The question of whether or not people danced to their deaths has sparked debate. Some sources suggest that the plague killed about fifteen people per day for a period of time. The city of Strasbourg's sources at the time of the events did not record the number of deaths or even if there were fatalities.Lady Troffea is the first dancer in four of the six chronicle stories.

1.Food poisoning: Ergotamine is the principal hallucinogenic component of ergot fungus, which grows commonly on grains used for manufacturing bread (such as rye) Ergotamine shares molecular similarities with the drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and was initially made from it. The same fungus has also been linked to other significant historical events, such as the Salem witch trials.

2.Stress-induced mass hysteria:

Dancing plague may have been a flourishing example of psychogenic movement disorder in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic disease. The behaviour, caused by the rutheless years (even by the harsh standards of the early modern era), of the Alsatians could have been due to high amounts of psychological pressure.