THE FOURTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1528, 1529.
“Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’,
Und wollten uns verschlingen;
So fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr,
Es soll uns doch gelingen!”—LUTHER.
SECT. 1.—DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH ARMY BEFORE NAPLES, 1528.
The events to which we are now about to allude, demonstrate, by their
surprising course, that the fate of nations is at times far more
dependent on the laws of physical life than on the will of potentates
or the collective efforts of human action, and that these prove utterly
impotent when opposed to the unfettered powers of nature. These powers,
inscrutable in their dominion, destructive in their effects, stay the
course of events, baffle the grandest plans, paralyse the boldest
flights of the mind, and when victory seemed within their grasp, have
often annihilated embattled hosts with the flaming sword of the angel
of death.
To obliterate the disgrace of Pavia[492], Francis I. in league with
England, Switzerland, Rome, Genoa and Venice against the too powerful
Emperor of Germany, sent a fine army into Italy. The emperor’s troops
gave way wherever the French plumes appeared, and victory seemed
faithful only to the banners of France and to the military experience
of a tried leader[493]. Every thing promised a glorious issue; Naples
alone, weakly defended by German lansquenets and Spaniards[494],
remained still to be vanquished. The siege was opened on the 1st of
May, 1528, and the general confidently pledged his honour for the
conquest of this strong city, which had once been so destructive to the
French[495]. It was easy with an army of 30,000 veteran warriors[496]
to overpower the imperialists; and a small body of English[497] seemed
to have come merely to partake in the festivals after the expected
victory. The city too suffered from a scarcity, for it was blockaded
by Doria, with his Genoese galleys; and water, fit to drink, failed
after Lautrec had turned off the aqueducts of Poggio reale; so that the
plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans since the
sacking of Rome[498], began to spread.
But amidst this confidence in the success of the French arms, the means
for ensuring it were gradually neglected. The valour of the intrepid
and prudent commander was doubtless equal to the minor vicissitudes
of war, but whilst the length of the delay paralysed his activity,
nature herself suddenly proved fatal to this hitherto victorious army:
pestilences began to rage among the troops, and human courage could
no longer withstand the “far-shooting arrows of the god of day.” The
consequence was, that within the space of seven weeks, out of the whole
host which up to that period had been eager for combat, a mere handful
remained, consisting of a few thousands of cadaverous figures, who were
almost incapable of bearing arms or of following the commands of their
sick leaders. On the 29th of August the siege was raised, fifteen
days after the heroic Lautrec, bowed down by chagrin and disease, had
resigned his breath; the wreck of the army retreated amid thunder and
heavy rain[499], and were soon captured by the imperialists, so that
but few of them ever saw their native land again.
This siege brought still greater misery upon France than even the fatal
battle of Pavia, for about 5000 of the French nobility, some from the
most distinguished families, had perished under the walls of Naples;
its remoter consequences too were humiliating to the king, and the
people; since owing to its failure all those hitherto feasible schemes
were blighted, which had for their object the establishment of French
dominion beyond the Alps. It behoves us, therefore, to pay so much the
more attention to those essential causes of this event, which fall
within the province of medical research.
The mortality which occurred in the camp, began probably as early as
June, after the usual calamities which surround an army in an enemy’s
country. The French and Swiss were insatiable in their indulgence in
fruit, which the gardens and fields furnished them in abundance, whilst
there was a scarcity of bread and of other proper food[500]. Hence
fevers soon broke out, which increased in malignity the longer they
existed, accompanied no doubt by debilitating diarrhœas, which never
fail to make their appearance under circumstances of this kind, and are
in themselves among the most pernicious of camp diseases, since they
not only destroy in the individual case by the exhaustion which they
occasion, but likewise by infecting the air, prepare the way for the
worst pestilences.
These diseases were, however, little noticed, and there was
consequently no attempt made to diminish their causes. It became daily
more and more apparent, that the cutting off of the sources near Poggio
reale, which Lautrec had commanded, in order to compel the besieged
to a more speedy surrender, was in the highest degree injurious to
the besiegers themselves; for the water, having now no outlet, spread
over the plain where the camp was situated, which it converted into a
swamp, whence it rose, morning and evening, in the form of thick fogs.
From this cause, and while a southerly wind continued to prevail, the
sickness soon became general. Those soldiers, who were not already
confined to bed in their tents, were seen with pallid visages, swelled
legs, and bloated bellies, scarcely able to crawl; so that, weary
of nightly watching, they were often plundered by the marauding
Neapolitans. The great mortality did not commence until about the 15th
of July, but so dreadful was its ravages, that about three weeks were
sufficient to complete the almost entire destruction of the army[501].
Around and within the tents vacated by the death of their inmates,
noxious weeds sprang up. Thousands perished without help, either in
a state of stupor, or in the raving delirium of fever[502]. In the
entrenchments, in the tents, and wherever death had overtaken his
victims, there unburied corpses lay, and the dead that were interred,
swollen with putridity, burst their shallow graves, and spread a
poisonous stench far and wide over the camp. There was no longer any
thought of order or military discipline, and many of the commanders and
captains were either sick themselves, or had fled to the neighbouring
towns, in order to avoid the contagion[503].
The glory of the French arms was departed, and her proud banners
cowered beneath an unhallowed spectre. Meanwhile the pestilence broke
out among the Venetian galleys under Pietro Lando. Doria had already
gone over to the Emperor[504], and thus was this expedition, begun
under the most favourable auspices, frustrated on every side by the
malignant influence of the season.
No medical contemporary has described the nature of this violent
disease, and historians have on this point preserved only general
outlines, which do not afford sufficient materials to ground an
investigation. Certain it is, that in the year 1528, a very malignant
_petechial fever_ extended throughout Italy, and in the proper
sense of the word prevailed so decidedly, that it even followed the
Italians abroad in the same way as the Sweating Sickness did the
English, as is proved by the case of the learned Venetian Naugerio,
who, being dispatched on an embassy to Francis the 1st, died at
Blois on the Loire, of this very disease, with which the French
had yet no acquaintance[505]. Contemporaries assure us, that this
epidemic committed great ravages in the country, already distracted
by wars and feuds, and it is therefore hardly to be doubted, that,
occurring as it did in those same years, it was the disease of
which we have been treating, the malignity of which was increased
on extraordinary occasions. A pestilence which, just before the
siege of Naples, destroyed one-third of the inhabitants of Cremona,
was in all probability the petechial fever[506]. Yet, here and
there, the old bubo plague made its appearance. This it was which
in the year 1524 carried off 50,000 people in Milan[507], and this
appears likewise to have been the disease which, after the sacking
of Rome, broke out among the German lansquenets, and in a short time
annihilated two-thirds of these troops. Contemporaries saw therein
God’s just punishment of their desecration of the Holy See, for in the
succeeding years, all the remaining participators in the storming of
the eternal city, also met with an end worthy of their crimes[508].
They did not take into account, however, the beastly intemperance
and excesses of the soldiery, whose eagerness after plunder led them
to encounter the plague poison in the most secret holes and corners;
nor did they reflect, that the plague penetrated the Castle of St.
Angelo itself, and destroyed some of the courtiers almost under the
eyes of the Pope[509]. Of these lansquenets, many went to Naples in
the following year under the Prince of Orange, and it may with good
ground be supposed, that they took with them to that city fresh germs
of plague; to which may be added, the by no means incredible story,
that the besieged sent infected and sick soldiers to the French, in
order to cause poisonous pestilences to break out among them[510].
This very circumstance tells in favour of bubo plague, for the decided
certainty of its contagious nature was known, and seemed beyond all
comparison greater than the more conditional communicability of the
new disease[511]. Moreover, the same attempt at impestation had been
already often made in earlier times.
It is, however, also to be considered, on the other side, that the
French army was more exposed to the epidemic influence of the air, the
water, and the general powers of nature, than any other assemblage
of men, and, that this influence was probably more powerful in the
year 1529, than at any other time during the sixteenth century. The
formation of fog in the heat of summer is at all times an extraordinary
phenomenon[512], which decidedly indicates a disproportion in the
mutual action of the components and powers of the lower strata of the
atmosphere. This was not dependent merely on the local peculiarities
of Naples, for during the summer of 1528, grey fogs were observed
throughout Italy, which rendered the unwholesome quality of the air
visible to the eye[513]. This was increased by the prevalence of
southerly winds, which are always, in Italy, prejudicial to health,
as also by the thousand privations of a camp, so that a disease which
was already prevalent all over Italy,—we allude to the _petechial
fever_,—might well break out on the damp soil of Poggio reale. In the
history of national diseases, we find a moral proof of the predominance
of epidemic influence which plainly and intelligibly manifests itself
under the greatest variety of circumstances. This is a belief, that the
water, and even the air is poisoned[514]. Nor is this proof wanting
in the deplorable history of the French army before Naples, for it
was generally believed, that some Spaniards of Moorish descent, to
whom was attributed an especial degree of skill in the management of
poison, and some Jews from Germany, who, for the sake of gain, had
followed the lansquenets to truckle for their booty, had stolen out
of the city under cover of the night, in order to poison the water
in the neighbourhood of the camp[515]. It was also surmised, that
an Italian apothecary had administered to the French knights poison
in their medicine[516]. We will not anticipate on this occasion the
researches of naturalists, whose experiments on air and water, during
important epidemics, have not yet led to any results; it is, however,
not improbable that pond and spring water, under such circumstances as
are here described to have occurred, might become impregnated with a
noxious quality not inherent in it, which would very naturally give
rise to the belief that a poison had been thrown into it. On the whole,
this accusation may certainly be judged according to the same views
which have been stated in our treatise on the Black Death.
From all these circumstances, the notion is highly probable that it
was the petechial fever which raged in the French camp; and if we may
attach any importance to the incidental accounts of historians, it may
perhaps be to the purpose to state that Prudencio de Sandoval, who has
written from authentic materials, calls the disease “las bubas.”[517]
This name, it is true, presupposes a rather strange confusion of
petechial fever with lues; and, indeed, the diseases among the French
troops from 1495 to 1528, have been oddly jumbled together by Sandoval.
It shews, however, that there still existed a recollection of the
prevalent eruptions which occurred in the pestilence of 1528; and,
therefore, this whole account might perhaps be the more justly applied
to petechial fever, as this same historian states, that the French
called the disease after the village of Poggio reale “les Poches,”[518]
by which name the well known bubo plague would hardly have been
designated. If, however, we choose to suppose that at one and the same
time _different diseases_ prevailed in the French army, this notion is
not only supported by the express testimony of a contemporary[519], but
also by many observations ancient and modern[520], that have been made
in cases where the circumstances have been similar to those which then
prevailed. It is ever to be regretted that there was no intelligent
Machaon to be found in the camp before Naples; such a one would
undoubtedly have left us some pithy observations on the combination and
affinity of petechial fever and bubo plague.
SECT. 2.—TROUSSE-GALANT IN FRANCE.—1528, AND THE FOLLOWING YEARS.
Deeply as the irreparable loss of such an army was felt by the French,
yet were they destined to suffer still greater misfortunes at home.
The dark power which threatened all Europe regarded neither distance
nor limits. It seized on the French nation in their own country whilst
their military youth were destroyed before Naples. The cold spring
and wet summer of 1528 destroyed the growing corn[521], and a famine
was thus produced throughout France, even more grievous, on account
of its duration, than the period of scarcity in the time of Louis the
XIth[522], for the failure of the harvest continued for five years
in succession, during which all order of the seasons seemed to have
ceased. A damp summer heat prevailed in autumn and winter, a frost of
a single day only occasionally intervening. The summer, on the other
hand, was cloudy, damp, and ungenial. The length of the days alone
distinguished one month from another. It appears plainly from detached
accounts how much the usual course of vegetation was disturbed.
Scarcely had the fruit trees shed their leaves in the autumn when they
began to bud again, and to bear fruitless blossoms. No returns rewarded
the toil of the husbandman, and the longed-for harvest again and again
deceived the hopes of the people. Thus, even during the first of these
calamitous years, the distress became general, and the increasing
indigence was no longer to be checked by human aid. Bands of beggars
wandered over the country in lamentable procession. The bonds of civil
order became more and more relaxed, and people soon had to fear not
only robbery and plunder on the part of these unfortunate beings, but
the contagion of a pestilence, the offspring of their distress, which
followed in their train.
This disease was a new production of the French soil, and when it
spread generally throughout the country, was the more sensibly felt,
as it especially carried off young and robust men; on which account it
was designated by the very significant name of Trousse-Galant[523].
It consisted of a highly inflammatory fever, which destroyed its
victims in a very short time, even within the space of a few hours;
or, if they escaped with their lives, deprived them of their hair
and nails, and from a long-continued disinclination for all animal
food, left behind it, as sequelæ, a protracted debility and diseases
which endangered the recovery of the sick, whose constitutions were
already so much shaken. Hence it appears that this fever was combined
with a great decomposition of the fluids, and a very morbid condition
of the functions of the bowels, not to mention the effects produced
by continued hunger, which contemporaries paint in the most dreadful
colours.
The stock of provisions was already so far consumed in the first year
that people made bread of acorns, and sought with avidity all kinds of
harmless roots, merely to appease hunger. These miserable sufferers
wandered about, houseless and more like corpses than living beings, and
finally, failing even to excite commiseration, perished on dunghills
or in out-houses. The larger towns shut their gates against them, and
the various charitable institutions proved, of necessity, insufficient
to afford relief in this frightful extremity! It was the lot of very
few to obtain the tender care and attendance of the Sisters of Charity.
In most of those affected their livid swollen countenances, and the
dropsical swelling of their limbs, betrayed the sickly condition in
which they dragged on their languishing existence. Every one fled from
these pestiferous spectres, for they were saturated with the poison of
this deadly disease, and the remark was no doubt made a thousand times
over, that this poison might be conveyed to persons in health without
affecting the carrier, since want and ill health occasionally afford a
miserable protection against disease of this kind[524].
The necessary data for furnishing a complete account of the
Trousse-galant of 1528 do not exist, for physicians passed over this
epidemic with the same coolness and indifference which unfortunately
they may be justly accused of having shewn with respect to other
important phenomena. But it returned once again in 1545–46, appearing
in Savoy and over a great part of France; and we possess from
Paré[525], and from Sander, a Flemish physician[526], though still a
defective, yet a more satisfactory description of its symptoms on this
occasion. Its course was, as before, very rapid, so that it destroyed
the patient in two or three days; again it attacked the strong rather
than the weak, as if in justification of its old name, and those who
recovered remained for a long time distinguishable by the loss of their
hair and their wretched appearance. Patients felt at the commencement
an insufferable weight in the body, with extremely violent headache,
which soon deprived them of all consciousness and passed into a
profound stupor, even the sphincter muscles losing their power. In
other cases a continued state of sleeplessness was followed by feverish
delirium, so violent that it was necessary to have recourse to means
of restraint. Such opposite states are usual in all typhous fevers.
_Sander_ expressly mentions that in most of those affected, eruptions
made their appearance. He does not, however, state their nature or
describe the course and crisis of the disease otherwise than that it
terminated about the fourth or the eleventh day. Even the eruptions
that did appear, which were probably petechiæ, and perhaps also (rother
friesel) red miliary vesicles, came at an indefinite period; either
at the commencement, when they afforded an unfavourable prognosis,
or later, when they betokened a favourable crisis. Thread-worms, in
great numbers, were evacuated alive under great torment, and generally
increased the sufferings of the patient. The disease was scarcely less
contagious than plague, and with respect to its treatment, bleeding,
copious and even ad deliquium, was decidedly successful, which coupled
with the attacks on the head just described[527], leads to the
conclusion that there existed a fulness of blood and an inflammatory
state of circulation, together, perhaps, with inflammation of the
brain. We must not omit to observe that, during the pestilence of 1546,
the bubo plague made its appearance here and there, especially in the
Netherlands[528]; and in the following year, broke out and spread to a
greater extent in France[529], whence it seems to follow, with respect
to the malady of which we are now treating, that its nature resembled
the petechial fever, since that disease usually precedes the occurrence
of pestilences[530].
The assertion of historians, that in 1528, and the following years,
France lost a fourth part of her inhabitants by famine and pestilence,
seems, according to our representation, not to be by any means
exaggerated. The consequences, as regarded the future destinies of that
country, were likewise very important. For Francis the 1st saw that no
new sacrifices could be borne by his people, who were already so sorely
afflicted; and therefore abandoned his schemes of greatness and foreign
power, consenting, on the 5th of August, 1529, to the disadvantageous
treaty of Cambray.
SECT. 3.—SWEATING SICKNESS IN ENGLAND, 1528.
Whoever, following the above facts, will represent to himself the
state of Europe in 1528, will readily believe, that a poisonous
atmosphere enveloped this quarter of the globe, and continually brought
destruction and death over its nations. Ruin broke in upon them in a
thousand forms, destroying their bodies and benighting their minds, and
if to this we add the discord and the deadly party hatred which at that
time prevailed in the world, it seems as if every circumstance that
could affect mankind was implicated in this gigantic conflict, which
threatened in its fatal result to annihilate all traces of the times
that were past.
A heavier affliction than has yet been described was in store for
England: for in the latter end of May, the Sweating Fever broke out
there in the midst of the most populous part of the capital, spreading
rapidly over the whole kingdom; and fourteen months later, brought
a scene of horror upon all the nations of northern Europe, scarcely
equalled during any other epidemic. It appeared at once with the same
intensity as it had shewn eleven years before, was ushered in by no
previous indications, and between health and death there lay but a
brief term of five or six hours. Public business was postponed: the
courts were closed, and four weeks after the pestilence broke out,
the festival of St. John[531] was stopped, to the great sorrow of the
people, who certainly would not have dispensed with its celebration
had they recovered from the consternation arising from the great
mortality. The king’s court was again deserted, and to the various
passions and mental emotions which had been clashing there since
the year 1517, as, for instance, those arising from the theological
zeal which had been excited by Henry VIIIth’s defence of the faith,
was added once more the old alarm and distress, which seemed to be
justified by the death of some favoured courtiers; particularly of two
chamberlains[532], and of Sir Francis Poynes, who had just returned
from an embassy to Spain. The king left London immediately, and
endeavoured to avoid the epidemic by continually travelling, until at
last he grew tired of so unsettled a life, and determined to await his
destiny at Tytynhangar. Here, with his first wife and a few confidents,
he resided quietly, apart from the world, surrounded by fires for
the purification of the air, and guarded by the precautions of his
physician, who had the satisfaction to find that the pestilence kept
aloof from this lonely residence[533].
How many lives were lost in this, which some historians have called
_the great mortality_, can be estimated only by the facts which
have been stated, and which betoken an uncommonly violent degree of
agitation in men’s minds. Accurate data are altogether wanting, yet
it is quite evident that the whole English nation, from the monarch
to the meanest peasant, was impressed with a feeling of alarm at the
uncertainty of life, to which neither the rude state of society, nor a
constant familiarity with the effects of laws written in blood[534],
had blunted their sensibility. Such a state does not exist without
very numerous cases of mortality which bring the danger home to
every individual, so that it is to be presumed that the churchyards
were everywhere abundantly filled. Nor did this destructive epidemic
come alone. Provisions were scarce and dear, and whilst hundreds of
thousands lay stretched upon the bed of death, many perished with
hunger[535], and the same scenes would have been experienced as in
France, had not the corn trade afforded some relief[536].
As soon as the occurrences of this unfortunate year could be more
closely surveyed, a conviction was at once felt, that _it was one and
the same general cause of disease which called forth the poisonous
pestilence in the French camp before Naples, the putrid fever among
the youth in France, and the sweating sickness in England, and that
the varying nature of these diseases depended only on the conditions
of the soil and the qualities of the atmosphere in the countries which
were visited_[537]. If, in opposition to these notions, a narrow view
of human life in the aggregate should raise a doubt, this would be
strikingly refuted by the wonderful coincidence, in point of time,
of all these phenomena, occurring in such various parts of Europe;
for while the French army, after an exposure of four weeks to the
miseries and poisonous vapours of its camp before Naples, perceived
the first forebodings of its destruction, the great famine with the
Trousse-galant in its train was in full advance on the other side the
Alps, and almost on the same day the Sweating Sickness broke out upon
the Thames.
SECT. 4.—NATURAL OCCURRENCES.—PROGNOSTICS.
The chronicles of all the nations of Europe are full of remarkable
notices respecting the commotions of nature in these particular years,
which were so utterly hostile to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In
England the period of distress was already approaching; towards the end
of the year 1527. Throughout the whole winter, (November and December,
1527, and January, 1528,) heavy rains deluged the country, the rivers
overflowed their banks, and the winter seed was thus rotted. The
weather then remained dry until April; but scarcely was the summer seed
sown, when the rain again set in, and continued day and night for full
eight weeks, so that the last hope of a harvest was now destroyed[538],
and the soaked earth, in the thick mists that arose from its surface,
hatched the well known demon of the Sweating Disease. It was now of no
avail that the torrents of rain ceased, for the softened soil gave the
pestilence constant nourishment, and the damp warmth which, alternating
with unseasonable cold, remained prevalent during the following years
all over Europe, rendered men’s bodies more and more susceptible to
severe diseases.
The historians of that time were too much occupied with the intricate
affairs of the court and of the church to devote any attention
to nature, and on this account they have left us no satisfactory
information of the state of the weather and the course of the seasons
of those years in England, yet there is no reason to suppose that they
were essentially different from those of the rest of Europe. This may
be proved by the following collection of important natural occurrences,
when taken in conjunction with the circumstances already stated
respecting France and Italy.
In Upper Italy such considerable floods occurred in all the river
districts, in the year 1527, that the astrologers announced a new
Deluge. There was a repetition of them to an equal extent, and
with equal damage, in the following year, so that it may have been
concluded, not without some ground, that there was an accumulation
of snow on the highest mountain ranges of Europe. On the 3rd of
July, 1529, there followed a violent earthquake in Upper Italy, and
immediately afterwards a blood-rain, as it was called, in Cremona[539].
In October, 1530, the Tiber rose so much above its banks that in Rome
and its neighbourhood about 12,000 people were drowned. A month later,
in the Netherlands, the sea broke through the dykes, and Holland,
Zealand, and Brabant suffered very considerably from the overflow of
the waters, which again took place two years afterwards[540].
In 1528 there appeared in the March of Brandenburg, during the
prevalence of a south-east wind and a great drought[541], (the rains
did not commence in Germany before 1529,) _swarms of locusts_[542],
as if this prognostic too of great epidemics was not to be wanting.
Of fiery meteors, which also frequently appeared in the following
years, and in the aggregate plainly indicated an unusual condition
of the atmosphere, much notice, after the manner of the times, is
occasionally taken[543]. Particular attention was excited by a long
fiery train which was seen on the 7th of January, 1529, at seven
o’clock in the morning, throughout Mecklenburg and Pomerania[544].
Another fiery sign (chasma) was seen in the March on the 9th
of January, at ten o’clock at night[545], as likewise similar
atmospherical phenomena in other localities.
Comets appeared in the course of this year in unusual number[546].
The first on the 11th of August, 1527, before daybreak; it was seen
throughout Europe, and it has often been confounded by more recent
writers with an atmospherical phenomenon resembling a comet which
appeared on the 11th of October[547]. The second was seen in July and
August, 1529, in Germany, France, and Italy. Four other comets are also
said to have made their appearance this year at the same time; but it
is probable that these were only fiery meteors of an unknown kind[548].
The third was in 1531, and was visible in Europe from the 1st of
August till the 3rd of September. This was the great comet of Halley,
which returned in the year 1835[549]. The fourth was in 1532, visible
from the 2nd of October to the 8th of November; it appeared again in
1661[550]. Lastly, the fifth, in 1533, seen from the middle of June
till August[551].
Contemporaries agree remarkably in their accounts of the insufferable
state of the weather in the eventful year 1529. The winter was
particularly mild, and the vegetation was far too early, so that all
the world was rejoicing at the mildness and beauty of the spring. The
people wore violets, at Erfurt, on St. Matthew’s day, (the 24th of
February,) little expecting that this friendly omen was to precede
so severe a calamity[552]. Throughout the spring and summer wet
weather continued to prevail. Constant torrents of rain overflowed the
fields, the rivers passed their banks; all hopes of the cultivation
were entirely frustrated[553], and misery and famine spread in all
directions. A heavy rain of four days’ continuance, which took place
in the south of Germany in the middle of June, and was called the St.
Vitus’s Torrent, is still remembered in modern times as an unheard-of
event. Whole districts of country were completely laid under water,
and many persons perished who had not time to save their lives[554].
A similar, very widely extended, and perhaps universal, storm again
occurred on the 10th of August, and occasioned great floods, especially
in Thuringia and Saxony[555]. Upon the whole, the sun rarely broke
through the heavy dark clouds. The latter part of the summer and the
whole of the autumn, with the exception of a series of hot days which
commenced the 24th of August[556], remained gloomy, cold, and wet.
People fancied they were breathing the foggy air of Britain[557].
We ought not to omit here to notice that in the north of Germany, and
especially in the March of Brandenburg, eating fish, which were caught
in great abundance, was generally esteemed detrimental. Malignant and
contagious diseases were said to have been traced to this cause, and it
was a matter of surprise that the only food which nature bounteously
bestowed was so decidedly injurious[558]. It might be difficult now
to discover the cause of this phenomenon, of which we possess only
isolated notices, yet, passing over all other conjectures, it is quite
credible either that an actual fish poison was developed[559], or,
if this notion be rejected, that a disordered condition of life,
such as must be supposed to have existed in a great famine, rendered
fish prejudicial to health, in the same way as sometimes occurs after
protracted intermittent fevers, when the functions of the bowels are
disturbed in a manner peculiar to this disease.
But it was not the inhabitants of the water alone which were affected
by hidden causes of excitement in collective organic life; the fowls
of the air likewise sickened, who, in their delicate and irritable
organs of respiration, feel the injurious influence of the atmosphere
much earlier and more sensitively than any of the unfeathered tribes,
and have often been the harbingers of great danger, ere man was aware
of its approach. In the neighbourhood of Freyburg in the Breisgau,
dead birds were found scattered under the trees, with boils as large
as peas under their wings, which indicated among them a disease, that
in all probability extended far beyond the southern districts of the
Rhine[560].
The famine in Germany, during this year, is described by respectable
authorities in a tone of deep sympathy. Swabia, Lorraine, Alsace, and
the other southern countries bordering on the Rhine, were especially
visited, so that misery there reached the same frightful height as
in France. The poor emigrated and roved over the country, solely
to prolong their wretched existence. Above a thousand of these
half-starved mendicants came to Strasburg out of Swabia. They obtained
shelter in a monastery, and attempts were made to revive them, yet many
were unable to bear the food that was placed before them. Attention and
nourishment did but hasten their death. Another body of more than eight
hundred came in the autumn from Lorraine. These unfortunate people
were kept in the city, and fed during the whole winter[561], yet it is
easy to conceive that this benevolence, which was no doubt likewise
exercised in other cities[562]—for when was humanity ever found wanting
in Germany?—could only occasionally alleviate this deeply rooted
calamity. In the Venetian territories, many hundreds are said to have
perished with hunger, and a like distress probably prevailed all over
Upper Italy.
In the north of Germany, including the extensive sandy plains, on
which wet weather is not so injurious in its effect as on a heavy
clayey soil, the state of the country was upon the whole more
tolerable[563]; yet, independently of the innumerable evils to which
a scarcity gives rise, _suicide was more frequent_[564], which was
certainly a rarity in the sixteenth century, and only explicable by
supposing, that the powers of the mind became exhausted by the many and
various passions, which in every individual locality, excited a spirit
of hatred and party feeling. The consequence of such a state of turmoil
is a cold disgust of life, which finds, in the first adverse event that
may occur, a pretext for self-destruction, that want alone would seldom
if ever occasion: for man, if his spirit be unbroken, runs the chance
of starvation in times of famine, and trusts to the faintest gleam of
hope, rather than, of his own accord, abandon the enjoyment of life.
It is no less in point here to notice a kind of faint lassitude,
which, to the great astonishment of the people, was felt, especially
in Pomerania, in June and July[565], up to the very period when the
Sweating Sickness broke out. In the midst of their work, and without
any conceivable cause, people became palsied in their hands and
feet, so that even if their lives had depended upon it, they were
incapable of the slightest exertion[566]. The treatment which was found
successful, was to cover the patients warmly, and to supply them with
nourishing food, of which they ate plentifully, and thus recovered
again, in three or four days. Phenomena of this kind, which in the
present instance evidently depended on atmospherical influence, are but
the extreme gradations of a generally morbid dullness of vital feeling,
which might easily pass into an actual disgust of life, such as would
lead to suicide.
The following years were by no means all marked by a complete failure
in produce. The year 1530 was, on the contrary, plentiful, there being
only some partial failures, as, for example, that which arose from a
great flood in the district of the Saal, which occurred in the midst
of the harvest time[567]. A very cold spring and a wet cold summer
followed in 1531, with only occasional fine days; yet the ground
was not altogether unproductive, and the great distress which would
otherwise have been felt in Thuringia and Saxony, was checked by the
establishment of granaries, so that the people were not obliged, as
they often were in Swabia, to mow the green corn that they might dry
the ears in ovens, and support life upon the yet unripe grain.
The years 1532 and 1533, were again very sterile, as also 1534, in
consequence of the great heat and dryness of the summer. Finally,
in the year 1535, the regular change of the seasons, and with it
a prosperous state of cultivation, seemed to be restored, and the
scarcity ceased[568]. The reports from different localities in Germany
vary much, but the scarcity prevailed for full seven years[569], (from
1528 to 1534,) and since its causes were not discoverable, because it
was only seen by each observer in his own narrow circle, the old German
adage was often called to mind: “If there is to be a scarcity, it is of
no avail even should all the mountains be made of flour.”[570]
SECT. 5.—SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY, 1529.
These facts are sufficient for a preliminary sketch of the background
on which moved the spectre of England, to which we now return. How
long the sweating sickness may have raged there after Henry the
VIIIth quitted his secluded place of refuge in order to return to his
capital, no one has left any written account to show. That it spread
very rapidly over the whole kingdom is decidedly to be presumed, and
might probably still be easily ascertainable from the written records
of different places. The notion that it did not rage violently in any
town more than a few weeks, is justified by corresponding phenomena
of more recent occurrence, yet no doubt it continued to exist among
the people, though in a mitigated degree, till the mild winter season.
But there are not even the slightest data by which it can be made
out that it was still in England during the summer of 1529. As an
epidemic it certainly existed no longer, yet on a consideration of the
state of the air in that year, it is not to be denied that isolated
cases of Sweating Fever may have appeared; for in pestilences of this
kind, provided their original causes continue, there always occur some
straggling cases[571]. The Sweating Sickness did not advance westward
to Ireland, nor did it pass the Scottish border; the historians, who
would certainly have recorded so calamitous an event, are entirely
silent respecting such an occurrence. The tragedy was, however,
destined to be enacted elsewhere; other nations were to play their part
in it.
Hamburgh was the first place on the continent in which the Sweating
Sickness broke out. Men’s minds were still in great excitement
there in consequence of the events of the few preceding months. The
Protestants had, after long and stormy contests, at length vanquished
the Papists. Under the wise direction of _Bugenhagen_ the great work
of Reformation was just completed. The monasteries were abolished, the
monks dismissed, schools were established, and peace again returned
with the enjoyment of ecclesiastical freedom. Just at this moment[572]
the dreaded pestilence, of which wonderful accounts had been so long
and so often heard, unexpectedly made its appearance. It immediately
excited, as it had ever done in England, general dismay, and before any
instructions as to its treatment could be obtained, either from the
English or from Germans who had been in England, it destroyed daily
from forty to sixty, and altogether, within the space of twenty-two
days[573], about 1100 inhabitants, for such was the number of coffins
which were at this time manufactured by the undertakers. The duration
of _the great mortality_, for thus we would designate the more violent
raging of this pestilence, was, however, much shorter, and may be
roughly estimated at about nine days, for from the fragment of a
letter received from Hamburgh, which was dispatched to Wittenberg on
the 8th of August, by a person who was at that time burgomaster, it
appears that, for some days past, no one had died of the Sweating
Fever, excepting one or two drunkards, and that the citizens were
then beginning to take breath again. We may thus judge, from the
unauthenticated account here mentioned, that the disease lasted about a
fortnight longer, and that the loss of lives amounted to 2000. At all
events, however, the pestilence manifested itself on the continent with
the same malignity which was peculiar to it from the first, and if the
assertion made at a distance respecting the mortality in Hamburgh, were
overcharged[574], yet there certainly existed sufficient foundation for
exaggerations of this sort, which are never wanting in times of such
great danger. The historians of this, even at that time, powerful and
civilized commercial town, have on the whole said but little regarding
this important event—a circumstance easily explicable from the constant
occupation of men’s minds in religious affairs, and from the well known
short visitation of the epidemic, which, like a transient meteor,
needed quick and cautious observation if any valuable information
respecting the occurrence was to be transmitted to posterity. Some
particulars of its first origin have, however, been preserved amid a
mass of general assertions which convey no information. Thus it appears
that the Sweating Sickness did not show itself in the town until a
Captain Hermann Evers, just about the time mentioned, (the 25th of
July,) returned from England, bringing on board with him a number of
young people, (probably travellers as well as sailors,) of whom at
least twelve died of this disease within two days[575]. According to
another account, those who died were not taken ill in England, but on
the voyage, and the pestilence broke out after the rest of the crew had
disembarked. On this point we have further a most respectable testimony
to the fact, that in the night after the landing of Hermann Evers, four
men died in Hamburgh of the Sweating Sickness[576].
If we examine a little more closely these very valuable accounts, the
credibility of which there is no reason to doubt, it must especially
be taken into account, that at this time the Sweating Sickness had
ceased to exist as an epidemic in England for at least half a year,
that its appearance in single cases, although not contradictory to
general views, is nevertheless by no means borne out by proof from
historical evidence, and that thus it is a gratuitous and unsupported
assumption that the return of Hermann Evers’ crew was connected with
any Sweating Sickness at all in England. If we consider, on the other
hand, that the North Sea, even in ordinary years, is very foggy, so
that, owing to the prevalence of north-west winds, it precipitates very
heavy rain clouds over Germany; and if we bear in mind, that in the
year 1529 it produced far heavier fogs than usual, we shall perceive in
its waters the principal cause why the English Sweating Sickness was
then developed in its greatest violence, and we may thence assume, with
a greater degree of probability, that this pestilence broke out among
the crew of Hermann Evers spontaneously, and without any connexion with
England, in the same way, perhaps, as it did formerly on board Henry
the VIIth’s fleet. This supposition is strengthened by the circumstance
that the ships of those times were excessively filthy, and the kind of
life spent on board them was, independently of the wretched provision,
uncomfortable in the highest degree, nay, almost insupportable, so that
even in short voyages, the scurvy, which was the dread of sailors in
those days, was of very common occurrence. Finally, we still possess
the most distinct accounts, that unusual occurrences took place in the
North Seas. Thus during Lent it was observed with astonishment at
Stettin, that porpoises came in numbers up the frische Haff as far as
the bridge, and that the Baltic cast on its shores many dead animals of
this kind[577], so that we are fully justified in concluding that there
existed at that time a more intense development than usual of morbific
influences in the marine atmosphere.
With respect, however, to the influence which the companions of
Hermann Evers, impregnated as they were with the odour of the Sweating
Sickness, had on the inhabitants of Hamburgh, it cannot be denied,
that their intercourse with those inhabitants, in the filthy and
narrow lanes of that commercial city, may have given an impulse to the
eruption of the pestilence, so far as to make the already existing fuel
more inflammable, or to furnish the first sparks for its ignition:
yet it is equally undeniable that, under the existing circumstances,
the epidemic Sweating Sickness would have broken out in Germany even
without the presence of Captain Evers, although it might, perhaps,
have been some weeks later, and not have made its first appearance in
Hamburgh, whose inhabitants, owing to the constant prevalence of the
North Sea fog, were, to all appearance, already prepared for the first
reception of this fatal disease.
To determine to a day when epidemics which have been long in
preparation have broken out, is, even for an observer who is present,
exceedingly difficult, nay, sometimes, under the most favourable
circumstances, impossible; for there occur in these visitations,
certain transitions into the epidemic form, of diseases which are
allied to it, as well as a gradual conversion into it of morbid
phenomena, which have usually begun some time before. Unless we are
greatly mistaken, such was the case in the pestilence of which we are
now treating; although it must be confessed, that we can obtain no
precise information on this point from the physicians of those times.
The following statements, for the absolute precision of which we cannot
pledge ourselves after a lapse of 300 years, must therefore be judged
according to this general experience; and though singly they may prove
little, yet taken altogether, they are capable of demonstrating the
peculiar and almost wonderful manner in which the Sweating Fever spread
over Germany.
In Lübeck, the next city in the Baltic, the Sweating Sickness appeared
about the same time; for so early as the Friday before St. Peter _in
vinculis_ (30th of July), it was known, that on the preceding night
a woman had died of it[578]. On the following days cases of death
fearfully increased, and the disorder soon raged so violently, that
people were again reminded of the Black Death of 1349. The inhabitants
died without number, as well in the city as in the environs, and the
consternation was equal to that felt in Hamburgh[579]. In general, as
was everywhere the case, robust young people of the better classes were
affected, while, on the other hand, children and poor people living in
cellars and garrets almost all of them escaped[580].
Now one might, either on the supposition of a progressive alteration
in the atmosphere, such as occurs in the influenza, or on that of a
communication of the disease from man to man, which, however, cannot
be considered as a principal cause of this epidemic, have expected a
gradual extension of the Sweating Sickness from Hamburgh and Lübeck
to the surrounding country. This did not, however, in fact, take
place; for the disease next broke out at Twickau, at the foot of the
Erzgebirge, distant from Hamburgh fifty German miles, and without
having previously visited the rich commercial city of Leipzig. By
the 14th of August, nineteen persons who had died of it, were buried
at Twickau; and on one of the following nights above a hundred[581]
sickened, whence it is to be deduced that the pestilence was severe at
that place.
Possibly the great storm on the 10th of August may have given
an impulse to the development of this very remarkable epidemic;
for an highly electrical state of the atmosphere increases the
susceptibility for diseases. It is likewise not to be overlooked,
that on the 24th of August, while the sky was overcast, there came
on an insufferable heat[582], which must have debilitated the body
after such long-continued cold wet weather. At all events, in the
beginning of September, we find that the Sweating Fever broke out at
the same time at _Stettin_, _Dantzig_, and other Prussian cities; at
_Augsburg_, far to the south on the other side of the Danube, at
_Cologne_ on the Rhine, at _Strasbourg_, at _Frankfort_ on the Maine,
at _Marburg_[583], at _Göttingen_, and at _Hanover_[584]. The position
of these cities gives an impressive notion of the extent of country
of which the English Sweating Sickness took possession, as it were by
a magic stroke. It was like a violent conflagration, which spread in
all directions; the flames, however, did not issue from one focus, but
rose up everywhere, as if self-ignited; and whilst all this occurred in
Germany and Prussia, the inhabitants of the other northern countries,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, perhaps also Lithuania, Poland and Russia,
were likewise visited by this violent disease.
The malady appeared in Stettin on the 31st of August, among the
servants of the Duke[585]. On the 1st of September, the Duchess herself
sickened, in common with many people about the court, and burgesses in
the city. A few days afterwards several thousands were affected by the
disease, so that there was not a street from which some corpses were
not daily carried out. This dreadful period of terror, however, did
not last much longer than a week, for about the 8th of September the
pestilence abated in its violence, so as no longer to be regarded with
terror; and after this time only a few isolated cases occurred[586].
On the same day, namely, the 1st of September, the disease appeared
in Dantzig, fifty German miles further to the eastward, and was
here also so destructive, that it carried off in a short time 3000
inhabitants[587], some say even 6000—but this seems certainly too high
an estimate for Dantzig, and probably includes the greater part of
Prussia. If we were to give credence to an anonymous reporter[588],
this plague abated _in five days_, and relieved the inhabitants from
the mortal anxiety which, until they recovered their senses, led them
everywhere to commit acts of injustice and injury to avert the danger.
In Augsburg we find the Sweating Sickness on the 6th of September.
It lasted there also only _six days_, affected about 1500 of the
inhabitants, and destroyed more than half that number, or, as it is
said, about 800[589].
At Cologne it appeared precisely at the same time, as we learn from
the expressions of the Count von Newenar, a prelate of that place, who
finished his account of this disorder on the 7th of September[590]. At
Strasburg it broke out some ten or twelve days earlier, namely, on the
24th of August. In this place about 3000 people sickened in one week,
but very few of them died[591]. At Frankfort on the Maine they were
holding the autumn fair (which began on the 7th of September) just at
the time when the Sweating Sickness prevailed[592], whence arose the
opinion, which has been broached again in more modern times[593], that
the traders on their return carried the disease thence throughout the
whole of Germany, and that in the intercourse by means of this fair,
the main cause of the spread of the epidemic was to be found. After
the facts which have been brought forward, such a narrow view needs no
refutation. The Sweating Sickness was fleeter than the conveyances of
goods and people, which at that time made their way along the pathless
and unbeaten roads; for “no sooner did a rumour of the approach of the
disease reach anyplace than the disease itself accompanied it.”[594]
Between the boundaries which have been indicated, only a few isolated
towns and villages escaped, and there are probably few of the
chronicles of that age, so prolific of great events, in which the
dreadful scourge of the year 1529 is not expressly mentioned; yet the
sweating fever, like other great epidemics, spread, doubtless, very
unequally, and it is ascertained that the further south it extended,
the milder it was upon the whole; and also that all those places where
it broke out late suffered beyond comparison less than those which were
visited early in September and in the latter part of August; for not
to lay much stress on the sultry heat from the 24th of August, which
probably did not last long, the chief cause of its great malignity at
first was the violent method resorted to in the treatment of the sick,
the inapplicability of which was fortunately soon perceived. Only one
citizen was affected with the Sweating Sickness in Marburg, and even
he recovered[595], whilst at Leipzig, the pestilence either never
broke out at all, or very much later, perhaps in October or November;
for the physicians of that place gave it clearly to be understood in
their pamphlets, that they knew nothing of the disease from their own
observations[596], and no sooner did the report get abroad that the
dreaded enemy had not penetrated within the walls of this commercial
city, than crowds of fugitives came thither from far and near in order
to seek protection and security, although the place in itself was by
no means fitted for a place of refuge, for the swampy atmosphere which
rose from the city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and
dark streets, many lingering diseases[597].
SECT. 6.—IN THE NETHERLANDS.
It is remarkable that the Netherlands were visited by the Sweating
Fever[598] full four weeks later, although the commercial intercourse
with England, if we were to attach any especial importance to this
circumstance, was far more considerable than that of the German cities
in the North Sea. It appeared for the first time in Amsterdam on the
27th of September in the forenoon, whilst the city was enveloped in a
thick fog[599], and just at the same time, perhaps a day earlier, in
Antwerp, where, on the 29th of September, they made a solemn procession
in order by prayer to avert greater harm from the city; for in the
last days of September 400 to 500 people died of the English Sweating
Sickness at that place[600]. It might have been supposed that the damp
soil of Holland, and its impenetrable fogs, would invite the pestilence
much earlier than the high and serene country between the Alps and the
Danube, or the far distant land of Prussia, but the development of
epidemics follows no human calculation or medical views! In the towns
around Amsterdam the Sweating Fever appears not to have broken out
until the mortality had ceased in that city, that is to say, five days
after the 27th of September, so that we cannot be far wrong in assuming
that in the latter end of that month, and the commencement of October,
it had spread over the whole territory of the Netherlands including
Belgium[601]. Alkmaar and Waterland remained free[602], as doubtless
had been the case with particular places both in England and Germany.
_The exceedingly short time that the Sweating Sickness lasted_ in the
different places that it visited, was as astonishing as its original
appearance. For since it raged in Amsterdam for only five days, and not
much longer, as we have shewn, in Antwerp and many German towns, it
could hardly have continued more than fifteen days in any other places;
thus displaying the same peculiarity on this occasion by which it had
already been marked in its former visitations. This short period,
however, must not be understood to include the sporadic occurrence of
the disease, otherwise, as a contemporary of credit assures us, that
the sweating fever attacked some persons twice and others three or even
four times[603], we might thence conclude, that, although perhaps in
some places the pestilence did, after raging for a certain number of
days, suddenly cease, so that no isolated cases afterwards occurred,
yet that the general duration of its prevalence was longer than has
been stated.
SECT. 7.—DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.
The eruption of the Sweating Fever in Denmark[604], took place at _the
latter end of September_, for on the 29th of that month, four hundred
of the inhabitants died of it at Copenhagen[605]. Elsinore was likewise
severely visited[606], and probably, about the same time, most of the
towns and villages in that kingdom. But the accounts on this subject
in the Danish Chronicles are extremely defective[607], as owing to
the extraordinary rapidity of this mortal malady, contemporary writers
neglected to record, for the information of posterity, the details of
a phenomenon, which there, as in other countries, must certainly have
been striking from its general prevalence. Even from the imperfect
notices that were given respecting it, thus much, however, is clearly
perceptible, that it was the same well-known disease as elsewhere,
which was now observed to pass through Denmark. In proof of this, it
was principally young and strong people, as had been originally the
case in England, who sickened, the old and infirm being less affected,
and in the course of four and twenty hours, or at most, within two days
(?) the life or death of the patient was decided.
At the same period as in Denmark, the Sweating Sickness spread over
the _Scandinavian Peninsula_, and was productive of the same violent
symptoms in the sick, the same terror, and the same mortal anguish in
those who were affected by it, not only in the capital of Sweden, where
_Magnus Erikson_, brother of king _Gustavus Wasa_, died of it, but also
over the whole kingdom, and in Norway. The northern historians gave
graphic accounts of it, which, on a careful examination of manuscript
documents, might perhaps gain still more in colouring and spirit[608].
That the Sweating Sickness likewise penetrated into Lithuania, Poland,
and Livonia, if not into a part of Russia, we know only in a general
way[609], but doubtless there are written documents still in existence
in these countries, which only need some careful enquirer to bring
them to light. In the mean time, however, it is to be presumed, from
the early appearance of the disorder in Prussia, that it prevailed
in those countries at the same time as in Germany, Denmark, and the
Scandinavian Peninsula. No certain trace is anywhere to be discovered
that the Sweating Sickness appeared so late as December, 1529, or in
January of the following year, so that, after having lasted upon the
whole a quarter of a year, it disappeared everywhere without leaving
behind it any sign of its existence, or giving rise to the development
of any other diseases. Among these, it pursued its course as a comet
among planets, without interfering either with the French Hunger Fever,
or the Italian Petechial Fever, proving a striking example to all
succeeding ages of those general shocks to which the lives of the human
race are subject, and a fearful scourge to the generation which it
visited.
SECT. 8.—TERROR.
The alarm which prevailed in Germany surpasses all description, and
bordered upon maniacal despair. As soon as the pestilence appeared on
the continent, horrifying accounts of the unheard-of sufferings of
those affected, and the certainty of their death, passed like wild-fire
from mouth to mouth. Men’s minds were paralysed with terror, and the
imagination exaggerated the calamity, which seemed to have come upon
them like a last judgment. The English Sweating Sickness was the theme
of discourse everywhere, and if any one happened to be taken ill of
fever, no matter of what kind, it was immediately converted into this
demon, whose spectre form continually haunted the oppressed spirit. At
the same time, the unfortunate delusion existed, that whoever wished to
escape death when seized with the English pestilence, _must perspire
for twenty-four hours without intermission_[610]. So they put the
patients, whether they had the Sweating Sickness or not, (for who had
calmness enough to distinguish it?) instantly to bed, covered them
with feather-beds and furs, and whilst the stove was heated to the
utmost, closed the doors and windows with the greatest care to prevent
all access of cool air. In order, moreover, to prevent the sufferer,
should he be somewhat impatient, from throwing off his hot load, some
persons in health likewise lay upon him, and thus oppressed him to such
a degree, that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and finally, in
this rehearsal of hell, being bathed in an agonizing sweat, gave up the
ghost, when, perhaps, if his too officious relatives had manifested a
little discretion, he might have been saved without difficulty[611].