From the Wikipedia link, description of the "Alchemists" chapter:
> The section on alchemysts focuses primarily on efforts to turn base metals into gold. Mackay notes that many of these practitioners were themselves deluded, convinced that these feats could be performed if they discovered the correct old recipe or stumbled upon the right combination of ingredients. Although alchemists gained money from their sponsors, mainly noblemen, he notes that the belief in alchemy by sponsors could be hazardous to its practitioners, as it wasn't rare for an unscrupulous noble to imprison a supposed alchemist until he could produce gold.
It totally doesn't sound like the startup ecosystem. ;).
Thanks. I read MacKay's book many years ago. Its accounts are not always historically accurate or well-documented, but it's a great read -- particularly its descriptions of Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble, and the Mississippi Bubble.
That said, I still can't quite fathom how or why a crowd of human beings will suddenly burst into dance, and do it until their bodies collapse from exhaustion.
Have you ever just ran until you couldn't run anymore, for reasons other than physical activity itself? There's a point at which you feel you could go further, and in fact know you can, but you choose to stop because the discomfort and exhaustion at that point outweighs the purpose of the run. I can imagine and speculate this is what is meant. The dancers exhausted the point of the dance, and then would fall to the ground for quickest relief, just as you might throw yourself onto a bench after a spontaneous, excess-driven sprint.
It even has a section on memes, entitled "Popular follies of great cities".