The name of Sweating Sickness was given to the great epidemic of fever
that appeared in England in the fifteenth century, and from thence
extended over Continental Europe. This epidemic broke out in the month
of September, 1486, in the army of Henry VII., encamped in Wales, and
soon reached London, extending over the British Isles with frightful
rapidity. Its appearance was alarming and during its duration, which
was only a month, it made a considerable number of victims. “It was so
terrible and so acute that within the memory of man none had seen its
like.”
This epidemic reappeared in England in 1513, 1517 and 1551. It was
preceded by very moist weather and violent winds. The mortality
was great, patients often dying in the space of two hours; in some
instances half the population of a town being carried off. The epidemic
of 1529 can only be called murderous; King Henry VIII. was attacked and
narrowly escaped death. Although flying from village to village the
nobility of England paid an enormous tribute to the King of Terrors.
The Ambassador from France to London, M. du Bellay, writing on the 21st
of July, 1529, remarks, “The day I visited the Bishop of Canterbury
eighteen of the household died in a few hours. I was about the only one
left to tell the tale, and am far from recovered yet.”
This same year the sweating sickness spread all over Europe. It made
terrible ravages in Holland, Germany and Poland. At the famous synod
of Luther and Zwingle, held at Marburg, the Reformed ministers seized
by fear of death prayed for relief from the pestilence. At Augsburg
in three months eighteen thousand people were attacked and fourteen
hundred died.
This epidemic did not extend as far as Paris, but it developed in
the north of France and Belgium. Mezeray mentions this fact in the
following terms: “A certain disease appeared this year (1529),
commencing in England. It was of a contagious nature, and passed over
from France to the Lower Countries, and thus spread over most of
Europe. Those attacked sweated profusely; it was for this reason that
the malady was called the _English Sweat_. First one had a hard chill,
then a very high fever, which carried the patient off in twenty-four
hours, unless promptly remedied.”
Fernel, physician to Henry II., who practiced in Paris, likewise
speaks of this sudorific sickness in one of his works.[25] He says:
“_Febres sudorificae quae insolentes magno terrore in omnem inferiorem
Germaniam, in Galliam, Belgicam, et in Britanniam ab anno Christi
millesimo quingentesimo vigesim autumno potissimum pervagatae sunt_.”
It prevailed almost always in summer and autumn, especially when
the weather was moist and foggy. Contrary to what is seen in other
epidemics, it was observed that the weak and poor, the old and infants
were not attacked as often as robust persons and those in affluent
circumstances.
The symptoms noted by physicians, such as Kaye and Bacon, may
be classed into three distinct periods: 1. The period of chill,
characterized by pains and formication in the limbs an extraordinary
prostration of the physical forces—a tremulous, shaky period. 2. The
period of sweat, preceded by a burning heat all over the body and an
unquenchable feverish thirst. The patient was agitated, disquieted by
terror and despair. Many complained of spasms in the stomach, followed
sometimes by nausea and vomiting, suffocation and lumbar pains—a
constant symptom ever—headache, with palpitation of the heart and
præcordial anxiety. 3. This period was announced by a high delirium,
sometimes muttering, sometimes loquacious; a fetid sweaty odor,
irregular pulse, coma, and, in the last-named condition, death always
occurred.
The duration of the disease was most frequently but a few hours, rarely
exceeding a day, whether the termination was favorable or fatal.
Convalescence was always long, often being complicated by diarrhœa
or dropsy. It has been remarked in this connection that the malady
might be confounded with the miliary sweat observed in Picardy and
central France, but in the first named disease no cutaneous eruption
was observed. Fernel clearly affirms this statement, as he says: “In
this affection there is no carbuncle, bubo, exanthema nor eczema, but
simply a hypersecretion of sweat.”
Such was the sweating sickness of the sixteenth century, which made so
few victims in France, but which destroyed so many people in England
and Germany. The origin of this disease has been often discussed, and
also its nature; but all theories emitted by various authors partake of
the doctrines of other days and are too antiquated to be revamped. We
will content ourselves with saying that the classification of periods
made by us is logical, and we consider the sweating sickness of the
fifteenth century as a pernicious fever, in which the sweating stage
predominated and consequently became the characteristic symptom of the
affection.