that the more opulent employed
confidential attendants to accompany them, and to take care that
they did no harm either to themselves or others. This
extraordinary disease was, however, so greatly mitigated in
Schenck's time, that the St. Vitus's dancers had long since ceased
to stroll from town to town; and that physician, like Paracelsus,
makes no mention of the tympanitic inflation of the bowels.
Moreover, most of those affected were only annually visited by
attacks; and the occasion of them was so manifestly referable to
the prevailing notions of that period, that if the unqualified
belief in the supernatural agency of saints could have been
abolished, they would not have had any return of the complaint.
Throughout the whole of June, prior to the festival of St. John,
patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were
unable to overcome.
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