estimable man—who, full of zeal for the good of mankind, opposed this
destructive folly. He went from house to house, and wherever he found
a patient buried in a hot bed, dragged him out with his own hands,
everywhere forbad that the sick should thus be tortured with heat, and
saved by his decisive conduct, many, who but for him, must have been
smothered like the rest[612]. It often happened, at this time, that
amidst a circle of friends, if the Sweating Sickness was only brought
to mind by a single word, first one, and then another was seized
with a tormenting anguish, their blood curdled, and certain of their
destruction, they quietly slunk away home, and there actually became a
prey to death[613]. This mortal fear is a heavy addition to the scourge
of rapidly fatal epidemics, and is, properly speaking, an inflammatory
disease of the mind, which, in its proximate effects upon the spirits,
bears some resemblance to the nightmare. It confuses the understanding,
so as to render it incapable of estimating external circumstances
according to their true relations to each other; it magnifies a gnat
into a monster, a distant improbable danger into a horrible spectre
which takes a firm hold of the imagination; all actions are perverted,
and if during this state of distraction, any other disease break out,
the patient conceives that he is the devoted victim of the much
dreaded epidemic, like those unfortunate persons, who, having been
bitten by a harmless animal, nevertheless become the subjects of an
imaginary hydrophobia. Thus, during the calamitous autumn of 1529,
many may have been seized with only an imaginary Sweating Sickness,
and under the towering heap of clothing on their loaded beds have met
with their graves[614]. Others among these brain-sick people who had
the good fortune to remain exempt from bodily ailments, many of them
even boasting of their firmness, fell, through the violent commotions
in their nerves, into a state of chronic hypochondriasis, which, under
circumstances of this sort, is marked by shuddering, and a feeling
of uneasiness and dread at the bare mention of the original cause of
terror, even when there is no longer any trace of its existence[615].
A person thus disordered in his mind, was recently seen to destroy
himself[616] on receiving false intelligence of the return of the
late epidemic; thus betraying conduct even more dastardly than those
cowardly soldiers, who, when the cannon begin to roar, inflict on
themselves slight wounds that they may avoid sharing the dangers of the
battle.
To have a full notion how men’s minds were previously prepared for this
state, we have but to think on the monstrous events which took place
in Germany. Twelve years earlier the gigantic work of the reformation
had been begun by the greatest German of that age, and, with the
Divine power of the gospel, triumphantly carried through up to that
period. The excitement was beyond all bounds. The new doctrine took
root in towns and villages, but nevertheless the most mortal party
hatred raged on all sides, and as usually happens in times of such
empassioned commotion, selfishness was the animating spirit which ruled
on both sides, and seized the torch of faith, in order, for her unholy
purposes, to envelop the world in fire and flames.
So early as the year 1521, during Luther’s concealment within the
walls of Wartburg, false prophets[617] arose, and desired, without the
aid of their great Master, who was the soul of that age, to complete
a work with the spirit of which they were not imbued. They brought
the wildest passions into action, but, destitute of innate firmness,
and incapable of curbing themselves, they became incendiaries and
iconoclasts. Immediately upon this the unhappy peasant-war broke out—a
consequence of the arbitrary conduct and oppression practised from
times of old, for which the abettors of Dr. Eck’s sentiments would
charge Luther himself as answerable; not perceiving that it was the
excitement of the times and of the false prophets which had given
occasion to the rebellion. Events occurred, from the recollection of
which human feeling still recoils. Never was the fair soil of Germany
the scene of more atrocious cruelties; and after vengeance had played
her insane part without opposition, the melancholy result was, that
hundreds of thousands of once peaceful, and for the most part misled
peasants, fell by the sword of the Lansquenets and of the executioner,
while their numerous survivors became a prey to the dearth which
visited the country in the following years. The battle of Frankenhausen
on the 15th of May, 1525, and Münzer’s subsequent execution, closed
this bloody scene. The consequences of such intestine commotions
continued however to be felt long after, and considered apart from
their highly prejudicial influence on the prosperity of the people,
conduced not a little to break the spirit of mankind, signs of which
the wise men of those times have plainly pointed out[618].
SECT. 9.—MORAL CONSEQUENCES.
The dejection was increased by the universally active spirit of
persecution with which it was still hoped to eradicate the new
doctrine. Even whilst the English pestilence was raging, two
Protestants were burnt at Cologne[619]. In the same year faggots
blazed at Mecklin, Verden, and Paris, by the flames of which the
ancient faith was to be protected against the pestilence of freedom
of thought. Sentences of death were also quite commonly pronounced
against the Anabaptists in Protestant countries. The University of
Leipzig pronounced a condemnation of this sort in the year 1529, and
in Freistadt eleven women were drowned after a nominal trial and
sentence, because they acknowledged that they were of this sect[620].
Amidst these dissensions, and when the empire was in this helpless
condition, came the fear of the barbarians of the south, who had
already conquered Hungary under their Sultan Soliman, and, whilst the
English Sweat was raging in the countries of the Danube, threatened to
overwhelm Germany. It was a time of distress and lamentations, in which
even the most undaunted could scarcely sustain their courage[621];
but to the everlasting honour of the Germans it must be acknowledged
that they withstood this purifying fire with unsullied honour, and in
a manner worthy of themselves. For their noble spirits were aroused
to unheard-of exertions of energy, and whilst the pusillanimous gave
themselves up to despair, they impressed on the gigantic work of their
age the stamp of imperishable truth.
The siege of Vienna began on the 22d of September, after the English
pestilence had broken out in this capital of Austria, yet nobody
regarded this internal danger. The repeated attempts made by the
Turks to storm the town were repulsed with great courage, and, on
the 15th of October, Soliman raised the siege, after the Sweating
Sickness had raged with as much violence among his troops as among the
besieged[622]. There is no accurate intelligence extant upon this
subject, because the pestilence was less regarded here than elsewhere,
in consequence of the great distress of the country from other causes,
yet the mortality in Austria under such unfavourable circumstances, was
doubtless more considerable than in the neighbouring states[623].
In the north of Germany another struggle was to be decided. The
evangelical party wished to declare their faith before the empire and
its ruler, to reveal the object of their efforts, and to defend the
purity of their creed against danger and assault. For this purpose
they prepared themselves with wise discretion, and in the measures
taken by the reformers for the fortification of the great work, not
the slightest trace was to be observed of the anxiety which at that
time agitated the people. In the midst of a country whose inhabitants
trembled at the new disease, and were perhaps already severely
afflicted with it, did Luther, whilst at Marburg[624], sketch the first
outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melancthon,
has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the
following spring, during his stay at Cobourg, he composed his sublime
hymn, “Eine feste burg ist unser Gott,” a strong fortress is our God.
It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which took
place in these years, especial importance would be attributed to
the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in the
narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God; and, indeed, this
representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in all
religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of
humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind and body,
of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived by a superior
insight into things; and the mean selfishness of mankind and their
delusions respecting their own qualities induce them to adopt the more
easily the partial view, that the Supreme Being allows pestilences to
exist only to destroy their enemies of another faith. On this account,
not only do most contemporary writers speak of the just wrath of God,
and of the chastisement thus prepared for the sins of the world[625],
but the papal party took every possible pains to represent the English
pestilence as a punishment for heresy and an evident warning against
the triumphant doctrines of Luther. The cases in Hamburgh, where the
eruption of the Sweating Sickness almost immediately followed the
abolition of the monasteries, may certainly have obtained credit for
such representations among the wavering and short-sighted, and, in a
hundred other towns also, the Papists may have taken advantage of a
similar occurrence of circumstances, for 1529 was a year when great
and important questions were decided. At Lübeck, the monks in general
preached that the English sweating fever was but a punishment which
heaven inflicted on the Martineans, for so they called the followers
of Luther, and the people were not undeceived until they saw with
astonishment that Catholics also fell sick and died[626]. They went,
however, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood
and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that the
meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to
no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the
heretics[627]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart
of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527,
cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him
fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have
seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union
of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds.
In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to endeavour to
appease the visible wrath of God by the punishment of the heretics,
and it was this sanguinary delusion, worthy of savage barbarians,
which hastened the burning of Flistedt and Clarenbach[628]. To the
completion of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might
be added, of which the following may be taken as an example. In the
March of Brandenburg the evangelical faith, notwithstanding great
obstacles, spread every day more and more, and the Catholic priests
soon found themselves deserted. Just as the Sweating Sickness broke out
at Friedeberg, in the Newmark, a curate there delivered a sermon full
of enthusiasm and passion, and endeavoured to convince his apostate
congregation that God had invented a new plague in order to chastise
the new heresy. A solemn procession, according to ancient usage and
orthodox prescription, was to be held on the following day, and thus
the congregation was to be led back into the bosom of the only true
church. But behold, in the course of the night, the zealous curate died
of some sudden disease; and as mankind are ever ready to interpret even
the thunders of the Eternal according to their own wishes and narrow
notions, the Protestants, it seems, did not fail in their turn to
represent this event as a miracle[629].
SECT. 10.—THE PHYSICIANS.
Under these circumstances, the faculty had a very difficult problem
before them, for the very imperfect solution of which they cannot
justly be reproached. A learned and active physician is certainly one
of the noblest of the diversified forms of humanity; for he unites in
himself the power arising from an insight into the works of nature,
with the exercise of a pure philanthropy inseparable from his office.
Few men, however, of this ideal perfection lived in those times, and
their mitigating influence over the violence of the epidemic, which
was generally past before they could closely examine their new enemy
and give any deliberate advice, was doubtless but very inconsiderable.
By so much the more busy were the ignorant and covetous, who, from
time immemorial, the more numerous body in the profession, have always
injured it in its moral dignity. They attacked the disease with bold
assertions, alarmed the people with inconsiderate representations,
lauded the infallibility of their remedies, and were the promulgators
of injurious prejudices. In the Netherlands, as we are assured
by _Tyengius_, a physician whom we reckon among the learned and
benevolent, a vast number of patients died of the effects produced by
the distribution of pernicious pamphlets, with which the Sweating
Sickness was to be combated by those ignorant interlopers, who many
of them gave it out that they had been in England, boasting to the
inhabitants of their experience and skill, and with their pills and
their “hellish electuaries,” flitting about from place to place[630],
especially where rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should
they be restored, they obtained the promise of mines of gold[631]. The
like occurred in Germany, where, at the commencement, the sound sense
of the people was overcome by this officiousness, and violent remedies
were recommended as certain means of cure, in a deluge of pamphlets,
some of which were written by persons not in the profession.
From this impure source was derived the prescription of the
compulsory[632] perspiration for twenty-four hours, which, in the
districts of the Rhine, was called the Netherlands regimen[633]; and
it is unpardonable, that the physicians, either with blind pride
disregarded, or were totally unacquainted with the prior experience of
the English, which advocated discretion and the most appropriate line
of treatment. This neglect, which was not compensated until thousands
had already fallen, may possibly have arisen from the blameable silence
of the English physicians, of whom, as if England had not yet been
enlightened by the dawn of science, not an individual had written on
the Sweating Sickness, or proposed a reasonable line of treatment,
since the year 1485. Between England and Germany there existed,
nevertheless, a constant intercourse; and it is incredible that that
mode of procedure, which did not originate from a formal medical
school, but from the sound sense of the people, should not have become
earlier known on this side of the North Sea.
We must not here overlook the habits and domestic manners of the
Germans, for these favoured not a little the baneful prejudice with
regard to heat, for which we would not altogether make the physicians
responsible. Housewives, even at that time, set far too much store
by high beds, which annually received the feathers of the geese
consumed at the table. The comforts of a warm feather bed were highly
appreciated, and least of all were they disposed to deny them to the
sick. Thus all inflammatory disorders were stimulated to much greater
malignity, because such a bed either caused a dry heat, even to the
extent of burning fever, or a useless debilitating perspiration. To
this effect the very extensive misuse of hot baths conduced; and no
less so the custom of clothing much too warmly. Upon the whole the
notion was prevalent, as well with the people as with medical men,
that diseases were to be combated by warmth and sudorifics. To new
epidemics, however, the prevailing notions and customs are always
applied; for the great mass of mankind, among whom may be included
medical men, are entirely ruled by them; so that in this instance, the
Sweating Sickness fell upon a country in which its utmost malignity
would be called forth.
Yet after the first few days, in which many unfortunate cases occurred,
people became aware of the error they had committed. An advocate of the
twenty-four hours’ sudation, who, though not a medical man, had lauded
this practice in a pamphlet on the subject[634], died in Zwickau on the
5th of September, the victim of his own imprudence. A few days after
him died an apothecary, likewise treated with the heated bed. Upon
this the physicians immediately abandoned the practice, directed that
their patients should be sweated only for five or six hours, and in a
more moderate degree: and the estimable anonymous writer to whom we
have already alluded, thus seemed to meet with converts to his belief.
In Hamburgh also, men became convinced of the pernicious effects of
feather beds, and gave the preference to coverings of blankets[635];
for the English plan of treatment was presently known, and intelligent
philanthropists, who saw its curative powers, made it public[636] in
all quarters, through the medium of their correspondence. In Lübeck
there lived at the time of the Sweating Fever a learned Protestant
Englishman, Dr. Anthony Barns, who, with great kindness, made known
everywhere the English treatment of the disease. He was, however, after
the cessation of the pestilence, banished from the city, because he
had petitioned the bigoted Catholic senate to tolerate his Protestant
brethren. Many were saved by him; for it was the practice in this city
also, _to stew to death_[637] those affected with the disease. In
Stettin the English treatment was promulgated in good time, and two
travelling artisans who had come thither from Hamburgh, were of the
greatest assistance to the inhabitants of this city, by advising them
to take the feathers out of their upper beds; they made known likewise
how the sickness had been treated with success. They had seen cases
themselves, and could therefore distinguish by their odour those who
were suffering from the true sweating epidemic, from those who were
seized with fever arising from panic. They were constantly besieged by
persons asking questions and seeking assistance; and when the disease
was at its greatest height, the streets were quite illuminated at
night by the lights of the relatives of the patients[638], who were
running in all directions in a state of distraction. The abhorrence
of feather beds, and the hot plan, now followed so quickly the blind
recommendation of the twenty-four hours’ sweat, that by the middle
of September, and in many places still earlier, more correct views
were generally adopted, and some intelligent men, after the sad
experience which had been gained, seized the opportunity of doing more
good to the public than their noisy predecessors, who had by this
time so abundantly supplied the churchyards with bodies. Among these
literally and truly _beneficent_ physicians may be reckoned Peter
Wild, at Worms[639], who warned his countrymen against the Netherlands
practice[640]; as also an anonymous person, (the names of the best
often remain unknown in times of confusion,) who, in popular language,
strenuously dissuaded the people against the use of feather beds[641].
It also soon became a common saying, ”the Sweating Sickness will bear
no medicine.”[642]
There is no ground for supposing that the influence of the faculty
was much greater in the country where the Sweating Sickness originated
than it was in Germany, for the number of learned physicians there was
still fewer, and the knowledge of medicine not nearly so extended as it
was in Italy, Germany, and France. The learned Linacre had already died
in the year 1524. John Chambre[643], Edward Wotton[644], and George
Owen[645], were the King’s body physicians about the time of the fourth
epidemic visitation of the Sweating Sickness. William Butts[646] of
whom Shakespeare[647] has made honourable mention, in all probability
likewise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and
worthy men[648], but posterity has gained nothing from them on the
subject of the English Sweating Sickness. All these physicians were
well informed, zealous, and doubtless also cautious followers of the
ancient Greek school of medicine, but their merits were of no advantage
to the people, who, when they departed from the dictates of their own
understanding, and did not content themselves with domestic remedies,
to which they had been accustomed, fell into the hands of a set of
surgeons so rude and ignorant that they could only exist in the state
of society which then prevailed[649].
SECT. 11.—PAMPHLETS.
Inexplicable as the silence of the learned physicians of England, on
the Sweating Sickness, appears at first view, (for where is the use
of learning if it fail to throw any light on the stormy phenomena
of life?) we may yet find, perhaps, its cause in a perfectly simple
external circumstance. The reformation had not yet begun in England,
the Catholic Church still stood on its ancient foundations, and an
intellectual intercourse between the learned and the people was not
by any means among the acknowledged desiderata. The faculty would
hence have been able to treat of the new disorder only in ponderous
Latin works, for they wrote unwillingly in their own language, and the
subject could not seem to them an appropriate one for this purpose,
because they found it unnoticed and uninvestigated by their highly
revered masters the Greeks. They were ignorant that a sweating fever
had ever appeared among the ancients, which, otherwise, might have
incited them to make researches of their own on the subject; for
Aurelian, who describes it to the life, was either unknown to them, or,
what at that time was a valid ground, was despised by them, on account
of his bad (unclassical) language.
In Germany, on the contrary, the intellectual wants of the people
and of the educated classes had already manifested themselves very
differently. Twelve years before, the age of pamphlets had there
commenced. The thoughts of Luther and of his disciples, as also of
his opposers were winged by the rapid press, and the people took an
impassioned part in the endeavours of the learned to affect their
conviction, and by this altogether novel and authoritative mode of
religious instruction, became gradually educated and guided. Hence
it is not to be wondered at that people began to investigate, in
pamphlets, other important subjects likewise, and thus we see this
weighty branch of intellectual commerce, with all its advantages and
defects, also turned towards the discussion of popular diseases, and
for the first time unfolding its numerous leaves on the subject of the
English epidemic. In the maritime cities nothing of this kind happened,
because the eruption of the pestilence took them by surprise, and as it
was over again in the course of a few weeks, it seemed no longer worth
while to instruct the people respecting it.
This surprise was very plainly shewn in the answer of the doctors and
licentiates who were assembled together at the bedside of the Duchess,
at Stettin: “the disease was new and unknown to them: they were at a
loss what to advise, excepting strengthening medicines.”[650] In the
central parts of Germany, on the contrary, where, as early as the
month of August, the report of the new plague had excited the utmost
alarm, and where an eruption of the pestilence in Zwickau had caused
a general flight, publications on the Sweating Sickness were even
within that month, and still more numerously in September, disseminated
in all directions. As scientific productions, they are almost all
of them worthless. Many of them, indeed, did harm, and but very few
promulgated correct views. Most of them are now lost, as, for example,
that which was published by the printer Frantz, at Zwickau, on the 3rd
of September: but in what vast numbers they were published appears
from the circumstance that Dr. Bayer, at Leipzig, who brought out his
own on the 4th of September, states that he has read many of them, and
expresses his indignation against these “new unfounded little books,”
by which the people were misled to their own sorrow and suffering[651].
This same Dr. Bayer writes in the style of an intelligent practical
physician, inveighs boldly against the prejudices of mankind, and
the ignorance of medical _journeymen_, and against their senseless
bleedings whenever they see the barber’s basin and his pole. Some of
his advice too is not bad, especially where he is speaking of the
Arabian use of harmless syrups. He, however, religiously preserves
all the rubbish of his age, and has a great opinion of preventive
bleedings, purgatives, and powerful medicines, of which he prescribes
so many that his reader is necessarily confused by their multiplicity.
His precepts respecting the sweat are very appropriate, for he gives
a caution against forcing perspiration, prescribes according to the
circumstances, and even commences the treatment with an emetic, if the
state of the stomach seems to indicate its employment. In order to
guard against contagion, he recommends, at the approaching autumnal
fair, that foreigners from “_dying lands_” _should be accommodated in
distinct inns_, that fumigation should be carefully employed, and that
before each booth at the fair a fire should be kept up.
Another pamphlet by Caspar Kegeler, of Leipzig, is a melancholy
monument of the credulity which, from Herophilus to the present day,
has pervaded the whole medical art. It is a regular pharmacopœia for
the Sweating Sickness, thrown together at a venture, without any
insight into the nature of the disease. A mine of wonderful pills
and electuaries composed of numberless ingredients wherewith this
“mysterious worthy” undertakes to raise a commotion in the bodies of
his patients. If he had but seen even a single case of the disease he
would at least have known how impossible it would be to administer,
within the space of four-and-twenty hours, the hundredth part of his
pills and draughts. With what approbation this little pharmacopœia
was received by physicians of equal penetration and understanding as
himself, is shewn by the eight editions which it passed through[652],
and the melancholy reflection is therefore forced upon us, that
possibly thousands of sick persons were maltreated and sacrificed from
the employment of Kegeler’s medicines.
A third physician at Leipzig, Dr. John Hellwetter, states in his
pamphlet, that he has become acquainted with the Sweating Fever in
foreign countries, and on the subject of perspiration gives some very
good advice, evidently the result of his own experience, which reminds
us of the original English mode of treatment. His notion that fish
is injurious seems to have originated in the fact that the continued
employment of fish as an article of diet gives rise to offensive
perspirations, and his admonition to his medical brethren not to flee
from the sick, but to visit them sedulously and give them consolation,
furnishes ground for supposing that some of them had been pusillanimous
and dishonourable enough to withdraw themselves or to refuse their
assistance to the poor.
Almost all the medical men of those times were in possession of arcana
which they employed either in all or at least in most diseases, in
a very unprofessional manner, and the efficacy of which the sweet
delusions of self-interest did not permit them to call in question. The
severe metallic remedies of the Spagyric school, which was then in its
infancy, were not yet introduced, but there were not wanting strong
heating medicines from the ancient stores of the empyrics, which almost
universally obtained the preference over the mild potions and syrups of
the Arabians. Hellwetter sold a powder of unknown composition, and a
number of distilled waters, which Dr. Magnus Hundt, of Leipzig, notices
with much approbation. The pamphlet of this physician is in every
respect of the most ordinary kind; it affords no proof that the author
had any sound comprehension of the disease, and belongs to that class
of low medical compositions which, in times of danger, is so easily
derided by the public, and so much diminishes the estimation of the
profession, to the material injury of the general welfare.
It must not, however, be supposed that the people, who in such times
of commotion often confound together the good and the bad, listened
everywhere so readily to these pamphleteers. The composition of one
Dr. Klump, at Ueberlingen, who, on the breaking out of the disease,
attacked his patients with theriac and all kinds of heating plague
powders, excited great derision[653], and it cannot be denied that the
people had on their side, at least occasionally, the advantage of sound
sense, as opposed to the endless prescriptions of the physicians, and
it is gratifying to observe how this sound sense, which doubtless was
guided by respectable medical men, operated in a great many towns to
the advantage of those affected.
This is proved by a pamphlet, written in popular language, by a
physician in Wittenberg[654], which contains such correct medical
views, that our highest approbation is, even now, justly due to its
unknown author, as shewing, throughout, great judgment and a very
competent knowledge of the Sweating Fever. His whole treatment is
mild and cautious; he forbids the use of feather beds, but strongly
inculcates the necessity of avoiding every kind of chill, and therefore
recommends a practice in use at that time, called, “_the sewing of
the sick_,” that is to say, fastening the edge of the bed clothes to
the bed with a needle and thread. He orders his patients a moderate
quantity of warm but not heating beverage[655], refreshes them with
syrup of roses, and impresses upon his readers that the majority of
those affected will recover without medicine. In order to guard against
the stupor which was so exceedingly fatal, in addition to continual
conversation, refreshing odours of rose water and aromatic vinegar were
held before the patient’s nose, in a moderately damp cloth, or their
temples were cautiously bathed with them. Convalescents were watched
with great care, and it is not the least excellence of this very
sterling pamphlet that it likewise combated the timidity of the sick
with the inculcation of mild, but manly, religious principles, such as
corresponded with the spirit of that age. The rules here laid down are,
in essentials, the original English precepts which had already broken
the force of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in the year 1485, and the
author does not conceal his having in this matter received information
from Hamburgh, so far back as the 7th of August. That by this mode of
treatment not only individual patients[656] were saved, but also that
whole cities were protected against any very great mortality, we are
willing with the author to believe, and on this account we cannot but
lament the more, that the medical science of the rigid schools of those
days so completely mistook its office as the guardian of life, and
that it caused greater sacrifices by its hazardous remedies than the
pestilence would otherwise have occasioned.
How soon the English treatment met with the recognition which it
deserved may be gathered from a Latin composition nearly of the same
tenour as the above, and which appears to be an extract from some
German pamphlets[657]. Besides aromatic odoriferous waters, the
very harmless and only remedies therein recommended are pearls and
corals given internally by tablespoonfuls in warm rose water. As a
prophylactic, treacle, which was in very common use, was recommended to
be taken in the juice of roasted onions, but only in very small doses.
Similar just views with respect to the excitement of perspiration were
also subscribed to by other physicians[658], and finally the great
council at Berne, on the 18th of December, published an exhortation to
patience and unshaken courage, in which the use of feather beds, and
of all medicines, except cinnamon water, was earnestly deprecated[659]
during the disease. The court of Holland also recommended a method
of cure[660] apparently English, these two documents being the only
traces, on the part of any governments, of a paternal solicitude for
their subjects.
The learned and accomplished _Euricius Cordus_[661], of Marburg, had,
when he wrote[662], no information respecting the successful English
mode of treatment, and, with all his celebrity, only followed in the
ranks of ordinary advisers. He could not free himself from the medical
precepts which he brought from Italy and gave to the only patient
at Marburg, who was the subject of the Sweating Sickness, the very
disagreeable, though much employed potion of “Benedetto.”[663] His
prophylactic ordinances were very burthensome, though with respect
to the frequent employment of purgatives, which at that time almost
all physicians recommended, it must be taken into account, that the
intemperance so prevalent in those days, rendered them in general more
necessary, perhaps, than they are at the present time. Bishop Ditmar of
Merseburg, has betrayed to posterity, that this celebrated man had a
great dread of the new disorder, and did not conceal his anxiety[664].
There is still extant a very complicated prescription of _Achilles
Gasser_[665], the learned physician of Augsburg, which he employed
with childish confidence[666] during the prevalence of the sweating
pestilence. We might class this with a thousand others of a similar
character, were it not evident how little medical art, at that time in
its ancient Greek garb, was suited to the exigency of the age, being
dull, inefficient, and long since robbed of its original spirit; for
thus alone was it taught in the universities.
In the copious epistle of Simon Riquinus to the Count of Newenar at
Cologne[667], traces of better principles are indeed observable,
which were soon disseminated from Hamburgh all over Germany, yet the
prophylactic measures recommended are not much better than those in use
in the time of the Emperor Antoninus, when the Theriaca of Andromachus
was among the necessaries at the Roman court. Riquinus incidentally
tells a story of a peasant in the neighbourhood of Cleve, who, having
become affected by the English Sweating Sickness, crept as quickly
as he could into a baker’s oven that was still hot, and after some
time, again made his appearance in an exhausted state[668]. This very
circumstance proves that the man laboured under only an imaginary and
not a real sweating fever, but the belief that the bread which was
afterwards baked in this oven was infected with the poison, can only be
attributed to the credulity of the learned physician.
The Count of Newenar[669] expresses himself on the subject of the
sweating fever, like a person well informed, and not unacquainted
with medical subjects, and endeavours to prove the critical nature of
the sweat by the frequent practice of the empyrics, to throw persons
afflicted with the plague, at the very beginning of the attack, into
a profuse perspiration[670]. He takes the opportunity to relate of
an unprincipled physician, that he freed himself in this manner from
the plague, in a public bath, while those who came after him became
every one of them affected with the disease and died. According to his
account, the English Sweating Sickness was by no means fatal in and
about Cologne[671], yet we find it with all its original malignity on
the banks of the Scheldt, and in the maritime towns of the Netherlands.
This plainly appears from the pamphlet of a physician in great practice
at Ghent, Tertius Damianus, from Vissenaecken, near Tirlemont[672],
whose own wife fell sick of the sweating fever, and fortunately was
again restored[673]. The cases whereof Damianus gives an account,
are among the most marked of which any mention is made, and it also
seems, that the disease, contrary to the opinion of many, arose from
fear alone, and manifested in the Netherlands a much greater power
of contagion than in Germany, to which the hot treatment may have
contributed[674]. The manner in which Damianus restrained his patients
from indulging in their propensity to sleep, is worthy of notice. When
the usual means failed, he directed that their hair should be torn
out, that their limbs should be tied together in painful positions,
and that vinegar should be dropped into their eyes[675]: the danger
justified these means, but violence does not easily attain its end. For
the rest, the views of this physician do not differ from those commonly
entertained, and if he complains[676] of the great extortions of the
apothecaries, this was a natural effect of the customary prescriptions,
whereof he himself recommends many that are very objectionable.
Whatever the science of medicine of the sixteenth century could oppose
to so fearful an enemy, is set forth in the very excellent treatise of
_Joachim Schiller_[677] of Freiburg, which, however, did not appear
until two years later, and unfortunately does not give the wished-for
information on the development of the pestilence in the Briesgau.
Schiller is moderate in his views, and shews throughout, that he is a
very well informed physician, and well versed in Greek literature: and
although he cannot steer clear of the rubbish of clumsy remedies, yet
the fault should not be charged on him, but on the age in which he
lived. This, like every other, had its evils, and enveloped in clouds
and darkness the genius of medicine, which, free, great, and elevated
above human short-sightedness, is respected only by the intellectual
servants of nature.
SECT. 12.—FORM OF THE DISEASE.
The notions of contemporary writers respecting the phenomena and
the course of the sweating epidemic are, it is true, individually
unsatisfactory and defective[678]; yet collectively, we may gather from
them a lively and complete picture of its effect on the human frame;
especially from the German observers, who reported truly and honestly
their own, as well as the general experience of their age; for the
English had up to that period described little more than the external
appearances of this epidemic, which had already attacked them for the
fourth time.
It is ascertained that the _Sweating Fever was in general very
inflammatory_; and, leaving out of the account its sequel, _came to
a crisis at most in four and twenty hours_; yet, within this narrow
limit as to time, very various symptoms occurred[679], so that by a
more exact observation than could be expected from the physicians of
those days, several gradations of its development and violence might
have been distinguished from each other. Thus one form of this disease
appeared that was wanting in precisely that symptom which was the most
essential, namely, the colliquative sweating[680], (as in the most
dangerous form of cholera, neither vomiting nor purging takes place,)
and which, by its overpowering attack, either destroyed life within a
few hours, or perhaps took some other turn of a nature unknown to us.
Premonitory symptoms were wanting altogether, unless we may reckon as
such, first, an anguish, combined with palpitation of the heart, which
may not have been of corporeal origin, but may have proceeded from
the general alarm; or secondly, an irresistible sinking of the powers
resembling a swoon, which, perhaps, preceded the disorder, in the
same manner as it had preceded the general eruption of the plague in
northern Germany[681]: or thirdly, rheumatic pains of various kinds,
which were frequently felt in the summer of 1529[682]; or finally,
a disagreeable taste in the mouth and foul breath, which were very
commonly the subject of complaint at that time[683].
In most instances the disease set in like the generality of fevers,
with a _short shivering fit_[684] and trembling, which in very
malignant cases even passed into convulsions of the extremities[685];
in many it began with a moderate and constantly increasing heat[686]
either without any evident occasion, even in the midst of sleep, so
that the patients on waking lay in a state of perspiration, or from a
state of intoxication, and during hard work[687], especially in the
morning at sunrise[688]. Many patients experienced at the commencement
a disagreeable _creeping sensation_ or _formication on their hands
and feet_[689], which passed into pricking pains, and an exceedingly
_painful sensation under the nails_. At times likewise it was combined
with rheumatic cramps, and with such a weariness in the upper part of
the body, that the sufferers were totally incapable of raising their
arms[690]. Some were seen during these attacks, especially women and
those who were weak, with their hands and feet swollen[691].
Serious affections of the brain quickly followed; many fell into a
state of violent feverish delirium[692], and these generally died[693].
All complained of obscure _pain in the head_[694]; and it was not
long before an alarming _lethargy_ supervened[695], which, if it
was not firmly resisted, led to inevitable death by apoplexy. Thus
the unconscious sufferers were, at least, relieved from the pain
of separation from their friends, which would have been much more
distressing to them in this than in any other complaint, since they
lay, as it were, in a stinking swamp, tortured with suffering.
This mortal anguish accompanied them so long as they were in possession
of their senses, throughout the whole disease[696]. _In many the
countenance was bloated and livid_, or at least the lips and cavities
of the eyes were of a leaden tint; whence it evidently appears, that
the passage of the blood through the lungs was obstructed in the
same way as in violent asthma[697]; _hence they breathed with great
difficulty_, as if their lungs were seized with a violent spasm
or incipient paralysis; at the same time, _the heart trembled and
palpitated_ constantly under the oppressive feeling of inward burning,
which, in the most malignant cases, flew to the head, and excited fatal
delirium[698]. In the course of a short time, and in many cases at
the very commencement, the _stinking sweat_ broke out in streams over
the whole body, either proving salutary when life was able to obtain
the mastery over the disease, or prejudicial when it was subdued by
it—as is the case in every ineffectual effort of nature to produce a
cure. And in this respect, as in diseases of less importance, great
differences appeared according to the constitution of the patient;
for some perspired very easily, others, on the contrary, with great
difficulty, especially the phlegmatic, who, in consequence, were
threatened with the greatest danger[699].
In this severe struggle the _spinal marrow_ was sometimes, at a later
stage, so much affected, that even _convulsions_ came on; and it
happened not unfrequently, that, in consequence of the constriction
of the chest, the stomach indicated its excited condition by _nausea_
and _vomiting_[700]. These symptoms, however, manifested themselves
principally in those who were attacked with the disease upon a full
stomach.
Such is the testimony of the contemporary writers of 1529, to whose
accounts but little is added by Kaye, an English eye-witness of the
epidemic Sweating Sickness of 1551. The observations of this perfectly
trustworthy physician, so far as they relate to the form of the
disorder, may be here annexed, since no essential differences between
the diseases on these two occasions can be discovered. At the first
onset the disease in some attacked the neck or shoulders, and in others
one leg or one arm, with dragging pains[701]; others felt at the
same time a warm glow that spread itself over the limbs, immediately
after which, without any visible cause, the perspiration broke out,
accompanied by constant and increasing heat of the inward parts,
gradually extending towards the surface. The patients suffered from
a very _quick and irritable pulse_[702] and great thirst, and threw
themselves about in the utmost restlessness. Under the violent headache
which they suffered, they frequently fell into a talkative state of
wandering, yet this did not generally happen before the ninth hour,
and in very various gradations of mental aberration[703], after which
the drowsiness commenced. In others the sweating was longer delayed,
while, in the mean time, a slight rigor of the limbs existed: it then
broke out profusely, but did not always trickle down the skin in equal
abundance, but alternately, sometimes more, sometimes less. It was
thick and of various colours, but in all cases of a very disagreeable
odour[704], which, when it broke out again, after any interruption to
its flow, was still more penetrating[705].
Kaye adds to what we already know of the oppression of the chest, the
very important statement that those affected were observed to have
a _whining, sighing voice_, whence we have every reason to conclude
that there was a serious affection of the eighth pair of nerves. He,
moreover, describes a very mild form of the disease, such as was
prevalent in the south of Germany in 1529. It passed off under proper
care, without any danger, in the very short period of _fifteen hours_,
and was brought to a termination by moderate heat through the medium of
a very gentle perspiration[706].
It is remarkable that during this violent disorder neither the
_activity of the kidneys nor the evacuation by stool was entirely
interrupted_, for there passed continually turbid and dark urine,
although, as may be conceived, in small quantity and with great
uncertainty as to the prognosis; whereupon those physicians who judged
by the urine were not a little perplexed[707]. It was observed, too,
sometimes in the more easily curable cases, _that patients at the
moment when the perspiration broke out upon them passed urine in
great quantity_[708], on which account a French physician proposed to
draw off the water in those who suffered from this disease[709]; yet
this practice has no higher therapeutical worth than the excitement
of perspiration in diabetes or in cholera, and is, moreover, much
less practicable. That occasionally diarrhœa supervened, and even to
a degree which was not to be restrained, may be gathered from the
frequent medical directions as to how it ought to be arrested, which
Kaye also repeats[710]. In some patients, likewise, nature appears to
have effected a simultaneous crisis by the skin, the kidneys, and the
bowels.
Much more important, however, is the observation of a respectable Dutch
physician, that _after the perspiration was over_ there appeared on the
limbs _small vesicles_[711], which were not confluent, but rendered
the skin uneven, and these were not noticed by any other medical
observer, but are spoken of by the author of an old Hamburgh chronicle,
and, with this addition, that they had been seen on the dead[712]. By
these it is very likely that a _miliary eruption_, and perhaps spots
also, are to be understood; yet every thing militates against the
supposition that this phenomenon was constant, or that the Sweating
Fever was an eruptive disorder[713]. For in that case, some mention
would have been made of it in the numerous accounts of historians, many
of whom, doubtless, had themselves seen the disease, and the eruptions
would have been more evidently and decidedly formed in the numerous
relapses of those who recovered. They certainly indicate a relationship
with the miliary fever, but only in so far as that both diseases are
of rheumatic origin, and this slight participation in the nature of
an eruptive disease would seem to have been observed in the English
Sweating Sickness only in perfectly isolated cases. What would have
taken place under such an indication had the Sweating Sickness run a
longer course, whether, in fact, it might not possibly have passed
into a regular miliary fever, is a question unsolved by the past,
since even later transitions of this kind have never been observed.
The two diseases are, both in their course and their nature, perfectly
distinct from each other, and the miliary fever was not developed as an
independent epidemic until the following century, under circumstances
altogether different, and its more decided precursors are not to be
discovered until a period posterior to the five eruptions of the
Sweating Sickness.
The powers of the constitution were much shaken by the Sweating
Sickness, so that a rapid recovery was observed to take place only in
the mildest form of this disease. Those, however, whom it attacked more
severely, remained very feeble and powerless for at least a week, and
their restoration was but gradual, and effected only by great care and
strengthening diet. After the perspiration had passed off, the patient
was taken carefully from his bed, cautiously dried in a warm chamber,
placed by the fireside, and, as a first restorative, usually fed with
egg soup, yet the generality could not entirely get over the effects of
the fever for a long time. Those who had recovered could seldom go out
so early as the second or third day[714].
Those patients were placed in still greater danger _in whom the
perspiration was in any way suppressed_: most of them were consigned
to inevitable death, (the popular voice ever since the year 1485
confirms this.) Over those, however, in whom the powers of life were
roused to a renewed effort, there broke out, after a short period, a
new perspiration far more offensive than the first; so that the body
dripped as it were with a foul fluid, and it seemed as if the inward
parts wanted to disburthen themselves at once of their putridity by
an immoderate effort[715]. It is clear that this repetition of the
attack must have been destructive to many who, had it not been for
an obstruction of the crisis, would have been saved; for nothing is
more dangerous in inflammatory diseases than when those secretions are
interrupted which Nature has ordained as the only means of relief.
Relapses were frequent, because convalescents, after the disease was
subdued, remained for a long time very excitable. These were seen for
the _third and fourth time seized with the Sweating Sickness_[716],
nay, later writers notice _a repetition of the disease even to the
twelfth time_[717], whereby at least the health was completely
shattered, for dropsy or some other destructive sequelæ supervened,
until death put a period to incurable sufferings, and it is important
to observe that even the bowels participated in the great excitability
of the system, for _too early an exposure to the air easily brought on
diarrhœa_[718].
How great the decomposition of the organic matter was is convincingly
proved from all the testimony hitherto adduced, but it might have
been inferred from the very rapid putrefaction of the body, which
rendered it necessary everywhere to use the greatest despatch in the
performance of burials[719]; and fortunately did away with all fear of
being buried alive. Of post mortem examinations we have no information,
and even if they could have been instituted, they would, from the
manner of conducting researches in those times, scarcely have thrown
any important light on the disease. Hardly any physicians but those
who had studied in Italy knew the inward structure of the body from
their own observation, superficial as it was; the rest learned it
only from Galenic manuals; how could they with such slender knowledge
have distinguished between healthy and diseased parts? Moreover, the
Sweating Sickness could not in so short a period cause such a palpable
and substantial destruction of the viscera as they would alone have
sought for. Details respecting the condition of the blood in the dead
body, which after such an enormous loss of watery fluid, such severe
oppression at the chest, and so great an impediment to the function
of respiration, would in all probability be thickened and darkened in
colour, as well as respecting the condition of the lungs and of the
heart, it would be highly desirable to obtain; but these likewise are
wanting altogether, and after the lapse of so long a period there only
remains room for conjectures.
The observation was repeated in Germany which had been so frequently
made since the year 1485, that the middle period of life was especially
exposed to the Sweating Fever. Children, on the contrary, remained
almost entirely exempt from this disease, and when the aged were
affected by it, it was as individual exceptions to a general rule[720],
and this as it would appear, only during the height of the epidemic; as
for example at Zwickau, where a woman of 112 years of age was carried
off by it[721]. We have already in part discovered the cause of this
perfectly constant phenomenon in the luxurious mode of living of robust
young men, and if we look back to the moral condition of the Germans
in the 16th century, we find among them the same immoderate luxury
as among the English, the same drunkenness, the same intemperance at
their frequent banquets, where the wine-cups and beer-jugs were emptied
with but too eager draughts; finally, also, the same relaxation of
skin consequent upon the use of warm baths and warm clothing. All
contemporary writers mention these circumstances[722], and our bold
forefathers, with respect to these matters, were not in the best repute
with their southern neighbours.
But we have, moreover, to survey the disease in another point of
view, namely, in relation to its peculiar character. In the outset we
designated _the Sweating Sickness as a rheumatic fever_, and if we take
the notion of a rheumatic affection, as in propriety we ought, in its
widest acceptation, weighty and convincing grounds have been adduced
in the course of our whole inquiry in confirmation of this view. When
we observe that those very nations were visited by the Sweating Fever,
which are characterized by a fair skin, blue eyes, and light hair—the
marks of the German race, it may with justice be assumed, that even
this peculiarity in the structure of the body rendered it susceptible
of this extraordinary disease. It is this which causes the proneness
to fluxes of all kinds, and which makes these diseases endemic in the
north of Europe, whilst the dark-haired southern nations and the blacks
in the tropical climates remain, under similar circumstances[723], more
free from them. If it be remembered further how overcharged with water
were the lower strata of the atmosphere in which the pestilent Sweating
Fevers existed, what thick and even offensive mists prepared the way
for the disease and indicated its approach, what rapid alternations of
freezing cold and excessive heat took place in the summer of 1529; and,
moreover, how frequent all kinds of fluxes were in this very year, the
complete form of the rheumatic constitution will be recognised in every
individual feature.
Did we possess in the showy systems of modern times a maturer knowledge
of the electricity of living bodies, much light would of necessity
hence be thrown on the great object of our research. We should not
then be compelled to rest satisfied with the fact that a cloudy
atmosphere abstracts electricity from the body, robs the skin and
lungs of their electrical atmosphere, disturbs their mutual electrical
relation with the external world, and by this disturbance prepares the
body for rheumatic indisposition, with all that peculiar decomposition
of the fluids, irritable tension of the nerves, fever, and painful
affection of particular parts, with which it is accompanied. If this
disturbance be represented according to certain new and inviting
hypotheses, supported by some important facts[724], as being perhaps
an accumulation of electricity in the interior of the body, owing to a
morbid, isolating activity of the skin, we may expect a more perfect
knowledge of the nature of rheumatism through the medium of future
diligent researches; and until these be made, some evident signs
of connexion between rheumatic affections and the English Sweating
Sickness will perhaps be sufficient to demonstrate the rheumatic nature
of this latter disease.
In the first place, the very great _susceptibility of those affected
with the Sweating Fever to every change of temperature_—the decidedly
great danger of chill. In no known disease does this irritability of
the skin shew itself in so prominent a degree as in rheumatic fevers
and in those non-febrile fluxes in which there even exists a very
evident sensitiveness to _metallic_ action.
Secondly, _The tendency of the rheumatic diathesis to come to a crisis
through the medium of a profuse, sour and offensive perspiration_
without any assistance from art[725]. The English Sweating Sickness
manifests this commotion of the organism in the most exquisite form
hitherto known; for it admits of no kind of doubt that the sweat in
this disease was of itself, and in itself, critical, in the fullest
acceptation of the term.
Thirdly, _The peculiar alteration in the fundamental composition of
organic matter_ in rheumatic diseases, in consequence of which volatile
acids of a strange odour are prevalent in the sweat, and urine, and
animal excretions. The English Sweating Sickness exhibits also this
result of morbid activity in a greater and more striking manner than
any other disease. Nor can we regard the tendency to putridity, which
has been observed, as any thing but an increased degree of this
condition.
Fourthly, _The shooting pains in the limbs_, the most decided sign of
rheumatism, were not wanting in the English Sweating Sickness; nay,
they became developed even to the extent of an incipient paralysis,
and even the convulsions of those affected with this disease may not
unjustly be attributed to the same source.
Fifthly, _The tendency of rheumatism when it takes an unfavourable
course to pass into regular dropsy_, which is a consequence of the
peculiar decomposition, manifested itself in the Sweating Fever in so
marked a manner that the dropsy itself gradually destroyed the patient.
Should the sceptical still need another link in the comparison, we may
adduce the miliary fever, a disease of decidedly rheumatic character.
We must not, however, take as our standard the degenerate forms of
miliary fever existing in modern times, but those grand and fully
developed forms of the disease which occurred in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and in which we find a similar odour in the perspiration,
the same oppression, and the same inexpressible anguish, with
palpitation and restlessness. The arms became enfeebled as if seized
with paralysis, violent pains of the limbs set in, and unpleasant
pricking sensations in the fingers and toes, resembling in all these
particulars the Sweating Sickness, only pursuing a more lengthened and
irregular course, and becoming developed altogether in a different
manner.
_According to this representation, the English Sweating Sickness
appears as a rheumatic fever in the most exquisite form_ that has ever
yet been seen in the world, violently affecting the vitality of the
brain and spinal marrow with their nerves, without, however, at all
molesting the plexuses of the abdomen. _The immoderate excretion of
watery fluid_, which in the mild cases alone took place, through a
spontaneous curative power, while in the malignant forms it betokened
paralysis of the vessels and an actual colliquation, directs our
attention further to the _consequent state of inanition_, which very
probably passed into a _stagnation of the circulation_, in the same
manner as takes place after every other sudden loss of the fluids,
whether from sanguineous effusion or evacuations by vomit and stool.
Hence the uncommonly rapid course of the disease, and partly, too, the
fatal stupor[726]; hence, likewise, the very pardonable misconception
with respect to the nature of the Sweating Fever existing even in more
modern times. The sequela was more important and more fatal than the
original rheumatic affection itself, which in its minor forms was mild
and easily managed.
And thus is explained the wonderfully fortunate result of the old
English treatment, which prevented this sequela, and avoided increasing
the already too powerful efforts of nature to effect a cure. We
have, therefore, nothing further to add to this judicious and truly
scientific practice but our unqualified approbation; _for it is the
part of the physician, in diseases which have a spontaneous power of
curing themselves, to leave this power free scope to act, and merely
by fostering care to remove all obstacles to its exercise_. Should it
be the destiny of mankind to be again visited by the disease of the
sixteenth century, (and it is by no means impossible that at some time
or other similar events may recur,) we would recommend our posterity to
bear in mind this eternal truth, and to treasure up the golden words of
the Wittenberg pamphlet, namely, to guard the healing art from strange
and unnatural farragos, _for it is only when it is subordinate to
nature that it bears the stamp of reason—the mistress of all earthly
things_.