HomeSECT. 3.-CAUSES.It was thought remarkable, even at that time, that the Sweating Sickness did not extend beyond the limits of England, and that, remaining the unenviable property of that nation, it did not even spread to Scotland, Ireland, or Calais, which belonged to Britain. Much, doubtless, was owing to the peculiarity of the climate, more still to atmospherical changes, and something also to the habits of the people and the circumstances of the times. It plainly appeared in the sequel that the English Sweating Sickness was a spirit of the mist, which hovered amid the dark clouds. Even in ordinary years, the atmosphere of England is loaded with these clouds during considerable periods, and in damp seasons they would prove the more injurious to health, as the English of those times were not accustomed to cleanliness, moderation ___________________________________________ [1] See the author's History of Medicine, Book
II. p. 311.
tin their diet, or even comfortable refinements. Gluttony was
common among the nobility as well as among the lower classes; all were
immoderately addicted to drinking, [1] and the manners of the age
sanctioned this excess at their banquets and their festivities. If we
consider that the disease mostly attacked strong and robust
men-that
portion of the people who abandoned themselves without restraint to all
the pleasures of the table-while women, old men, and children,
almost entirely escaped, it is obvious that a gross indulgence of the
appetite
must have had a considerable share in the production of this
unparalleled plague. To this may be added, the humidity of the year 1485, which is
represented by most chronicles as very remarkable. [2] Throughout the
whole of Europe the rain fell in torrents, and inundations were
frequent. Damp weather is not prejudicial to health if it be merely
temporary, but if the rain be excessive for a series of years, so that
the ground is completely saturated, and the mists attract baneful
exhalations out of the earth, man must necessarily suffer from the
noxious state of the soil and atmosphere. Under these circumstances
epidemics must inevitably follow. The five preceding years had been
unusually wet, [3] 1485 proved equally so; the last hot and droughty
summer was that of 1479. Extensive inundations of the Tiber, the Po,
the Danube, the Rhine, and most of the other great rivers took place in
1480, and were attended with the usual consequences, the deterioration
of the air, misery, and disease. [5] The greatest inundation ever
remembered in England was that of the Severn, in October, 1483. It was
long afterwards called the Duke of Buckingham's Great Water, [6]
because it frustrated the rebellion of this powerful subject against
Richard III., whom he had been instrumental in placing upon the throne;
and consequently defeated also the first enterprise of Henry VII. It
lasted full ten days, and the tremendous ravages occasioned by the
overwhelming torrent dwelt long in the memory of the people. [1] The luscious Greek wines were at this time the
most in vogue, especially Cretan wine, Malmsey, and Muschat. Lemnius,
de compl. L. II. fol. 111. b. Reusner, p. 70. [3] Spangenberg, Mansf. Chr. fol. 395. f. SECT. 4.-OTHER EPIDEMICS.During the whole of this period the nations of Europe were
visited
with various and destructive plagues. In 1477, the Buboplague broke out
in Italy, and raged without interruption till 1485. [1] It was
accompanied by striking natural phenomena, among which we may reckon an
enormous flight of locusts in 1478 [2] and 1482, and remarkable
intercurrent diseases, such as inflammatory pain in the side,
throughout the whole of Italy in 1482. [3] In Switzerland and Southern
Germany malignant epidemics [4] appeared in the train of drought and
famine in 1480 and 1481, while putrid fever accompanied by phrenites,
[5] prevailed in Westphalia, Hesse, and Friesland. There had never been
in the memory of the inhabitants of these districts so many ignes fatui
as during this period. There too the people suffered from the failure
of the harvest, so that it was necessary to obtain supplies from
Thuringen. [6] France, where, under the fearful reign of Louis XI.,
oppression and misery seemed to mock the gifts of heaven, became in
1482, after a two years' scarcity, the scene of a devastating
plague.
It was an inflammatory fever with delirium, accompanied by such intense
pain in the head that many dashed out their brains against the wall, or
rushed into the water; while others, after incessantly running to and
fro, died in a state of the greatest agony. According to the notion of
the age, this disease was attributed to astral influences, for it could
not have been brought on only by famine, which left to the poor
peasantry, south of the Loire, nothing but the roots of wild herbs to
support their miserable existence, [7] since the higher classes were
also frequently attacked. [8] This fever was without doubt accompanied [1] Campo, p. 132. Pfeufer, p.
32. [6] Spangenberg, Mansfeld. Chr.-fol. 396. a. [7] In many places women and children were obliged to
draw the plough, from the want of draught cattle; they were obliged too
to carry on the cultivation by night, that they might not be observed
by the
king's inhuman revenue officers.-Mezeray, Tom. II.
p. 750.
by inflammation of the meninges, or even of the brain itself,
and
was, perhaps, identical with that which at the same period desolated
the north-west of Germany as far as the shores of the North Sea,
only that it was heightened by the greater natural vivacity and
miserable
situation of the French people, who were kept in a state of perpetual
dread by the cruel executions of Louis. [1] This pestilence occasioned
the king to follow the advice of his morose physician [2] in ordinary,
and to keep himself closely confined within the town of Plessis des
Tours. It was prohibited under a heavy penalty to speak in his presence
of death which was carrying off its victims in all directions, and
forty crossbowmen kept guard in the fosse of the castle to put to death
every living thing which might approach. [3] Two years after, in 1484,
virulent diseases [4] again visited Germany and Switzerland; and thus
it seemed as if the nations were everywhere threatened with death and
destruction. SECT. 5.-RICHMOND'S ARMY.From these data, which might easily be extended, [5] it is
evident
that the Sweating Sickness of 1485 did not make its appearance without
great and general premisory events, which for a series of years
imparted to the people of England a susceptibility to dangerous and
unusual diseases. If, besides this, we take into account the gloomy
temperament of the English, and the general depression of their
spirits, in consequence of the sanguinary wars of the red and white
roses, a series of events which seems to have shaken their faith in an
overruling Providence, we may readily conceive that it would require
but a very slight impulse to excite [1] It is expressly affirmed by the historians that
many of
the higher classes were sleepless from the constant alarm and fear
of Tristan's sword. How greatly must such a condition have
predisposed the talud to receive this destructive fever! [3] Mezeray, loc. cit.
a powerful commotion in the mysterious mechanism of the human
body. This impulse was evidently given by the landing of
Richmond's army in
the very year when great and portentous evils were anticipated; for on
the 16th of March, the same day when Queen Ann, the unfortunate wife of
Richard III., expired, a total eclipse of the sun enveloped all Europe
in darkness, and gave rise to gloomy prognostications.[1] Even under
ordinary circumstances, wars begat pestilential disorders-how
much more inevitably must these have risen in the then existing state
of affairs!
Richmond's army consisted not of brave men animated by zeal to
avenge their dishonoured country or to serve a good cause. It was
composed of
wandering freebooters, "vile landsknechte," as they were called in
Germany, who assembled under his banner at Havre,-sharpshooters
formed under Louis XI., who recklessly pilaged Normandy, and whom
Charles
VIII. gladly made over to Henry, in order to free his own peaceful
territories from so great a scourge. [2] This army may not have been
worse than others of the same period; [3] but cooped up as they were
for a whole week in dirty ships, they doubtless carried about with them
all the material for germinating the seeds of a pestilential disorder,
which broke out soon after on the banks of the Severn and in the camp
at Litchfield. SECT. 6.-NATURE OF THE SWEATING SICKNESS.PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION.Before we proceed further, some account is here required of
the
nature of this disease. It was inflammatory rheumatic fever, with great
disorder of the nervous system. This assumption is supported by the
manner of its origin and its especial characteristic of being
accompanied by a profuse and injurious perspiration. [1] Spangenberg, Mansfeld. Chron. fol. 398.
a., and many other chroniclers. The reader will have the goodness to
observe, here and in similar places, that the text is not stating the
opinion of the
author, but the way in which these events were viewed in that age.
From the judgment that we are now capable of forming of the
pernicious influences which prevailed in the year 1485, it may, without
hesitation, be admitted that the humidity of that and of the preceding
years affected the functions of the lungs and of the skin, and
disturbed the relation of this very important tissue to the internal
organs of life. This is the usual commencement of rheumatic fevers,
which bear the same relation to the sweating sickness as slight
symptoms bear to severe ones of the same kind. The predominance of
affections of the brain and of the nerves, however, gave to the English
epidemic a peculiar character. The functions of the eighth pair of
nerves were violently disordered in this disease, as was shown by
oppressed respiration and extreme anxiety with nausea and vomiting,
symptoms to which the moderns attach much importance. [1] The stupor
and profound lethargy show that there was injury of the brain, to
which, in all probability, was added a stagnation of black blood in the
torpid veins. We must also take into the account a previous corruption
and decomposition of the blood, which, even if we should be disinclined
to infer their existence from the offensive perspiration of the disease
itself, were proved by striking phenomena of a similar nature that
occurred in Central Europe about the same time; for the scurvy
prevailed as an epidemic, more especially in Germany, in the year 1486,
and with such severe and unusual symptoms, that people were inclined to
regard it as a totally new malady. [2] Now such is the vital connexion
of different functions that every impediment to respiration, whether in
consequence of pressure from without, or through spasm and irritation
of the nerves from within, or even from a morbid condition of the
circulating fluid, infallibly calls forth the compensating activity of
the skin, and the body becomes suffused with an alleviating
perspiration. Thus it plainly appears that the profuse perspiration in the disease of which we are treating, notwithstanding its apparently injurious tendency, was the result of a commotion excited on the part of the lungs, which was critical with respect to the disease itself; and this is in accordance with all the causes of which we still have any knowledge. Noxious and even stinking fogs penetrated ___________________________________________ [1] Schiller, Sect. II. c. 1. p. 131.
b. [1] Schiller, loc. cit.
commotion, gave an impulse to the malady for which the
quality of
the atmosphere and luxury had long made preparation. Had this view of
contemporaries been even loss impartial than it really was, it would
have found. the most striking confirmation in the sudden cessation of
the pestilence throughout the whole country. For the destructive
spirits of air, which would not have been discerned even by the proud
naturalists of the nineteenth century, dispersed and vanished for half
an age in the fury of the tempest which raged on the 1st of January,
1486. CHAPTER II.THE SECOND VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.-1506."The times were rough and full of mutations and rare incidents."-Bacon.SECT. 1.-MERCENARY TROOPS.At the commencement of the sixteenth century, society was
very differently constituted from what it was at the period when Henry
the
VIIth unfurled his banner for victory. The darkness of the middle ages
had receded, as at the approach of a sun still hidden behind a cloud.
The mind unconsciously expanded in the unwonted light of day-the
whole earth was on the eve of renovation-new energies were to be
called
into action-events more stupendous had never occurred, nor had
more
creative ideas ever aroused the spirit of man. The invention of
Guttenberg burst
through the bonds of mental darkness, and gave to freedom of thought
imperishable wings; unsuspected powers successively developed
themselves; and, while in Western Europe an ardent desire arose boldly
to overstep the ancient limits of human activity, the hopes of the more
enlightened fell far short of the actual result of such unexpected
events. The discovery of the New World, and the circumnavigation of
Africa, laid the foundation for great improvements; yet the events in
Centra1 Europe, though less striking to contemporaries, were in their
consequences infinitely more important and beneficial. The
establishment of civil order among all the nations of the West took
place at this period, which forms so important a boundary between the
middle ages and modern times. Regal power was fixed on a firm basis,
and when the castles had fallen before the artillery of the princes and
imperial cities, so that the petty feudal barons were compelled to
swear obedience to the laws, an end was put to the incessant predatory
feuds which had so long desolated Europe, and the establishment of
internal peace was followed by the security of life and
property--the
first essential of refinement in manners and of the free development of
human society. This great result of a concatenation of circumstances was
not,
however, brought about without violent struggles and innovations, the
effects of which were felt for centuries; but it was probably the
establishment of standing armies which had the greatest influence
on European civilization. They became indeed the pillars of civil
order, but having proceeded immediately from the pernicious mercenary
system, they long nourished the seeds of unrestrained depravity, and
transmitted to later generations the corruptions of the middle ages.
The Lansquenets [1] (Landsknechte) of the emperor, and the mercenaries
of the kings of Franco and England, who, during the war, had joined the
smaller branches of the standing army, were homeless adventurers from
every country in Europe, and were allured, not by military ambition,
but solely by the prospect of booty. [2] In whatever country the drum
beat to arms, they flocked together like swarms of locusts- no
one knew
from whence-and defying the feeble restraints of military
discipline,
indulged, during the continuance of the war, in all the unbridled
licence of a predatory life. Hence the unbounded barbarity of their mode of warfare, which
was
restrained only by the individual exertions of more humane commanders.
There was, however, a decided contrariety between this system and the
moral condition of the people of Western Europe; a contrariety which
was never entirely removed by the subsequent introduction of a more
strict military discipline, and which has been done away only in modern
times, by the stablishment of regular armies on a system more congenial
to the feelings of the people. Hence the consequences were the more
pernicious, for when the armies were disbanded on the conclusion of
peace, the Landsknechts dispersed in all directions, not to follow the
plough again, or to resume their former occupations, but to pass their
time in idleness and dissipation, if enriched by booty, and if [1] The name passed into the French, English, and
Italian
languages-Lansquenet, Lancichinecho.
reduced to poverty by intemperance and gambling, to infest
the
country as mendicants or robbers, till a new war again summoned them
from their dishonourable mode of life. [1] Probably but very few were
ever able to rise from such deep degradation, and many fell early
victims to their vices, [2] while the infection of their example
brought fresh accessions from every town and village to the mercenary
legions. SECT. 2.-NEW CIRCUMSTANCES.It is evident that in such a condition of affairs, the effect
which
the plague produced on civil society must have been different from that
of former times. Pernicious influences which, during the middle ages,
had endangered the health of the inhabitants of towns, and had often
rendered disorders, naturally slight, in the highest degree malignant,
were for ever removed. Under this head may be mentioned more
particularly the ill-contrived construction of the houses and streets,
which even yet, in large cities, destroys the comfort of the
inhabitants of whole districts, and those not of the poorest class
only. As people acquired confidence in the security of peace, it ceased
to be necessary to protect every country town by fortifications. The
walls were thrown down, the stagnant moats were filled up, and as
people were no longer limited to a narrow space, they built more
convenient houses in airy streets; the dark alleys and damp dwellings
under ground were gradually abandoned, and a more comfortable mode of
living superseded the former misery. By this means the mortality was
considerably diminished, and the power of epidemics was checked; nor
can it be doubted, that the better administration of the laws greatly
obviated the dissolution of social ties in times of plague, and the
effects of superstition and religious animosity, which had formerly
been so frightful. These inestimable national improvements, however,
took place but gradually, and were not a little retarded for a time by
the new evil of the employment of mercenaries. For as the germs of vice
were scattered in all directions by the wandering Lansquenets, so also
the infection of noxious diseases found easier entrance into the towns
and villages through the medium of this dissolute and widely-spread
class of [1] 1518. "This year there was a great gathering of
the
Landsknechts, who, as soon as they had assembled, went forth from
Friesland, committed great ravages, and made an incursion into the
country at Gellern, and were beaten by Vernlow." Wintzenberger, fol.
23. a.
men. The Lansquenets of the sixteenth century, as spreaders
of contagion, supplied the place of the former Romish pilgrims and
flagellants; they even proved a more permanent scourge than those
wanderers of the middle ages, who only made their appearance on
extraordinary occasions. We need here only can to mind the malignant
and beyond measure noisome lues which at the end of the fifteenth
century spread with the rapidity of lightning over all Europe. It was
not an importation from the innocent inhabitants of the New World, nor
was it bred by the ill-treated Marrani, [1] the victims of the Spanish
Inquisition. It was the mercenary army of Charles the VIIIth in Naples
(1495), whose excesses gave to the already existing poison a malignity
till then unknown, and prepared for the deeply-rooted depravity a
scourge at which all the world shuddered with horror. It is, moreover,
in place here to observe that, in the larger armies which the new
military system now brought into the field, the ordinary camp diseases,
to which another very fatal one was added, [2] were of course much more
extensively propagated than in the less numerous forces of preceding
centuries, and consequently that the peaceful inhabitants of the towns
and of the country at large were thereby exposed to much danger. SECT. 3.-SWEATING SICKNESS.Meantime Europe was frequently and very severely visited by
the epidemics of the middle ages, the terrors of the constantly
recurring
plague being borne with gloomy resignation to the inevitable evil with
which, as a merited chastisement, the anger of God, according to the
notion of the times, afflicted the human race. Even the English were
not exempt from this fearful visitation, which, in the year 1499,
carried off 30,000 people in London alone, so that the king found it
advisable to retire with all his court to Calais. [3] Thus the
recollection of the Sweating Sickness of 1485 was gradually
obliterated. No one thought of its possible return, and all the world
was occupied with other matters, when the old enemy unexpectedly again
raised his head in the summer of 1506, and scared away this comfortable
state of false security. The renewed eruption of the epidemic was not,
on this occasion, connected with any important occurrence, so that
contemporaries [1] Those Moors were so called who, in order to remain
in Spain after the conquest of Granada, embraced Christianity.-Transl.
note.
have not even mentioned the month in which it began to rage.
Towards the autumn it had again disappeared, and as no new symptoms
were added to the disease, the form of which was identified by a
reference to the old descriptions, it was immediately treated by the
same means, the efficacy of which those who had witnessed the epidemic
of 1485 lauded with so much reason. [1] Every exposure to heat or cold
was, as at that time, avoided, and the malignant fever was left to the
curative powers of nature, the patient being kept moderately warm in
bed; and no powerful medicines being administered. The result was
beyond all expectation favourable, for in few houses did any fatal
cases occur. The victory over this dreaded enemy was now, by a
pardonable error, attributed more to human skill than to the mildness
of the malady on this occasion, which, even under a less judicious
treatment of the sick, would certainly not have been marked by any
considerable degree of severity. The disease broke out in London, but whether it penetrated to
the west or not, contemporary writers, being seen convinced of its
slight
character, have left us no intelligence. However widely it may have
spread, it certainly was confined to England, and nowhere occasioned
any great mortality. SECT. 4.-ACCOMPANYING PHENOMENA.As the epidemic was on this occasion so very mild, it was not accompanied by any remarkable phenomena in England, but the case was otherwise in the rest of Europe, as will be proved by the following details. After a wet summer, in the year 1505, a severe winter set in. [2] Comets were seen in this as in the following year. An eruption of Vesuvius also took place in 1506, which may be mentioned, although it is well established that volcanic commotions are to be taken into account only in great pestilences, not in less extensive epidemics. In England there blew a violent storm from the south-west, from the 15th till the 26th of January, 1506, which drove the king of Castille, Philip of Austria, with his consort Johanna, from the Netherlands to Weymouth; and as, some days before, a golden eagle falling from St. Paul's church, in London, had crushed a black eagle which ornamented some lower building, evil predictions were promulgated among the people respecting ___________________________________________ [1] Stow, p. 809. Fabian,
p. 689. Hall, p. 502. Grafton, p.
230. Holinshed, p. 536. Bacon, p.
225. [3] Webster, Vol. 1. p. 151. Franck, fol. 219. a. Pingré, T. I. p. 481.
the fate of this son of the emperor. [1] This event, however,
could not be considered as at all connected with the pestilence which
broke
out about half a year afterwards. More consideration is due to the
gloom and anxiety which at that time depressed the spirit of the
English nation. The reckless avarice of Henry the VIIth, named the
English Solomon, [2] gave just ground for doubts regarding the security
of property; and the pious foundations-those accustomed means of
softening the dreaded wrath of Heaven, which the king, who became
gradually more and more broken down by disease, established, could not
efface the recollection of the arbitrary violence and extortions of his
corrupt servants. [3] Although these extortions principally affected
the wealthy nobility, who were much in need of restraint, yet dark
mistrust was general, and all cheerfulness was banished from the minds
of the people. This state of feeling might have been favourable to the
propagation of the returning disease, but the genius of the year 1506
would not suffer it to be more than a slight and transient reminiscence
of a mystically hidden danger, the import of which was not apparent to
any medical inquirer of SECT. 5.-PETECHIAL FEVER IN ITALY, 1505.Thus, if we paid attention, as usual, only to the palpable
occurrences which take place on the earth and beneath its surface, the
Sweating Sickness of the above-mentioned year might appear to be
unconnected with more considerable commotions of organic life. The
powers of nature, however, are in their operations too subtle to be
comprehended by our dull senses and by the coarse mechanism of our
organs; nay, precisely at a time when neither the one nor the other
indicate any alteration around us, those operations bring to light the
most extraordinary phenomena in the human frame-that most
sensitive index of secret influences on life. This observation was
fully
confirmed at the time .of the first return of the sweating fever. For
whilst this disease remained confined to England, there appeared in the
southern and central parts of Europe a new and fatal epidemic, which
thenceforth [1] Bacon, p. 225. Stow, p.
809. Compare the other chroniclers, who most of them notice this event
in
great detail.
visited these nations almost continually with intense
malignity.
This was the petechial fever, a disease unknown to the older
physicians, which was first observed in 1490, in Granada, where it
threatened to annihilate the army of Ferdinand the Catholic, and made
great havoc also among the Saracens.[1] The bubo plague had immediately
preceded it (1483, 1485, 1486, 1488, 1489, and 1490), [2] and it may
with no small probability be assumed that the petechial fever had
resulted from this as a peculiar variety, since in other countries
also, fifteen years later, the bubo plague degenerated in various ways,
and examples are not wanting in which particular forms or constituent
parts of great epidemics thus branch off from them, in the same manner
as, under favourable circumstances, these will combine together, and
united into one destructive whole, multiply the sources of danger. Yet some contemporaries were of opinion that the petechial
fever
had been brought over to Granada [3] by Venetian mercenaries from
Cyprus, where they had fought against the Turks, and where this
disorder was said to have been indigenous. Notwithstanding some good
Works [4] already existing, this matter has need of a more thorough
examination, which might bring to light important and instructive
results, respecting the rise and spread of the petechial fever, and
especially respecting its relation to other plagues. Whatever may be
held with regard to the true origin of this fever, thus much is
established, that it was at first an independent European disease, and
that, at the commencement, having occupied the southern part of this
quarter of the world, it then became connected, in a manner as
extraordinary as it was worthy of observation, with the sweating
sickness of the north; since the nearly simultaneous eruption of the
sweating fever in England, with the great epidemic petechial fever in
the year 1505, may be justly attributed to an influence common to both,
although unquestionably of greater power in the latter. The epidemic petechial fever, of which we are now treating,
prevailed principally in Italy, and is described by Fracastoro as the
first plague of this kind which ever appeared in that [1] Villalba, T. 1. pp. 69. 99.-Ferdinand's
conflicts
with the Saracens began in 1481, and ended with the fall of Granada in
1492. The disease is called in Spanish Tabardillo, which
name, however, Villalba has not quoted at so early a period
as 1490.
country. Of this new disease, [1] which was placed by this
great
physician midway between the bubo plague and the non-pestilential
fever, the contagious quality showed itself from the beginning; yet it
was plainly perceived, that the contagion did not take effect so
quickly as in the bubo plague, that it was not conveyed so easily by
means of clothing and other articles, and that physicians and
attendants on the sick were the only persons who incurred much danger
of infection. The fever began insidiously, and with very slight
symptoms, so that the sick in general did not so much, as seek medical
aid. Many persons, and even physicians among the number, suffered
themselves to be deceived by this circumstance, and thus, not being
aware of the danger, they hoped to effect an easy cure, and were not a
little astonished at the sudden development of malignant phenomena. The
heat was inconsiderable, in proportion to the fever, yet those affected
felt a certain inward indisposition, a general depression of all the
vital powers, and a weariness as if after great exertion. They lay upon
their backs with an oppressed brain, their senses were blunted, and in
most cases delirium and gloomy muttering, with bloodshot eyes,
commenced from the fourth to the seventh day. The urine was usually
clear and copious at the beginning, it then became red and turbid, or
resembling pomegranate wine (granatwein), the pulse was slow and small,
the evacuations putrid and offensive, and either on the fourth or
seventh day red or purple spots, like flea-bites, or larger, or
resembling lentils (lenticulae), which also gave a name to the
disorder, broke out on the arms, the back, and the breast. There was
either no thirst at all, or very little; the tongue was loaded, and in
many cases a lethargic state came on. Others, on the contrary, suffered
from sleeplessness, or from both these symptoms alternately. The
disease reached its height on the seventh or on the fourteenth day, and
in some cases still later. In many there existed a retention of urine
with very unfavourable prognosis. Women seldom died of this fever,
elderly people still more rarely, and Jews scarcely ever. Young people,
on the other hand, and children died in great numbers, and especially
from among the higher ranks, while the plague, en the contrary, used
generally to commit its ravages only among the poorer classes. An
inordinate loss of power in the commencement betokened death, as also a
too violent effect from mild aperient means, and a failure in
alleviation after a complete crisis. Patients were seen to die who [1] It was called Puncticula or Peticulae, also Febris stigmatica, Pestis petechiosa. Reusner, p. 11. For later synonimes, see Burserius, Vol. II. p. 293.
had lost to the extent of three pounds of blood from the
nose. It
was also a very bad sign when the spots disappeared, or broke out
tardily, or were of a blackish-blue colour. Phenomena of an opposite
character, on the contrary, afforded hope of recovery. The best physicians were agreed on the importance of the
petechiae
as an indication of the nature of the crisis; for those cases in which
they were abundant and of a good quality were cured much more easily
than those in which the eruption was suppressed. An abundant
perspiration also was particularly conducive to recovery, whereas all
other evacuations, especially a flux from the bowels, proved to be
injurious and even fatal. If we keep these phenomena in view, and consider, moreover,
that in
the widely extending lues venerea of those times cutaneous eruptions
predominated over the other symptoms, the English sweating sickness in
the north of Europe will appear, as in connexion with this
circumstance, of a very important character; and the supposition, that
the morbid activity of the system during the whole of this age
maintained a decided determination to the skin, may thence be fairly
considered as something more than a mere conjecture. This fact speaks for itself, but the causes of this altered
temperament of the body it is not an easy matter to discover.
Fracastoro, who knew much better than his modern followers how to
manage his sagacious doctrine of contagion, looked for these causes in
the quality of the air, which was manifest by much more evident
phenomena in the epidemic petechial fever of 1528 than in that of 1505,
and he traced an active connexion between this quality, which he called
"infection of the atmosphere," [1] and the condition of the blood; thus
indicating unknown influences by an obscure notion. He considered the
altered quality of the blood according to the established views of that
period, which the petechial spotted fever seemed clearly to confirm, as
a putrefaction; and he even assumed that, in the non-epidemic petechial
fevers, which, from the year 1505 forward, frequently occurred,
isolated causes must have given rise to changes in the blood, as well
as that quality of the air, to which this great physician attributed
the general and continued alterations which take place in the nature of
diseases. [1] Consimilem ergo infectionem in aere
primum fuisse censendum est, quae mox in nos ingesta tale
febrium genus
attulerit, quae tametsi pestilentes ver non sunt, in limine tamen earum
videntur esse. Analogia vero ejus contagionis ad sanguinem praecipue
csse constat, quod et maculae illae, quae expelli consuevere,
demonstrant, etc., p. 161. The petechial fever made the same impression on the
physicians of
Italy as new disorders have ever made; for although they were the best
in Europe, their view was bounded by the horizon of Galen, within the
limits of which the novel phenomenon was not to be found. They were
therefore soon perplexed, and whilst they sought to entrammels the
dreaded enemy with scholastic doctrines of repletion and acrimony and
occult qualities, and betook themselves first to one remedy and then to
another, they exposed themselves to the derision of the people, who
soon perceived their disagreement and indecision, and, as usual,
charged on the whole medical profession the well-merited blame of
individuals. [1] SECT. 6.-OTHER DISEASES.About this same period, in October, 1505, a very fatal
disease
broke out in Lisbon, the further progress of which was marked by the
terror, the flight, and the confusion of the inhabitants. [2] Of what
kind it was whether a petechial fever or a bubo plague, and what
connexion it had with the pestilence in Spain which had just preceded
it, it would perhaps be difficult now to ascertain. This latter
pestilence had spread from Seville, following an earthquake, and
violent storms of wind and rain, in 1504, and may very likely have been
a bubo plague. Similar notices are met with of pestilences occurring in
that country in 1506, the year of the English sweating sickness, in
1507 and 1508, in which years mention is made of swarms of locusts in
the neighbourhood of Seville, and finally in 1510, the year of a great
influenza, [3] and 1515. Exact descriptions, however, of these
disorders are entirely wanting. [4] With all the above phenomena, the epidemics which took place
in Germany and France at the commencement of the sixteenth century,
evidently unite to form a connected whole. Varying in intensity and
extent, they continued without intermission for full five years, and
moreover were accompanied by unusual circumstances, such as occur only
in the time of great pestilences. The century was ushered in by the
appearance of a comet, [5] which, [1] Compare the whole of the sixth and seventh
chapters of Fracastor. loc. cit. What was the general
judgment of the Italian
physicians
respecting the spotted fever, may be gathered from Nic. Massa, whose
confused work, however, contributes nothing to the history of the
disease. Cap. IV. fol. 67, seq. Compare Schenck von
Grafenberg's excellent
and very copious treatise, de febre stigmatica. L. VI. p. 553, Tom. II.
[3] See further on. [4] Villalba, p. 78, et seq. [5] Spangenberg, 141. Chr. fol. 402. a. Angelus, p. 261. Pingré, T. I. p. 479.
on this occasion, seemed to confirm the long-cherished belief
that
the appearance of these heavenly bodies was prognostic of evil. For
mankind are in the habit of concluding that phenomena which are
simultaneous must have some internal connexion, and many examples were
called to mind in which great pestilences affecting the whole world had
been either preceded or accompanied by comets. [1] Immediately
afterwards a great murrain among cattle took place, which may have
proceeded from some injurious quality in their food. A notion
immediately arose that the pastures were poisoned, and of this there
was so firm a conviction, that the most violent resentment, as of old,
in the time of the black death, prevailed against the supposed
poisoners, and in the neighbourhood of Meissen some "böse Buben"
(wicked knaves) who had fallen under suspicion, were actually executed.
[2] A very considerable blight of caterpillars, which, in the
north of
Germany, stripped the gardens and woods far and wide of their foliage,
deserves to be here mentioned as a phenomenon appertaining to the lower
grades of the animal kingdom. [3] Natural history has shown that
occurrences of this kind are by no means occasioned by new and
wonderful influences, but rather by unusual combinations of
circumstances, appearing to occur together almost accidentally, at a
given time; especially by the simultaneous union of warmth and humidity
in the atmosphere, whereby sometimes one and sometimes another of the
lower grades of animal existences becomes extraordinarily developed. It
is on this account that unusual phenomena in the insect world, whether
it be the appearance or the disappearance of particular kinds, take
place much more frequently when the order of succession in the seasons
and the condition of the atmosphere are in a greater degree than usual
and more permanently disturbed; and thus those phenomena have, with
much reason, ever been considered as forerunners of pestilences,
whenever the human frame has become, through atmospherical causes,
generally susceptible of disease. Swarms of locusts have appeared
before and during most great pestilences, and indeed the exuberant
production of this insect appears, at least in Europe, to require the
most unusual combination of causes. [1] Compare Webster, who has collected
together
whatever
could be found on this subject. Vol. II. p. 28. SECT. 7.-BLOOD SPOTS.Of rarer occurrence, but quite as important in reference to
the
general tendencies of life, are the luxuriant growths of the
minutest cryptogamic plants in the water, and on
damp things of al kinds, which, from their spots of various forms
and colours, produced the utmost horror both before and during great
pestilences, and excited superstitious fears, as appearing to be
something miraculous. These spots (signacula), and especially the blood-spots,
were seen at a very early period, as for instance during the
great
general plague in the sixth century, [1] and again, during the plague
of the years 786 [2] and 959, when it is said to have been remarked,
that those on whose clothes they frequently appeared, and seemingly
imparted to them a peculiar odour, were more susceptible than other
people of attack from leprosy, on which account this spotted appearance
was inconsiderately called the clothes leprosy [3] (Lepra vestium); not
to mention other examples [4] in which plagues affecting the human
species did not take place. The same signs also, in the years from 1500
to 1503, threw the faithful into great consternation, because, as on
former occasions, they fancied they recognised in them the form of the
cross. [5] The phenomenon on this occasion spread throughout Germany
and France, and from its great extent and long duration, may be
reckoned among the most remarkable of the kind. The spots were of
different colours, principally red, but also white, yellow, grey, and
black, and arose, often in a very short time, on the roofs of houses,
on clothes, on the veils and neck handkerchiefs of women, on various
household utensils, on the meat in larders, &c. A historian, who
speaks also of blood-rain, [6] recounts that they could not be got rid
of in less [1] Author's History of Medicine. Book II. p.
146.
than ten or twelve days, and that they frequently occurred in
closed chests, on linen and on articles of clothing. [1] Much
information is not to be expected from the researches of the
naturalists of those times, but there is no doubt that what is
described was some one or more kinds of mould, [2] inasmuch as the
whole phenomenon evidently corresponds with modern observations.
Scientific physicians of the sixteenth century, among whom the
naturalist George Agricola, who was born in 1494, and died in 1555,
ought especially to be mentioned, recognised, even then, these spots as
lichens, and without seeking to account for them by supernatural
agencies, or lending credence to popular superstition, they gave them
their just interpretation as indications of extensive disease. [4]
Should the too bold notion of Nees v. Esenbeck, that fungi of the most
minute forms have their origin in the higher regions of the firmament,
and descending to the surface of the earth, produce spots and stains,
be confirmed, which is not yet the case, these "signacula" would have a
much more important connexion with epidemics than can be otherwise
conceded to them; for though it be highly probable that they have their
origin only in the dissemination of germs in the lower strata of the
atmosphere, it must yet be granted, that if they appear over a
considerable space, and during a long time, as at the commencement of
the sixteenth century, the causes favouring their generation and spread
must be ranked among those of an extraordinary kind, and on this very
account may exercise an influence over human organism, as was then
evident. For so early as the fruitful year 1503, the plague, which had
already appeared partially, made great advances, and France in
particular was visited by so fatal a pestilence, that the inhabitants
of towns and villages, in order to escape the infection, fled in bodies
to the woods, and even the house-dogs became wild, which never happens,
unless a country be extensively depopulated. [5] They were obliged to
establish great hunts, in order to free the [1] Angelus, p. 261.
country from these new beasts of prey, and from wolves which
appeared in great multitudes. [1] The dry and continued heat of the
following year, 1504, having given rise to still more extensive
sickness, and caused a failure in the crops, the bubo plague raged in
Germany with such violence, that in some places a third part, and in
others as many as half the inhabitants perished. Various kinds of
fevers accompanied this overwhelming disease, among which there was one
distinguished by head-ache and phrensy similar to that which appeared
in France, in 1482. [2] Various putrid fevers and putrid inflammations
of the lungs with bloody expectoration, are also no less plainly
discernible from the accounts. [3] This diversified and general
sickness throughout the whole of Germany, terminated in the cold winter
of 1504-5 and the following summer, during which there was a continued
murrain among cattle. It is certain, that at that time the petechial
fever in Italy had not yet passed the Alps. [1] Mezeray, T. II. p. 828. [2] See above, p. 174. CHAPTER III.THE THIRD VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.-1517. "This learned Lord, this Lord of
wit
and art,
This metaphysiek Lord, holds forth a Glasse. Through which we may behold in every part This boisterous prince."-Howell. [1] SECT. 1 .-POVERTY.THE ordinances of Henry the VIIIth, wich, although adapted to
the
times, bore hard upon the people, soon produced their fruits. The great
diminished the number of their servants, and as, moreover, many of the
peasantry were thrown out of employment in consequence of a conversion
of large tracts of arable land into pasture, [2] the population of
towns increased even to an overflow, and the consequent activity of
trade gradually rendered the towns flourishing. But this change took
place too rapidly. Wealth and luxury engendered, it is true, numerous
wants which were a source of gain, so that the English were at this
time considered luxurious and effeminate, [3] but there was a general
scarcity of workmen and artists, and hence it happened, that from
Genoa, Lombardy, France, Germany, and Holland, innumerable foreigners
immigrated and took possession of the most lucrative branches of
employment. This was a peculiar hardship on the natives, who, from
their imperfect knowledge of the arts, could not compete with the more
skillful foreigners, and were besides treated by them with insolence
and contempt. The distresses of the poor thus increased yearly, and
their indignation at length broke out. A great insurrection of the
English artisans arose throughout London, and might have proved
destructive to the foreigners, had affairs been in a less orderly
state. The popular commotion was however suppressed without any
considerable sacrifice, and Henry the VIIIth on a solemn day, appointed
at Westminster, for passing judgment upon the prisoners, bestowed a
pardon on them; for he saw into the causes of their discontent, and
very soon after caused restrictive alien laws to be enacted. [4] [1] From a Poem on Henry VIII. in Herbert of
Cherbury. [3] Lemnius, fol. III. b. SECT. 2.-SWEATING SICKNESS.All this took place in April and May of the ever memorable
year
1517, and London was again indulging in hopes of better days, when the
Sweating Sickness once more broke out quite unexpectedly in July, and
in spite of all former experience, and the most sedulous attention,
inexorably demanded its victims. On this occasion it was so violent and
so rapid in its course, that it carried off those who were attacked in
two or three hours, so that the first shivering fit was regarded as the
announcement of certain death. It was not ushered in by any precursory
symptoms. Many who were in good health at noon were numbered among the
dead by the evening, and thus as great a dread was created at this new
peril as ever was felt during the prevalence of the most suddenly
destructive epidemic: for the thought of being snatched away from the
full enjoyment of existence without any preparation, without any hope
of recovery, is appalling even to the bravest, and excites secret
trepidation and anguish. Among the lower classes the deaths were
innumerable.' The City was more- over crowded with
poor; but
even the ranks of the higher classes were thinned, and no precaution
averted death from their palaces. Ammonius of Lucca, a scholar of some
celebrity, and in this capacity private secretary to the king, was cut
off in the flower of his age, after having boasted to Sir Thomas More,
only a few hours before his death, that by moderation and good
management he had secured both himself and his family from the disease.
[2] Also of those immediately about the king, Lords Grey and Clinton
were carried off, besides many knights, officers, and courtiers.
Mourning supplanted the hilarity and brilliancy of the festivals, and
the king, while in miserable solitude, into which he had retired with a
few followers, received message after message from [1] "Of the common sort they were numberless, that
perished
by it." Godwyn, p. 23.
different towns and villages, announcing that in some a third, in
others even half the inhabitants were swept off by this pestilence. It
had never before raged with so much fatality. The minds of men had
never before been so frightfully appalled. The festival of Michaelmas
(29th September), which in England was always kept with much religious
pomp, was of necessity postponed; nor was the solemnity of Christmas
observed, for there was a dread of collecting together large assemblies
of people, [1] on account of the contagion; and just about this time,
when the Sweating Sickness had abated, the plague, according to the
account of some historians, began, which, although probably not very
virulent, prevailed during the whole winter in most English towns, and
continued to keep up the distress of the people. The king on this
occasion also quitted his capital, and retreated, in company with a few
attendants, before the contagion, frequently shifting his court from
place to place. It was during this period of trouble (11th of February,
1518) that the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen, was born. [2] Thus the Sweating Sickness lasted full six months, reached
its
greatest height [3] about six weeks after its appearance, and probably
spread from London over the whole of England. In Oxford and Cambridge
it raged with no less violence than in the capital. Most of the
inhabitants of those places were, in the course of a few days, confined
to their beds, and the sciences, which then flourished, for they were
never more zealously cultivated in England than at that time, suffered
severe losses by the death of many able and distinguished scholars. [4]
Scotland, Ireland, and all other countries beyond sea, were on this
occasion spared. The neighbouring town of Calais alone was reached [5]
by the pestilence; and according to later observations, it may be
considered as certain, that only the English who resided there, and not
the French inhabitants, were affected, as it is also ascertained that
the rest of France continued throughout free from the disease. Had this
not been the case, contemporary writers would undoubtedly not have
omitted to make mention of so important an occurrence. [1] Grafton, p. 294, is very detailed.
Compare Holinshed, p. 626. Baker, p. 286. Hall,
p. 592. SECT. 3.-CAUSES.The influences which gave rise to this third eruption of the
disorder among the English nation are obscure, and do not altogether
correspond with those of the years 1485 and 1506. Thus it is especially
remarkable that, on this occasion, there is no express mention of the
humidity which had so decided a share in the origin of the two former
visitations of the Sweating Sickness, and the year 1517 was in most
respects one of an ordinary kind. The English Chronicles state nothing
remarkable on the subject, and from those of Germany we only learn that
the winter of 1516 was very mild, and that a fruitful summer with an
abundant vintage [1] and a cold winter followed. The summer of 1517 was
unfruitful, although not on account of wet weather, so that in some
parts, especially in Swabia, provision was made against a scarcity. [2]
A great comet appeared in 1516, and in 1517 an earthquake was felt at
Tübingen, Nördlingen, and Calw, during a violent storm,
whereupon the
"Haupt Krankheit" [4] (encephalitis), accompanied by fever, became more
prevalent, although not remarkably fatal. [5] This phenomenon (the
earthquake) was by no means unimportant [6] in its effects, and there
is reason to suppose that it was followed by subterraneous commotions
of still greater extent, for earthquakes occurred also in Spain. [7] As
the date of this event is specified as the 16th of June, and as
earthquakes occurring in unusual localities, that is to say, in
districts not volcanic, are frequently cited as prognostics of great
diseases, although in volcanic districts they evidently betoken nothing
of the kind, we may hence with some reason assume a telluric influence,
which perhaps reached the locality of the pestilence that broke out at
the beginning of July, if [1] Spangenberg. M. Chr. fol. 408. a. [2] Crusius, T. II. p. 187.
not earlier. Besides, we cannot find any greater phenomenon,
which,
according to human conception, could have had a more unmediate
connexion with the English Sweating Sickness and in this instance, too,
inquiry the most circumspect does not penetrate through the thick veil
which envelopes the inscrutable causes of epidemics. SECT. 4.-HABITS OF THE ENGLISH.That, next to the peculiar constitution which England imparts
to
her inhabitants, the predisposing causes of the Sweating Sickness lay
in the habits of the English of those times, no one can possibly doubt.
The limitation of the pestilence to England plainly indicates this. Not
a single ship conveyed it to the French, or to the Dutch, who breathed
a much moister atmosphere; and yet the intercourse between the English
sea-ports and these immediately neighbouring nations was very frequent.
Of intemperance, which most generally lays the foundation for
disorders, both high and low were at this time accused. This vice of
the English was proverbial in foreign countries. [1] Flesh meats highly
seasoned with spices were indulged in to excess; noisy nocturnal
carousings were become customary, and it was also the practice to drink
strong wine [2] immediately after rising in the morning. Cyder, which
in some parts, as for instance in Devonshire, is the common beverage,
[3] was, even in these times, considered by medical men as injurious,
for it was observed that its use caused debility with paleness, and
sapped the vigour of youth in both sexes. [4] Other similar facts
respecting the mode of living at that time might perhaps be adduced,
from which it would appear that, owing to the total want of refinement
in diet, much that was improper was employed in English cookery, and
that on this account the constitution was much injured. Horticulture,
which the French had already brought to a state of great improvement,
[5] was still quite in its infancy in England. It is even said that
Queen Catherine had pot-herbs brought from Holland for the preparation
of salads, as they were not procurable in England. [1] "Il est saoul comme un Angloys."-Rondelet,
de dign. morb. fol. 35. b. [5] Le Grand d'Aussy, T. I. p. 143.
Allowing that this account may not be strictly true, since it
admits of other explanations, still it proves in itself what we would
here enforce, and leaves us to draw conclusions from it beyond the mere
fact of there being a scarcity of culinary vegetables. Much more
important, however, as respects our subject, was the custom of wearing
immoderately warm clothing, of which we have accounts worthy of
credence. From youth upwards the head was covered with thick caps, in
order to secure it from every chance of cold, and from the least
draught of air; and as, by this injurious practice, the brain was
subjected to a continual determination of blood, and a tenderness of
the skin was induced, there was no disorder more frequent among the
English in this century than catarrh, [2] which was constantly
reproduced by relaxing perspirations and heating medicines. If this
malady be complicated with a scorbutic habit, or if it befall persons
of debauched habits, whose vessels contain nourishment not properly
concocted, the preservative vital power seeks a vent through the
relaxed skin, and that which in itself is a needful and alleviating
excitement of this tissue becomes a disease; the wholesome excretion
degenerates into a colliquative drain, which forcibly carries off with
it unusual animal matters that ought not to pass away through such an
outlet, and the body yields to an attack to which it has been thus long
predisposed. When we consider this debilitated state of the skin as the
general complaint in England, taking into account the prejudicial
influence of hot baths, [3] which were much in use, and the diaphoretic
medicines employed in most disorders; when we bear in mind the rare use
of soap at that time, and the high price of linen, as also the extreme
indigence of the lower classes, which almost always breeds pestilences,
the utterly miserable condition and truly Scythian filth of the English
habitations, [4] and finally, the crowded state of London in the year [1] Hume, T. IV. p. 273. Aikin, p.
59.
1517, we shall, as far as human research can penetrate, find
the origin of the Sweating Sickness in this very year explicable from
causes which have long been known to be capable of producing such
effects. Something remains in the background, of which hereafter. SECT. 5.-CONTAGION.The rapid spread of the Sweating Sickness all over England as
far as the Scottish borders, and across to Calais, now demands a more
especial consideration. Most fevers which are produced by general
causes, as well transient (epidemic), as constant and peculiar to the
country (endemic), or a union of both, which almost always takes place,
and was here evidently the case, propagate themselves for a time
spontaneously. The exhalations of the affected become the germs of a
similar decomposition in these bodies which receive them, and produce
in these a like attack upon the internal organs; and thus a merely
morbid phenomenon of life shows that it possesses the fundamental
property of all life, that of propagating itself in an appropriate
soil. On this point there is no doubt,-the phenomena which prove it
have been observed from time immemorial, in an endless variety of
circumstances, but always with a uniform manifestation of the
fundamental law. All nations too, and from the most ancient times, have
invented ingenious designations for these occurrences, which, however,
seldom represent the general notion, but commonly only the peculiar
propagation of individual diseases. Certainly one of the best and the
most ingenious is that which is conveyed by the German word
"Ansteckung," "setting on fire," which compares the exciting a disease
in the appropriate body, with the inflammation of combustible matter by
the application of fire, or with the kindling of powder by a spark. But
how various are these "Ansteckungen!" from the purely mental,
on the one hand, which, through the mere sight of a disagreeable
nervous malady-through an excitement of the senses that shakes
the
mind, penetrates into the nerves, those channels of its will and of its
feelings, and produces the same disorder in the beholder, to those, on
the other hand, which propagate diseases that principally operate only
upon matter, and are distinguishable but little, if at all, from animal
poisons. The reader must not here expect all the features of a doctrine
which extends through the whole immeasurable domain of life. They are
clearly derived from the confirmed and well-applied experience of the
past, and have been delineated by men [1] who had not forgotten,
like their modern successors, to take a comprehensive view of epidemic
diseases. It may, however, be permitted me just to call to mind the
difference between those infectious diseases which are permanent and
for centuries together unchangeable, and those which are temporary
and transient. The infecting matter of the former
may
aptly be called the perfect or unchangeable in contradistinction to the
imperfect or mutable character of the latter. The former, when once
formed, whether in diseased persons or inanimate substances (fomites),
are always in existence, and are but called into activity by those
causes of general disease (epidemic constitutions) which are favourable
to their propagation; and it is to be remarked that under all
circumstances, and at all times, they excite the same unchangeable
diseases, and, varying only in particular ramifications or
degenerations and mild forms, never lose their proper essence. Examples
are furnished in the small-pox, the plague, the measles, and, if we may
include diseases not febrile, the leprosy, the itch, and the venereal
disease. The latter, on the other hand, are not always in existence,
they are called forth from nonentity, by the causes of general diseases
or epidemic constitutions, and they disappear again after the
extinction of the epidemic diseases by which they were bred; they
likewise vary in their development and their course in each particular
epidemic. Examples are found in the yellow fever, in catarrh or
influenza, in nervous and putrid fever, and, among many other
disorders, in miliary fever, a disease which first grew to a national
pestilence in the 17th century, and which, in the kind and manner of
its infecting power, approaches nearest to the sweating fever. To this
latter category the English Sweating Sickness likewise belongs; a
disease altogether of a temporary character, which, after its
cessation, left no infecting material behind, and consequently was
incapable of propagating itself after the manner of those diseases
which are completely contagious. The animal matters which were expelled
along with the profuse perspiration, and spread so horrible a
stench around the sick, contained amid. [1] Fracastoro, Fernel, Valleriola, Houlier, and
most of
the other learned physicians of the sixteenth century.
I would not, however, be understood to maintain that, during the three epidemics with which, up to the present stage of our inquiry, we have become acquainted, the spread of the sweating fever alone was occasioned by infection; for if the general epidemic causes were powerful enough to excite the disease, without any previously existing poison, why might they not produce the same effect still more independently throughout the course of the pestilence, since, as is the case in all epidemics, those causes in all probability continued to increase in intensity? That the plague grew worse on the occasion of any great assemblages of the people, was at that time known, and the notion of contagion thence very naturally arose. Yet, must it here be taken into account, that even without this notion, and merely from the assemblage itself of many people in whom the like malady. was germinating, and already had shown tokens of its approach, that approach might easily be accelerated, and the disease increased among those merely slightly indisposed, by the reciprocal communication of morbid exhalations. For as the predisposition to any malady, which is an intermediate condition between that malady and the previous state of good health, [2] plainly displays the properties of the disease in those whom it threatens to attack, so these exhalations (or epidemic causes which give rise to Sweating Sickness in the first instance) certainly differ from these which occur in a sweating sickness which has already broken out, only in unessential respects, and might consequently stimulate the mere disposition to the disease more and more, even to the actual eruption of the disease itself. Yet a contagion was like ___________________________________________ [1] - quod tulgaria diversoria parum tuta
sunt a contagio
sceleratae pestis, quae nuper ab Anglis-in nostras regiones
demigravit," speaking of the English Sweating Sickness in Germany
(1529). Erasm. Epist. L. xxvii. ep. 16. col. 1519. c.
wise in operation at the same time, which was destructive
even to
the temperate, and to those who were apparently in health, nay, even to
foreigners, who were living in an English atmosphere and on English
food, as the example of the Italian Ammonius plainly proves. [1] In all epidemics which increase to such a degree as to become
contagious, it is of importance to distinguish which of these causes
are the more powerful, the predisposing or epidemic causes, which
originate the proneness to the disease, or the proximate causes, among
which, in the generality of cases, contagion is the most prominent. The
predisposing were here evidently the more operative; contagion was not
added till the disease was at its height, and although it contributed
not a little to its spread, yet it always remained subordinate to the
other sources of the disease, and all the matter of infection vanished
without a trace, on the cessation of the disorder, so that the
subsequent eruptions of it were always produced by the renewal of those
general causes which are in operation upon and under the earth. It is,
however, as little within the compass of human knowledge to discover
the essential foundation of this renewal, as the proximate causes of
the appearance of the mould spots at the commencement of the sixteenth
century, or any other of those processes which are prepared and brought
into activity by the hidden powers of nature. SECT. 6.-INFLUENZAS.Several epidemics thus originating in causes beyond human
comprehension appeared in the 16th century. Among the most remarkable
was a violent and extensive catarrhal fever in 1510, of that kind which
the Italians call Influenza, thus recognising an inscrutable influence
which affects numberless persons at the same time. It prevailed
principally in France, but probably also over the rest of Europe, of
which, however, the accounts do not inform us, for in these times they
took little pains to record the particulars of epidemics which were not
of a character to affect life. According to recent experience we should
be warranted even in supposing that this malady had its origin in the
remotest parts of the East. During the whole of the winter, which was
very cold, violent storms of wind prevailed, and the north and middle
of Italy were shaken by frequent earthquakes; whereupon there followed
so general a sickness in France, that [1] Erasm. Epist. L. vii. ep. 4. col. 386.
we are assured by the historians that few of the inhabitants
escaped it. The catarrhal symptoms, which on the appearance of
disorders of this kind usually form their commencement, seem to have
been quite thrown into the background by those of violent rheumatism
and inflammation. The patient was first seized with giddiness and
severe headache; then came on a shooting pain through the shoulders,
and extending to the thighs. The loins too were affected with
intolerably painful dartings, during which an inflammatory fever set in
with delirium and violent excitement. In some the parotid glands became
inflamed, and even the digestive organs participated in the deep-rooted
malady; for those affected had, together with constant oppression at
the stomach, a great loathing for all animal food, and a dislike even
to wine. Among the poor as well as the rich many died, and some quite
suddenly, of this strange disease, in the treatment of which the
physicians shortened life not a little by their purgative treatment and
phlebotomy, seeking an excuse for their ignorance in the influence of
the constellations, and alleging that astral diseases were beyond the
reach of human art. [1] From this prejudicial effect of our chief antiphlogistic remedy, bleeding, as well as of evacuations from the bowels, we may conclude that the disease, though in its commencement rheumatic, yet had an essential tendency to produce relaxation and debility of the nerves, and in this respect, as well as in its extension to all classes, accorded with the modern influenzas, in which the same phenomena have manifested themselves, only much less vividly and plainly. The French, who, from the levity of their character, have always called serious things by jocose names, designate this disease "Coqueluche" (the monk's hood), because, owing to the extreme sensibility of the skin to cold and currents of air, this kind of hood was generally necessary, and was a protection against an attack of the malady, as well as against its increase. That in the accounts, which are, to be sure, very incomplete, there should be no express mention of any affection of the air-passages, is remarkable, since this could not in all likelihood have failed to exist; although it might perhaps have been only s lightly manifested. Nearly a century before (1414), this
affection
appeared far more prominently on the occurrence of a no less general
disorder of the same kind; so that all those who had the complaint,
suffered from a considerable hoarseness, and all public [1] Mezeray, T. II. p. 853. Paré, p. 823. Holler, Comm. II. in secund. sect. Coac. Hippocrat. p. 323.
business in Paris was interrupted on this account. [1] It was
on
that very occasion that the name Coqueluche was first employed, and
this having, as is well known, been transferred to the whooping-cough,
it is easier to suppose, with respect to the influenza of 1510, which
was similarly named, an omission in the account, than the real absence
of a symptom so very generally prevalent; for in these kinds of
comparisons and denominations, the common sense of the people errs much
less than the learned profundity of political historians. We must not omit here to remark that three years before (1411), and thirteen years afterwards, two diseases, entirely similar and equally general, made their appearance in France, of which we nowhere find that any notice has been taken up to the present time. The first was called Tac, the second Ladendo, which designations have since entirely gone out of use. Both were accompanied by very severe cough, so that in the former, ruptures not unfrequently occurred, and pregnant women were in consequence prematurely confined, and by the latter, from its universality, the public worship was disturbed. In the ladendo, there seems to have been an affection of the kidney of an inflammatory character, and much more severe than in the coqueluche of 1510, a memorable example of epidemic influence, and without a parallel in modern times. This pain in the kidneys, which was as severe as a fit of the stone, was followed by fever with loss of appetite, and an incessant cough that terminated in disagreeable eruptions about the mouth and nose. The disorder ran a course of about fifteen days, and was generally prevalent throughout October, being unattended with danger, notwithstanding the severity of its symptoms. One might almost be tempted to regard the tac of 1411 as the coqueluche of 1414, which is only slightly alluded to by Mezeray, and whereof the author from whom we are now quoting has made no mention; for a false date might easily occur here. Yet this must remain undecided until we can obtain fuller information, for we have experienced, even in the most recent times, an example of influenzas (1831 and 1833) following each other in quick succession. Gastric symptoms and an inordinate degree of irritability accompanied the spasmodic cough, and the complaint terminated with evacuations of blood. ___________________________________________ [1] "Un étrange rhûme qu'on nomma coqueluche, lequel tourmenta toute sorte de personnes, et leur rendit la voix si enrouée, que le barreau et les collèges en furent muets."-Mezeray. Compare Diderot et d'Alembert, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, etc. T. IV. p. 182.
However, the disease was unattended with danger, and lasted
upon
the whole only three weeks. [1] Four other epidemics similar to that of 1510 appeared in the
sixteenth century, two which were quite general in the years 1557 and
1580, and two less extensively prevalent in the years 1551 and 1564.2
Of the two former we posses accurate descriptions; it will therefore
aid us in forming a correct judgment respecting the influenza of 1510,
if we here take a review of these also, since the most experienced
contemporaries classed all these disorders together as of a similar
kind. During the dry unfavourable summer of 1557, invalids were
suddenly seized with hoarseness and oppression at the chest,
accompanied with a pressure on the head, and followed by shivering and
such a violent cough, that they thought they should be suffocated,
especially during the night. This cough was dry at first, but about the
seventh day, or even later, an abundant secretion took place either of
thick mucus or of thin frothy fluid. Upon this the cough somewhat
abated, and the breathing became freer. During the whole course of the
disorder, however, patients complained of insufferable languor, loss of
strength, want of appetite, and even nausea at the sight of food,
restlessness and want of sleep. The malady ended in most cases in
abundant perspiration, but occasionally in diarrhoea. Rich and [1] Pasquier, Livr. IV. Ch. 28, p. 375,
376. The
following is the passage. "En l'an 1411, y eut une autre sorte de
maladie, dont une infinité de personnes furent
touchez, par
laquelle on perdoit le boire, le manger et le dormir, et toutefois et
quantes que le malade mangeoit, il auoit une forte fievre; ce
qu'il
mangeoit luy sembloit amer ou puant, tousiours trembloit, et auec ce
estoit si las et rompu de ses membres, que l'on ne l'osoit
toucher en
quelque part que ce fust: Aussi estoit ce mal accompagné d'une
forte toux, qui tourmentoit son homme iour et nuit, laquelle
maladie dura trois semaines entieres, sans qu'une personne
en
mourust. Bien est vray que par la vehemence de la toux plusieurs
hommes se rompirent par les genitoires, et plusieurs femmes
aocoucherent avant le terme. Et quand venoit au guerir, ils iettoient
grande effusion de sang par la bouche, le nez et le fondement, sans
qu'aucun médecin peust iuger dont procedoit ce mal, sinon
d'une
generale contagion de l'air, dont la cause leur estoit cache. Cette
maladie fut appellée le Tac: et tel autrefois a
souhaité par
risée ou imprecation le mal du Tac à son compagnon, qui
ne sçavoit pas
que c'estoit. L'an 1427, vers la S. Remy (1 Oct.)
cheut un
autre air corrompu qui engendra unc très
mauvaise
maladie, que l'on appelloit Ladendo (dit un auteur de
ce
temps là) e n'y auoit homme ou femme, qui presque ne
s'en sentist
durant le temps qu'elle dura. Elk commençoit aux
reins, comme si
on eust en une forte gravelle, en après venoient les
frissons, et
estoit en bien huict ou dix iours qu'on ne pouvoit bonnement
boire, ne
manger, ne dormir. Après ce venoit une toux si mauvaise, que
quand on
estoit au Sermon, on ne pouvoit entendre ce que le Sermonateur disoit
par la grande noise des tousseurs. Item elle eust une très forte
durée
jusques après la Toussaincts (1 Nov.) bien quinze iours ou plus.
Et
n'eussiez gueres veu homme ou femme qui n'eust la bouche on
le nez tout
esseué de grosse rongne, et s'entre-mocquoit le peuple
l'un de l'autre,
disant: As tu point eu Ladondo?"
poor, people of every occupation and of all ages, were seized
with
this disease in whole crowds simultaneously, and it passed easily from
a single case to a whole household. On this occasion death rarely
occurred, except in children who had not power to endure the severity
of the cough, and medicine was of little avail, either in alleviating
the disorder or arresting its destructive course. The already
established name of this disease was immediately called to mind again
in France. It was not, however, confined to that kingdom, but prevailed
as generally, with some considerable varieties of form, in Italy,
Germany, Holland, and doubtless over a still wider range of country.
[1] The same was the case with the influenza of 1580, which spread over
the whole of Europe, and seems to have been less severe; thus bearing a
closer resemblance [2] to that of 1831 and 1833, which is still in the
recollection of most of our readers from their own experience. A more
elaborate research into this very important subject would far surpass
the limits of this treatise, for phenomena deeply affecting the whole
system of human collective life are here to be considered, which can
only become apparent when received as a connected whole, yet we must at
least point out the relation which the influenzas bear to the greater
epidemics. This is quite apparent; for as catarrhs are not unfrequently
the forerunners, accompaniments, or sequels of important diseases in
individual cases, [3] excitement, of the mucous membrane being often
merely an outward sign of more deeply-seated commotion, so also are
influenzas usually only the first manifestations, but sometimes
also the last remains of extensive epidemics. The most recent
example is still fresh in our memories. The influenza of 1831 was
immediately followed by [1] Valleriola, Loc. med. Comm. Append. p.
45. Schenck
a Grafenberg, Lib. VI. p. 552. Compare Short, T. T. p.
221.
the Indian cholera, and scarcely had this, after its revival
in
Eastern and central Europe, vanished, when the influenza of 1833
appeared, as if to announce a general peace. After the influenza of
1510, a plague followed in the north of Europe, which in Denmark
carried off the son of King John; [1] 1551 was the year of the fifth
epidemic sweating sickness. In 1557, the influenza in Holland was
followed by a bubo plague, which lasted the following year, and carried
off 5000 of the inhabitants at Delft. [2] In 1564, a very
destructive plague raged in Spain, of which 10,000 people died at
Barcelona, and finally, in 1580, the last year of influenza in that
century, a plague of which 40,000 died in Paris, appeared over the
greater part of Europe and in Egypt. [3] SECT. 7.-EPIDEMICS OF 1517.We now revert to the year 1517, and shall consider the
epidemics
which accompanied the English sweating sickness. First of all, the Hauptkrankheit,
that brain fever which so often recurred in the central
parts of
Europe, appeared extensively throughout Germany. Many died of this
dangerous disease, and we are assured by contemporaries that other
intercurreut inflammatory fevers were also very fatal. [4] Such was the
case in Germany, the heart of Europe. Another disease, however, much
more important, and till that time wholly unknown to medical men,
appeared in Holland, which broke out in January, 1517, and from its
dangerous and quite inexplicable symptoms, spread fear and horror
around. It was a malignant, and, according to the assurance of a very
respectable medical eye-witness, an infectious inflammation of the
throat, so rapid in its course that, unless assistance were procured
within the first eight hours, the patient was past all hope of recovery
before the close of the day. Sudden pains in the throat, and violent
oppression of the chest, especially in the region of the heart,
threatened suffocation, and at length actually produced it. During the
paroxysms the muscles of the throat and chest were seized with violent
spasm, and there were but short intervals of alleviation before a
repetition of such seizures terminated in death. Unattended by any
premonitory symptoms, the disease began with a severe catarrhal
affection of the chest, which speedily advanced to inflammation of the
air passages, and [1] Hudtfeldt, Danmarka Riges Kronike. [2] Forest, Lib. VI. Obs. IX. p. 159.
where death did not occur on the day of the attack, ran on to
a
dangerous inflammation of the lungs, which followed the usual course,
but was accompanied by a very high fever. Occasionally a less perilous
transition into intermittent fever was observed, but in no case did a
sudden recovery take place; for even when the fever subsided, the
patient continued to suffer, for at least a month, from pain in the
stomach and great debility, which symptoms admit of easy explanation to
a medical man of the present day, from the fissures and small ulcers of
the tongue, which appeared when the fever was at its height, and
obstinately resisted the usual treatment. The remedies employed show the circumspection and ability of
the
Dutch physicians. They had recourse, as soon as possible, at the latest
within six hours, to venesection, and followed this up immediately by
purgatives, of which, however, some eminent men disapproved, and this
to the great detriment of their patients, for without the combined
effect of both these means, the sudden suffocation could not be
averted. Moreover, the employment of detergent gargles, whereby the
extension of the affection to the lungs was prevented, as also of
demulcent pectoral remedies, was decidedly beneficial, and it is
affirmed that all who were thus treated were easily restored. [1] Extraordinary and peculiar as this disease, for which
contemporaries found no name, was, its rapid onset and its sudden
disappearance were still more so. Most of those affected were taken ill
at the same time, and eleven days of suffering and misery had scarcely
elapsed when not another case occurred; the numbers who had fallen
victims were buried; and but for the journal of the worthy Tyengius,
[2] no distinct record would have existed of this remarkable epidemic,
which however, it is certain, spread. further than merely over the
misty territory of Holland, and apparently with still greater
malignity; for in the same year we find it in Basle, where, within the
space of eight months, it destroyed about 2000 people, and its symptoms
would seem to have been still more strongly marked. Respecting the
intermediate countries, which it is highly probable that the disease
passed through from Holland before it reached Basle, we unfortunately
have no information. The tongue and gullet were white as if covered
with mould, the patient had an aversion to food and [1] Tyengius, in Forest: Lib.
VI. Obs.
II.
Schol. p. 152.
drink, and suffered from malignant fever, accompanied with
continued headache and delirium. Here also, in addition to an internal
method of cure which has not been particularly detailed, the cleansing
of the mouth was perceived to be an essential part of the treatment:
the viscous white coating was removed every two hours, and the tongue
and fauces were afterwards smeared with honey of roses, whereby
patients were restored more easily than when this precaution was
omitted. [2] It appears, according to modern experience, to admit of no
doubt
that this disease consisted of an inflammation of the mucous membrane
which, accompanied by a secretion of lymph, spread from the esophagus
to the stomach, and likewise through the air passages to the lungs,
being thus identical with pharyngeal croup, which was represented a few
years ago as a new disease, and has in consequence been designated by a
special name. [3] Its subsequent appearance in the memorable year 1557,
respecting which we have a still more complete account, gives
additional weight to this supposition. In that year it broke out in
October, and was observed by Forest, who was himself the subject of it,
at Alkmaar, where it attacked whole families, and in the course of a
few weeks destroyed more than 200 people. It was not, however, so
excessively rapid in its course as in 1517, but began with a slight
fever like a common catarrh, and showed its great malignity only by
degrees. Sudden fits of suffocation then came on, and the pain of the
chest was so dreadfully distressing that the sufferers imagined they
must die in the paroxysm. The complaint was increased still more by a
tight convulsive cough, and until this was relieved by a secretion of
mucus, proved dangerous, especially to pregnant women, sixteen of whom
died within the space of eight days, whilst those who survived were all
prematurely brought to bed. The fever which accompanied the
inflammation was very various in its course. It was rarely observed to
continue without intermission, but where this was the case, was [1] The moderns, who prefer powerful remedies, employ
for
this
purpose, without any better effect, the lunar caustic.
attended with the greatest peril. Yet death did not take
piece on
this visitation until the ninth or fourteenth day, whereas in the year
1517 as many hours would have sufficed to produce a fatal termination.
After this period the danger diminished, and those patients were most
secure from suffocation, provided they had good medical attendance,
whose complaint had been accompanied throughout its course by fever of
only an intermittent character. So marked was the influence of the
Dutch soil, that until this intermittent passed into continued fever of
different gradations, it appeared of the purest and most unmixed type.
In these cases the inflammation was less completely formed, so that
even bleeding, a remedy otherwise indispensable, was sometimes
unnecessary. These affected all suffered most at night and in the
morning, the latter generally bringing with it the inflammation of the
larynx and trachea, which, however, they had not at that time
experience enough to recognise as such, perceiving as they did only a
slight redness in the fauces. The painful affection of the stomach was
also in this epidemic very distinctly marked, so that a sense of
pressure at the praecordia, accompanied by continual acid eructations,
continued to exist even after a succession of six or seven fits of
fever; and convalescents were troubled for a long time with dyspepsia,
debility, and hypochondriasis. The inflammation of the mucous membrane,
no doubt, affected the nervous plexuses of the abdomen, as is usually
the case, and totally changed the secretion. This was proved by the
treatment, for, by administering the necessary purgative remedies, a
vast quantity of offensive mucus, mixed with bile, was evacuated. Our excellent eye-witness assures us that the people sickened
as
suddenly as if they had inhaled a poisonous blast, so that more than a
thousand people in Alkmaar betook themselves to their beds in a single
day, a thick stinking mist having previously for several days spread
over the land. This pestilence did not terminate so speedily as that of
the year 1517; on the contrary, is delayed until the winter, and seems
to have formed the conclusion of a whole series of morbid phenomena,
particularly of the already mentioned influenza throughout Europe, and
of the bubo plague in Holland, which had occurred in the middle of the
summer,- phenomena that were accompanied by the usual attendants
of
epidemics, namely, great scarcity, and unusual occurrences in the
atmosphere, such, for instance, as electric illuminations of prominent
objects, and so forth. [1] [1] Forest. Lib. VI. obs. ix. p. 159.
The close connexion between this inflammation of the
air-passages
and gullet and the epidemic catarrh is quite apparent; for these are
but gradations and gradual transitions in the affection of the mucous
membrane, as also in the power of atmospherical causes, which
especially influence the organs of respiration. We believe,
therefore, that we are fully justified in classing the epidemic
described to have taken place in Holland and Germany in 1517, with the
influenzas; and in declaring the morbid commotion in human collective
life which thus manifested itself, to have been a forerunner of the
English pestilence, which was simultaneously prepared by the altered
condition of the atmosphere, and broke out a few months later. We ought not to omit here to mention that, in this same year,
1517,
the small-pox, and with it, as field-poppies among corn, the measles,
was conveyed by Europeans to Hispaniola, and committed dreadful ravages
at that time, as afterwards, among the unfortunate inhabitants. Whether
the eruption of these infectious diseases in the New World was favoured
by an epidemic influence or not, can no longer be ascertained ; yet the
affirmative seems probable from the fact, that the small-pox did not
commit its greatest ravages in Hispaniola [1] until the following year,
and, according to recent experience, those epidemic influences which
extend from Europe westward, always require some time to reach the
eastern coasts of America. But even without this phenomenon in the New World, which is
now for
the first time placed within the pale of observations on epidemics, we
have facts at hand sufficiently numerous and worthy of credit to
prove-that the English Sweating Sickness of 1517 made
its appearance, not alone, but surrounded by a whole group of
epidemics, and that these were called forth by general morbific
influences of an unknown nature. [1] Petr. Martyr. Dec. IV. cap. 10. p. 321.
Compare Moore, p. 106. CHAPTER IV.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, [1] 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. [2] Everything promised a glorious issue; Naples
alone, weakly defended by German lansquenets and Spaniards, [8]
remained still to be vanquished. The siege was opened on the lst 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. [4] It was easy with an army of 30,000 veteran warriors [5] to
overpower the imperialists; and a small body of English [6] 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 [1] 24th of Feb. 1525. [2] Lautrec.
plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans
since the
sacking of Rome, [1] 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 the
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, [2] 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. [3] Hence
fevers soon broke out, which increased in malignity the longer they
existed, accompanied no doubt by debilitating diarrhoeas, 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 ___________________________________________ [1] The 6th of May, 1527. [3] Ibid. p. 114.
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. [1]
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. [2] 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. [3] 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, [4] and thus [1] According to Mezeray, the pestilence
was at
its
height at the end of July. This is in accordance with Jovius, who
fixes the termination of the great mortality, with rather too much
precision perhaps, on the 7th of August.
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 despatched 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.[1] 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. [2] Yet, here and there, the old bubo plague made is appearance.
This it was which in the year 1524 carried off 50,000 people in Milan,
[3] 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-third 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. [4] 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 he Castle of St. Angelo
itself, and destroyed some of the courtiers almost under the eyes of
the Pope. [5] Of these lansquenets, many went to Naples in the
following year under the Prince of Orange, and it may with good [1] Fracastor. Morb. Contag. L. II. c. 6.
p. 155,
156. [4] Mezeray, T. II. p. 957.
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. [1] 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. [2] 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, [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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
lansquenete to truckle for their booty, had stolen out of the [1] Guicciardini, p. 1315. [5] See above, p. 189.
city under cover of the night, in order to poison the water
in the
neighbourhood of the camp. [1] It was also surmised, that an Italian
apothecary had administered to the French knights poison in their
medicine. [2] 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." 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 shows,
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," [4] 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, [5] but also by many observations ancient and modern, [6]
that have been made in cases where the circumstances [1] Jovius, loc. cit. p. 118. [2] Mezeray, p. 903.
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, [1] 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, [2] 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 ___________________________________________ [2] See page 174.
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. [1] It consisted of a highly inflammatory foyer, 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 sequelae, 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. [2] 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 shown 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, [3]
and from Sander, a Flemish [1] Trousser, in an obsolete sense, signifies to cause
speedy
death.
physician, [1] 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 petechia, 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, [2] 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; [3] and in the following year, broke out and spread to a
greater extent in France, [4] 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. [5] [1] Forest. L. VI. obs. 7. p. 156.
Sander writes
from numerous observations which he made in and about Cambray. [4] Paré, loc. cit.
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 shown 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 [1] 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 [1] Fabian, p. 699.
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, [3] 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, [4] and the same scenes would have been experienced as in
France, had not the corn trade afforded some relief. [5] 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 [1] Sir William Compton and William
Carew, besides many other distinguished persons who are not
named. [5] Fabian, loc. cit. countries which were visited. [1] 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, [2]
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. [1] -"it seeming to be but the same contagion of the aire, varied according to the clime." Herbert of Cherbury, loc. cit. [2] Stow, loc. cit.
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 third of July,
1529, there followed a violent earthquake in Upper Italy, and
immediately afterwards a blood-rain, as it was called, in Cremona.[1] 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.
[2] In 1528 there appeared in the March of Brandenburg, during
the
prevalence of a south-east wind and a great drought [3] (the rains did
not commence in Germany before 1529), swarms of locusts, [4]
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. [5] 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. [6] Another fiery sign (chasma)
was seen in the March on the 9th of January, at ten o'clock at
night,
[7] as likewise similar atmospherical phenomena in other localities. Comets appeared in the course of this year in unusual number.
[8]
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. [9] The second was seen in July and
August, 1529, in Germany, France, and Italy. [1] Campo, pp. 150, 151. [2] Grafton, p. 431. Wagenaar,Vol.
II.
p. 516. [4] Annales Berolino-Marchici (no numbers to the
pages). [9] Pingré, T. I. p. 485. Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 410. a.
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. [1] 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. [2] The
fourth was in 1532, visible from the 2nd of October to the 8th of
November; it appeared again in 166l. Lastly, the fifth, in 1533, seen
from the middle of June till August. [4] 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. [5] 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, [6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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, [9] remained ___________________________________________ [1] Pingré p. 486. Angelus,
p. 318. Crusius, Vol. II. p. 223. [9] Klemzen, p. 254. 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. [2] 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,
[3] 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. [4] 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 [1] Schwelin, p. 144. Newenar,
fol.
69. a. "fecit tamen huius anni, ac fortasse etiam prucedentium
intempories, fluminum exundationes, frigora cum humiditate perpetuo
coniuncta, ut jam in Germania Britannicus quidam
aër
suscitatus videri possit." Similar accounts are met with in
almost all the chronicles.
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, [1] yet it is easy to conceive that
this benevolence, which was no doubt likewise exercised in other
cities, [2]-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, en
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; [3] yet, independently of the innumerable evils to which a
scarcity gives rise, suicide was more frequent,[4] 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, [6] 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. [6] The treatment which was found successful, was to cover the patients warmly, and to supply them with nourishing food, of which they ate plenty ___________________________________________ [1] Franck, fol. 243. b. [4] Leuthinger, p. 89. Klemzen. 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. [1] 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. [2] The reports from different localities in Germany
vary much, but the scarcity prevailed for full seven years [3] (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: 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 ___________________________________________ [1] Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 432. a.
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 occurence, 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. [1] 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 [2]
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, [3] 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 [1] Newenar indeed maintains that the
Sweating
Fever
used to break out in England every year, fol. 68. b., but such general
and unsupported assertions coming from foreigners (the Graf Hermann
von Newenar was provost of Cologne) are wholly unworthy of
credence.
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, [1] 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. [2] According to another account, those who died [1] It appears, for instance, somewhere in the second
volume
of Leibnitz, Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium, that 8000
people had died
of the
Sweating Fever in Hamburgh. An unknown Chronicler in Staphorst, Part
II. Vol. 1. p. 85, states 2000.
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.[1] 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, [2]
so that we are fully justified in Notices of uncertain date to be found in Adelung,
at
p. 77. Steltzner, Part II. p. 219. In the abbrev.
Hamb.
Chron. p. 45, and elsewhere.
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 all together, 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. [1] 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 [1] Reimar Kock's Chronicle of Lübeck.
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. [1] 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. [2] 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 [3]
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 a 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, [4] 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 Strasbaurg, at Frankfort on the Maine, at Marburg, [5] at Göttingen, and at Hanover. [6] 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 every ___________________________________________ [1] "In the year 1529, this violent disease passed in a very short time all over Germany, and in Lübeck many of its most distinguished citizens died on the vigil of St. Peter in Vinculis." Regkman, p. 135. Compare Kirchring, p. 143. Bonn, p. 144. [2] Reimar Kock. [3] Schmidt, p. 307. [6] Gruner, It. p. 23.
where, 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. [1] 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 cared 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. [2] 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, [3] 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, [4] 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. 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. [6] 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. [7] At Frankfort on the Maine they were
holding the autumn fair (which began on the 7th of September) just at
the time when [1] Namely, on the Tuesday after the Beheading of John
the
Baptist
(29th Aug.), which felt on a Sunday, for S. Aegidius was on the
Wednesday. The dates are given throughout according to Pilgrim's
Calendarium
chronologicum. [3] Curicke, p. 271. [6] In Gratorol. Fol. 74. b. -
the Sweating Sickness prevailed, [1] whence arose the
opinion,
which has been broached again in more modern times, [2] 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 any place than the disease itself accompanied it." [3] 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, [4] 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, [5] 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 [1] Franck, fol. 253. a. city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and
dark
streets, many lingering diseases. [1] SECT. 6.-IN THE NETHERLANDS.It is remarkable that the Netherlands were visited by the
Sweating
Fever [2] 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, [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] Alkmaar and Waterland remained free, [6] 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 [1] Bayer von Elbogen, cap. 7.
five days, and not much longer, as we have shown, 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, [1] 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 [2] 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. [3] Elsinore was
likewise severely visited, [4] 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, [5] 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. [1] Erasm. Epist. Lib. XXVI. ep. 58. col.
1477.
b. At Zerbst the Sweating Fever lasted, in like manner, only
five days. Gruner, It. p. 29.
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. [1] 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, [2] but doubtless there are
written documents still in existence in these countries, which only
need some careful inquirer 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. [1] Dalin, D. III. p. 221. Engelske
Svetten. In Tegel's History of King Gustavus I.
Part
I. p. 267,
general
notices only are to be found respecting the English Sweating Sickness
in Sweden, without any exact date (autumn of 1529) or description of
the disease, such as are met with without number in the German
Chronicles. Sven Hedin clearly estimates the mortality in
the epidemic sweating fever too highly, when he compares it, p. 27,
with the depopulation caused by the Black Death. He gives (p. 47) a
striking passage on the Sweating Sickness from Linneus's
pathological
praelections. The great naturalist has, however, allowed free scope to
his imagination, and, like all the physicians of modern times who have
delivered their sentiments on the English Sweating Sickness, knows far
too little of the facts to be able to form a right judgment on the
subject. (Supplement till Handboken för Praktiska
Läkarevetenskapen,
rörande epidemiska och smittosamma sjukdomar i allmänhet, och
särdeles
de Pestilentialiska. 1 sta St. Stockholm, 1805. 8vo.) 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. [1] 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. [2] There dwelt a physician in Zwickau-we no longer know
the name
of
this estimable man-who, full of zeal for the good of mankind,
opposed
this destructive folly. He went from house to [1] "According to which it was given out by some, that
a
sweat must
be kept up for twenty-four hours in succession, and in the mean time,
that no air should be admitted to the patient. This treatment sent many
to their graves."-Erfurt Chronicle.
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. [1] 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] A person thus disordered in his mind, was
recently seen to destroy himself [5] on receiving false intelligence of
the return of the late [1] Schmidt, loc. cit.
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 impassioned commotion, selfishness was the animating spirit which
ruled on both sides, and seized the torch of faith, in order, for her
unholy purposes, to envelope the world in fire and flames. So early as the year 1521, during Luther's concealment
within
the
walls of Wartburg, false prophets [1] 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 rnelancholy 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 death 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 [1] Carlstadt, Nic. Storch, Marcus Thomä,
Marus
Stubner,
Martin Cellarius, and Thomas Münzer. 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. [2] 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. [3] 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; [4] 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 pusilanimous gave
themselves up to despair, they impressed on the gigantic work of their
age the stamp of imperishable truth. [1] "For all love hath grown cold in all nations; the
axe
lieth at
the root of the tree, the rope is already applied, no one observeth it.
For the world is stricken with thick blindness, faith is extinguished.
All singleness and Godly fear hath withdrawn from the land for ever,
and nothing but false hypocritical make-believe work is to be found
among the Baptists, and at most a false, fictitious, fruitless, dead,
tottering faith in the other sects, and yet the world thinks,
notwithstanding, that she sees and sits in light. In short, for the one
devil of the Baptists whom she has driven out, she is beset with seven
more subtle and wickeder spirits, though she think that she be freed,
and that they be all gone forth." Franck, fol. 248, a. This
same Chronicle contains a very lively description of the Peasant-war. [3] Schmidt, p. 308.
The siege of Vienna began on the 22nd 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
16th of October, Soliman raised the siege, after the Sweating Sickness
had raged with as much violence among his troops as among the besieged.
[1] 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. [2] 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, [3] sketch the first
outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melanchton,
has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the
following spring, during his stay at Coburg, 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 [1] Fuhrmann, Part II. p. 745.
writers speak of the just wrath of God, and of the
chastisement
thus prepared. for the sins of the world, [1] 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 shortsighted, 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 Catholies also fell sick and died. [2] 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 2nd of October, had led to
no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the
heretics. 3] Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart of
Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenberg 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. [4] To the completion
of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might be added,
of which the following may [1] The pamphlet written by Magnus Hundt is
ornamented
with a wood-cut, where, under the throne of God and seated on lions who
are spitting forth fire, a great host of angels, armed with swords, are
hovering round men, whom they treat worse than Herod's soldiers
treated
the children of Bethlehem.
be taken as en 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. [1] 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
[1] Haftitz, p. 131. Angelus p. 319. Cramer, Book III. p. 76, and many others.
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, [1] especially where
rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should they be restored,
they obtained the promise of mines of gold. [2] 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 care, in a deluge of pamphlets, some of which were
written by persons not in the profession. 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, [1] "Verum quamplurimi, tam nobiles quam populares
viri ac
mulieres, hoc morbo misere suffocati sunt, ob libellos erroneos,
ab indoctissimis hominibus in vulgus emissos, qui in
eiusmodi lue
curanda peritiam et experientiam jactabant, multosque in Angliâ
aliisque regionibus sese curasse dicebant, cum omnia falsa essent.
Tales inquam minime pietate fulti erga aegrotos, illorum loculos tantum
expilabant, ac in sui commodum convertebant,
nullam de
aliorum damnis nec morte ipsa curam gerentes, sed quae sua sunt tantum
curantes, nulla arte instructi miseros aegros, passim sua ignorantia
trucidabant." Forest. L. VI. obs. 8. p. 158. a.
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. Au
advocate of the twenty-four hours' sudation, who, though not a
medical
man, had lauded this practice in a pamphlet on the subject, [1] 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; [2] for the English plan of treatment was
presently known, and intelligent philanthropists, who saw its curative
powers, made it public [3] 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 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 [4] [1] The printer Frantz. Schmidt, p. 307. [2] Stelzner, Part II. p. 219.
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, [1] 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, [2] who
warned
his countrymen against the Netherlands practice; 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. [4] It also soon [1] Klemzen, p. 255. [3] See his pamphlet.
became a common saying, "The Sweating Sickness will bear no medicine." [1]
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, [2] Edward Wotton, [3] and George Owen,
[4] were the King's body physicians about the time of the fourth
epidemic visitation of the Sweating Sickness. William Butts, [5] of
whom [1] Magnus Hundt, fol. 27. a.
"Nullis
vero
aliis medicamentis utuntur adversus ipsam, quam expectatione sudoris,
nam quibus advenit, omnes fere evadunt, quibus autem retinetur, maxima
pars perit." Forest. loc. cit. p. 159. a. Schol. [3] Born 1492; died 1555 [4] Died 1558.
Shakespeare [1] has made honourable mention, in all
probability
likewise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and
worthy men, [2] 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 they prevailed. [3] [1] In Henry VIII. [2] See their biography, in Aikin. SECT. 11.-PAMPHLET'S.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 effect 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 known 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." [1]
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. [2] 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 pharmacopoeia for
the Sweating Sickness, thrown together at a venture, without any
insight into the nature of the disease. [1] Klemzen, p. 255. [2] Part I. cap. 8.
A same 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 pharmacopoeia was received by physicians of equal
penetration and understanding as himself, is shown by the eight
editions which it passed through, [1] 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 Heilwetter, 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 peer. Almost all the medical men of these 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. Heilwetter 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 [1] Gruner, Script. p 11.
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, [1] 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, [2] which contains such correct medical views,
that our highest approbation is, even now, justly due to its unknown
author, as showing, 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, [3] 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 patients' 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 ___________________________________________ [1] "Vix malevolorum cachinnos morsusque
praeteriit" Schiller, Epist. nuncupator, the title which Gruner,
Script.
p.
12, gives to the original work, still existing in the library at
Strasburg, and a Latin extract from it. Gratoroli, fol 39.
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 [1] 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. [2] 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, [3] 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 [4]
during the disease. The court of Holland also recommended a method of
cure [5] 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,[6] of
Marburg, had, when he wrote, [7] 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 [1] "I had in my house seven lying ill with the same
disease, of
which, thank God, none died." From the letter of an inhabitant of
Hamburgh, given in the same pamphlet, "Ein Regiment," &e. [3] Gratorol. fol. 90. [5] Wagenaar, op. cit. p. 509.
gave to the only patient at Marburg, who was the subject of
the
Sweating Sickness, the very disagreeable, though much-employed, potion
of "Benedetto." 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 these 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. [2] There is still extant a very complicated prescription of Achilles
Gasser,[3] the learned physician of Augsburg, which he
employed with childish confidence [4] 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, [5] 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. [6] This very
circumstance [1] R Pulveris cardiaci (very complex, containing
precious
stones
and many other ingredients), 3ij; Pulveris cornu cervi 3j; Seminis
Santonici, Myrrha, aa 3fl. M. ft. Pulv. Sum. 3j; in warm
wine-vinegar. [3] Born 1505; died 1577,
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 [1] 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. [2] 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, [3] 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, [4] whose own wife fell sick of the sweating fever, and fortunately was again restored. [5] 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. [6] 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: 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 [8] 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. ___________________________________________ [1] Gratorol. fol. 64. [2] Gratorol. fol. 69. b. [6] Fol. 109. a. [7] Fol. 116. b. SECT. 12.-FORM OF THE DISEASE.The notions of the contemporary writers respecting the
phenomena
and the course of the sweating epidemic are, it is true, individually
unsatisfactory and defective; [2] 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, [3] 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 [4] (as in the most
dangerous form of cholera, neither [1] He styles himself Schiller von Herderen, from
an
estate in the village of that name close to Freiburg.
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: [1] or thirdly, rheumatic pains of various kinds,
which were frequently felt in the summer of 1529; [2] or finally, a
disagreeable taste in the mouth and foul breath, which were very
commonly the subject of complaint at that time. [3] In most instances the disease set in like the generality of
fevers,
with a short shivering fit [4] and trembling, which
in very malignant cases even passed into convulsions of the
extremities; [5] in many it began with a moderate and constantly
increasing heat, [6] 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,
[7] especially in the morning at sunrise. [8] Many patients experienced
at the commencement a disagreeable creeping sensation of formication
on their hands and feet, [9] 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.[10] Some were seen during
these attacks, especially women and those who were weak, with their
hands and feet swollen. [11] Serious affections of the brain quickly followed; many fell
into a
state of violent feverish delirium, [12] and these generally died. [13]
[1] See above, p. 227. Klemzen, p. 254.
[3] Bayer, loc. cit. [6] Schiller, loc. cit. [8] Damian. fol. 115. b. [12] Klemzen, loc. cit. This mortal anguish accompanied them so long as they were in
possession of their senses, throughout the whole disease. [3] 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; [4] 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. [5] 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. [6] 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.[7] These
symptoms, however, manifested ___________________________________________ [1] Schiller, Stettler.
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 diseases in some attacked the neck or shoulders, and in
others one leg or one arm, with dragging pains; [1] 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 [2] 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,
[3] 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, [4] which, when it broke out again, after any
interruption to its flow, was still more penetrating. [5] 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 [1] "Primo insultu aliis cervices aut scapulas, aliis
crus
ant
brachium occupavit," p. 15. Kaye does not state
what he precisely means by this "occupare." From an analogous more
modern observation, it appears, however, that by it are meant tearing
rheumatic pains. "Add to this, that the patients complained one and
all, some more some less, of a tearing pain in the neck." Sinner, p.
10.
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. [1] 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. [2] 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, [3] on
which account a French physician proposed to draw off the water in
those who suffered from this disease; [4] 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 diarrhoea 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. [5] 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,[6] 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 have been
seen on the dead. By these it is very likely that a [1] Page 190. [2] Schiller, Kaye, loc. cit.
miliary eruption, and perhaps spots also, are to
be
understood; yet everything militates against the supposition that this
phenomenon was constant, or that the Sweating Fever was an eruptive
disorder. [1] 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. [2] [1] Spots (maculae quas ronchas (?) vocant), which
were on
other
occasions considered as signs of approaching death, or which did not
come out until death had occurred, broke out, after a return of
sweating which had been repressed, all over the body of the learned Margaretha
Roper, the eldest daughter of Thomas More, who
was the subject of sweating fever in 1517 or 1528, and recovered. Th.
Stapleton, Vita et obitus Thomae Mori, c. 6. p.
26. See Mori Opera.
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. [1] 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
[2] nay, later writers notice a repetition of the disease
even to the twelfth time, [3] whereby at least the health was
completely shattered, for dropsy or some other destructive sequelae
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 brouqht en diarrhoea. [4] 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; 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 [1] Newenar, fol. 72. b. [4] Idem. p. 113.
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,
[1] 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. [2] 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, [3] 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 [1] "Immunes erant pueri et senes ah hoc malo." Ditmar,
p.
473. "Pueri infra decem annos rarissime hac febre corripiuntur." Newenar,
fol. 72. a. "Senibus solis quandoque
pepercit,-praeternavigavit
etiam magna ex parte atrabilarios et emaciatos corpore, quoniam et
horum corpora putris succi expertia erant." Schiller, fol.
4. a.
have been adduced in the course of our whole inquiry in
confirmation of this view. When we observe that these very nations were
visited by the Sweating Fever, which are characterised 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, [1] 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, [2] as
being perhaps an accumulation of electricity in [1] Let it be observed under similar
circumstances. It
ought not to be affirmed that they are free from rheumatic diseases,
but only that they are less disposed to lie affected by them.
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 show 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. [1] 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 anything 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. [1] The author has at times made extraordinary experiments of this kind upon himself.
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; [1] hence, likewise,
the very pardonable misconception with respect to the nature of the
Sweating Fever existing even in more modern times. The sequelae 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, [1] This phenomenon may justly be compared with the
very
similar
but more enduring morbid sequelae of cholera. Paralysis and a repletion
of the returning vessels must be regarded in the same light in both. 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. CHAPTER V.FIFTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE."Ubique lugubris erat lamentatio, fletus maerens, acerbus luctus."-KAYE.SECT. 1.-IRRUPTION.Full three and twenty years had now elapsed; no trace of the
Sweating Sickness had shown itself anywhere in this long interval, and
England had by its rapid advancement assumed quite another aspect, [1]
when the old enemy of that people again, and for the last time, burst
forth in Shrewsbury, the capital of Shropshire. [2] Here, during the
spring, there arose impenetrable fogs from the banks of the Severn,
which, from their unusually bad odour, led to a fear of their injurious
consequences. [3] It was not long before the Sweating Sickness suddenly
broke out on the 15th of April. To many it was entirely unknown or but
obscurely recollected; for, amidst the commotions of Henry's
reign, the
old malady had long since been forgotten. The visitation was so very general in Shrewsbury and the
places in
its neighbourhood, that every one must have believed that the
atmosphere was poisoned, for no caution availed, no closing of the
doors and windows, every individual dwelling became an hospital, and
the aged and the young, who could contribute nothing towards the care
of their relatives, alone remained unaffected by the pestilence. [4]
The disease came as unexpectedly and as completely without all warning
as it had ever [1] After Henry VIIIth's death in
1547, Edward VI.,
who was only nine years old, name to the throne. He died in 1553. [3] Ibid. p. 28.
done on former occasions; at table, during sleep, on
journeys, in
the midst of amusement, and at all times of the day; and so little had
it lost of its old malignity, that in a few hours it summoned some of
its victims from the ranks of the living, and even destroyed others in
less than one.[1] Four and twenty hours, neither more nor
less, were decisive as to the event, the disease had thus
undergone no change. In proportion as the pestilence increased in its baneful
violence,
the condition of the people became more and more miserable and forlorn;
the townspeople fled to the country, the peasants to the towns; some
sought lonely places of refuge, others shut themselves up in their
houses. Ireland and Scotland received crowds of the fugitives. Others
embarked for France or the Netherlands; but security was nowhere to be
found; so that people at last resigned themselves to that fate which
had so long and heavily oppressed the country. Women ran about
negligently clad, as if they had lost their senses, and filled the
streets with lamentations and loud prayers; all business was at a
stand; no one thought of his daily occupations, and the funeral bells
tolled day and night, as if all the living ought to be reminded of
their near and inevitable end. [2] There died, within a few days, nine
hundred and sixty of the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, the greater part of
them robust men and heads of families; from which circumstance we may
judge of the profound sorrow that was felt in this city. SECT. 2.-EXTENSION AND DURATION.The epidemic spread itself rapidly over all England, as far
as the
Scottish borders, and on all sides to the sea-coasts, under more
extraordinary and memorable phenomena than had been observed in almost
any other epidemic. In fact, it seemed that the banks of the
Severn were the focus of the malady, and that from hence, a true
impestation of the atmosphere was diffused in every direction.
Whithersoever the winds wafted the stinking mist, the inhabitants
became infected with the Sweating Sickness, and, more or less, the same
scenes of horror and of affliction which had occurred in Shrewsbury
were repeated. These poisonous clouds of mist were observed moving from
place to place, with the disease in their train, affecting one town
after another, and morning and evening spreading their nauseating
insufferable stench. [3] [1] Caius, p. 3. 2 [2] Ibid. p. 7.
At greater distances, these clouds, being dispersed by the
wind,
became gradually attenuated, yet their dispersion set no bounds to the
pestilence, and it was as if they had imparted to the lower strata of
the atmosphere a kind of ferment which went on engendering itself, even
without the presence of the thick misty vapour, and being received into
men's lungs, produced the frightful disease everywhere. [1]
Noxious
exhalations from dung-pits, stagnant waters, swamps, impure canals, and
the odour of foul rushes, which were in general use in the dwellings in
England, together with all kinds of offensive rubbish, seemed not a
little to contribute to it; and it was remarked universally, that
wherever such offensive odours prevailed, the Sweating Sickness
appeared more malignant. [2] It is a known fact, that in a certain
state of the atmosphere, which is perhaps principally dependent on
electrical conditions and the degree of heat, mephitic odours exhale
more easily and powerfully. To the quality of the air at that time
prevalent in England, this peculiarity may certainly be attributed,
although it must be confessed, that upon this point there are no
accurate data to be discovered. The disease lasted upon the whole almost half a year, namely,
from
the 15th of April to the 30th of September, it
thus passed but gradually from place to place, and we do not observe
here, that it spread with that rapidity which, in the autumn of 1529,
had excited such great wonder in Germany. It is much to be regretted,
that contemporary writers either gave no intelligence respecting the
irruption or course of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in individual
towns, or, if they did so, that this has not been made use of by
subsequent writers. Doubtless, a very considerable diversity of
circumstances would here present themselves, and the very peculiar
manner in which the corruption of the atmosphere spread on this
occasion, might perhaps have been estimated from certain facts, and not
from mere suppositions. Thus the only fact that has been handed down is
very remarkable; namely, that the Sweating Sickness required a whole
quarter of a year to traverse the short distance from Shrewsbury [1] Hosack admits in cases of this kind, a "fermentative
or assimilating process" in the atmosphere. T. I.
p.
312. Laws of Contagion. Lucretius had already expressed the
same thought in poetry. L.VI. v. 1118 to 1123. [3] Ibid. pp. 2-8.
to London; for it did not break out there until the 9th of
July,
and in a few days, according to its former mode, reached its height, so
that the rapid increase of deaths excited terror throughout the whole
city. [1] Yet the mortality was considerably less than at Shrewsbury,
for there died in the whole of the first week only eight hundred
inhabitants, [2] and we may consider it decided, although all the
contemporaries are silent on this very essential question, that the
pestilence nowhere lasted longer than fifteen days, and perhaps in most
places, as formerly, only five or six. The deaths throughout the kingdom were very numerous, so that
one
historian actually calls it a depopulation. [3] No rank of life
remained exempt, but the Sweating Sickness raged with equal violence in
the foul huts of the poor and in the palaces of the nobility. [4] The
piety which, in the general dejection, was displayed by the whole
nation, giving birth to innumerable works of Christian benevolence and
philanthropy, whereby undoubtedly many tears were dried up-many
orphans
and widows protected from distress and want, is hence explained: for
this phenomenon, highly delightful as it is in itself, occurs only
under great afflictions and a general fear of death, as we are taught
by the universal history of epidemics. We are willing to believe, to
the honour of the English, that the religious impulse which they
derived from their ecclesiastical reformation, may have had no small
share in its production; yet, unfortunately, such is the nature of
human society, that no sooner is the calamity over, than virtue
relaxes. Scarcely were the funeral obsequies performed, when everything
returned to the usual routine; [5] in like manner, the Byzantines once,
during a great earthquake, were seized with a fear of God, such as they
had never before felt; day and night they flocked to the churches;
nothing was to be seen but Christian virtue, selfdenial, and works of
benevolence, but these only lasted until the earth again became firm.
[6] The very remarkable observation was made this year, that
the
Sweating Sickness uniformly spared foreigners in England, and, on the
other hand, followed the English into foreign countries, so that
those who were in the Netherlands and France, and even in [1] Holinshed, p. 1031, and others. [2] Stow, p. 1023. Balter, p. 332. [3] Godwyn, p. 142.
Spain, were carried off in no inconsiderable numbers by their
indigenous pestilence, which was nowhere caught by the natives. Not a single French inhabitant' [1]of the neighbouring
town
of
Calais was affected, and neither the Scotch inhabitants of the same
island, nor the Irish, were visited by the Sweating Sickness, so that
we cannot get rid of the notion, that there was some peculiarity in the
whole constitution of the English which rendered them exclusively
susceptible of this disease. To make this out accurately would be so
much the more difficult, because, in the original year of the Sweating
Sickness, foreigners were the very persons among whom the English
disease first broke out; and again, because English persons who had
lived a year in France, on their return home in the summer of 1551,
became the subjects of Sweating Sickness. [2] Contemporaries, indeed,
find a cause in the gluttony and rude mode of life of the English. In
short, in all those remote causes with which we have already become
acquainted, and which, doubtless, also had their part in preparing the
same scourge for the Germans and Flemings in 1529. Kaye, the most
efficient eye-witness, even brings in proof of this view, that the
temperate in England remained exempt from the Sweating Sickness, and on
the contrary, that some Frenchmen at Calais, who were too much devoted
to English manners, were seized with it. To this alone, however, this
susceptibility cannot be attributed, unless we would be content with
the antiquated system of giving too much weight to remote causes,
opposed to which we are met by the striking fact, that the Germans and
Netherlands, who had scarcely much improved in their manners since
1529, were not again visited by their old enemy. SECT. 3.-CAUSES.-NATURAL PHENOMENA.It is easy to perceive, or rather we have no alternative but
to
suppose, an unknown something in the English atmosphere, which imparted
to the inhabitants the rheumatic diathesis, or, if we will, [1] Caius, p. 30, and at other places
quoted.
"And it so
followed the Englishmen, that such marchants of England, as were in
Flaunders and Spaine, and other countries beyond the sea, were visited
therewithall, and none other nation infected therewith." Grafton, loc.
cit. Compare, Baker, p. 332. Holinshed, p. 1031. It has, no doubt, struck the reader that each of the five eruptions in England lasted much longer than the single one which occurred in Germany and the north of Europe. This, too, might well depend upon peculiarities in the English soil. But let us now endeavour to render manifest, by means of phenomena actually observed, that unknown something in the atmosphere of 1551, the θειον of the great Hippocrates, which announces its presence by the sickening of the people; for beyond this it is not granted that human researches should penetrate. The winter of 1550-51 was dry and warm in England; the spring dry and cold; the summer and autumn hot and moist. [3] The weather of the whole year was uncommon in many particulars, without, however, influencing the lives of plants and animals so much or through so great a range as at the time of the fourth epidemic Sweating Sickness. It was even in some places praised as fruitful. [4] On the 10th of January a violent tempest occurred, which in Germany left no small traces [5] of its effects on houses and towers. The same day brought considerable floods in the river district of the Lahn, which must be noticed on account of the very unusual season of the year. [6] On the 13th of January, again at an unusual season, there followed a great storm with heavy rains, [7] which spread over the north of Germany; and on the 28th of January there occurred a considerable earthquake in Lisbon, whereby about two hundred houses were overthrown, and nearly a thousand people were destroyed; ___________________________________________ [1] Godwyn, loc. cit., expressly assures
us, that
gluttons who were taken with the disease when their stomachs were full,
fell victims to it; and Kaye states that besides aged
persons and children, the poor, who from necessity lived frugally, and
endured hardships, either remained free, or bore the disease more
easily. p. 51. [3] Caius. See Appendix. [5]Spangenberg, fol. 463. a. [7] Ibid. and Spangenberg, loc. cit.
whilst a fiery meteor appeared, which, according to the
unsatisfactory descriptions of the time, resembled most a northern
light, and therefore was, in all probability, of electrical origin. [1]
This was succeeded in Germany by a great frost in February. [2] On the
21st of March, at seven o'clock in the morning, two mock suns,
with
three rainbows, were seen at Magdeburg and in its vicinity, and in the
evening two mock moons. [3] The same mock suns were also observed at
Wittenberg, but without the rainbows. A similar phenomenon with two
rainbows was again seen on the 27th of March; and mock suns had been
observed. at Antwerp as early as the 28th of February. [5] About the
same time (21st of March) the Oder overflowed its banks, [6] and floods
followed after continued rains during the month of May in Thuringia and
Franconia. [7] Great tempests were not wanting, [8] and, after
considerable heat, there occurred, on the 26th of June, a thick summer
fog in the districts of the Elbe, which deprived the besiegers of
Magdeburg of the sight of that city. It may, therefore, be supposed
that this phenomenon took place throughout a greater extent of country.
[9] On the 22nd of September a meteor, like a northern light, was again
seen, and on the 29th of that month, after some clear weather, a heavy
fail of snow was followed by continued cold. [10] These facts are sufficient plainly to prove that the course of the year 1551 was unusual, that the atmosphere was overcharged with water, and that the electrical conditions of it were considerably disturbed; nor must we omit to notice that, for the first time since 1547, mould spots gain appeared in Germany on clothes, and red discolorations of water, as likewise an exuberance of the lowest cryptogamic species of vegetation. [11] ___________________________________________ [2] Spangenberg, fol. 463. b. [5] Chron. Chron. p. 402. [8] Angelus, loc. cit. SECT. 4.-DISEASES.During the years of scarcity, from 1528 to 1534, it excited
general
surprise that malignant fevers, more especially the plague, petechial
fever, and encephalitis, which in the individual accounts we can seldom
sufficiently distinguish from each other, were constantly recurring,
and, creeping slowly as they did from place to place, had no sooner
finished their wandering visitations of whole districts of country,
than they again made their appearance where they had broken out in
former years. [1] It was a century of putrid malignant affections,
in which typhous diseases were continually
prevailing-a
century
replete with grand phenomena affecting human life in general, and
continuing so, long after the period to which our researches refer. There existed also an epidemic flux, which, during a cold
summer
[2] in 1538, spread over a great part of Europe, and especially over
France, so that, according to the assurance of an eminent physician,
there was scarcely any town exempt from it. [3] Of this flux we have
unfortunately but very defective reports, among which we find a
statement, not without importance, that there were no extraordinary
forerunners, such as are observed in phenomena of this kind, to account
for this epidemic. [4] Two years earlier, however, (12th of July 1536,)
Erasmus died of the flux. [5] This disease seldom occurs sporadically,
but usually as an epidemic, and thus, perhaps, slighter visitations of
this rheumatic malady may be assumed to have preceded that greater one
which took place in 1538. A period remarkable for plague followed in the year 1540, and
ended
about 1543. The summer of the first-named. year is especially mentioned
in the chronicles as having been, hot, and throughout the
whole century it continued to be in great repute on account of the
excellent wine it produced. [6] A spontaneous [1] "Pestis insuper in certis saeviebat Germani
provinciis
(1533),
praesertim Nurenbergae et Babenbergae, et villis oppidisque per girum.
Et est stupenda res, quod haec plaga nunquam totaliter cessat, sed omni
anno regnat, jam hic, nunc alibi, de loco in locum, de provincia in
provinciam migrando, et si recedit aliquamdiu, tamen post paucos annos
et circuitum revertitur, et juventutem interim natam in ipso flore pro
parte majore amputat."-Jo. Lange, Chron.
Nuremburgens. eccles., in Mencken, T. II. col. 88. [3] Fernel, de abditis rerum causis, L. II. p. 107. [4] See Fernel. Wurstisen (p.
613),
however,
states that the preceding winter had been very warm. Thus Aph. 12.
sect. III. would hold good.
conflagration of the woods was frequent, and an earthquake
was felt
in Germany on the 14th of December. [1] Thereupon, in 1541, there
followed in Constantinople a great plague, [2] which, in the year 1542,
spread by means of a Turkish invasion into Hungary, its superior
importance being indicated by the presence of accompanying phenomena,
among which the swarms of locusts that appeared this year are
especially worthy of note. They came from the interior of Asia, and
travelled in dense masses over Europe, passing northward over the Elbe,
[3] and southward as far as Spain. [4] Kaye saw a cloud of locusts of
this description in Padua; their passage lasted full two hours, and
they extended further than the eye could reach. [5] The plague quickly
spread in Hungary, and caused a similar destruction to the imperial
army, which was fighting against the Turks under Joachim the Second,
Elector of Brandenburg, as it had formerly caused the French before
Naples. [6] Whether this pestilence may have been the original oriental
glandular plague, or whether we may assume that it had already
degenerated into the Hungarian Petechial Fever, such as
likewise broke out in the year 1566, in the camp near Komorn, during
the campaign of Maximilian the Second, and thence, by means of the
disbanded lansquenets, spread in all directions, [7] cannot now well be
determined for want of ascertained facts. In the following year, 1543,
however, this plague broke out in Germany, namely, in the Harz
districts in the provinces of the Saale, [8] and still more malignancy
at Metz, [9] yet upon the whole it did not cause any considerable loss
of life. In the years 1545 and 1546 we again find the Trousse-galant
in
France. [10] It proved fatal to the Duke of Orleans, second son of
Francis the First, in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, and, according to
the testimony of French historians, to ten thousand English in that
fort, so that the garrison was obliged to pitch a camp outside the
town, and the reluctant reinforcements felt that they were encountering
certain death. [11] The disease spread itself [1] Spangenberg, fol. 439. a. Chron. Chron.
p.
375. [3] Spangenberg, fol. 439. b. [6] Spangenherg, fol. 439. b. [8] Spangenberg, fol. 440. b. [10] See p. 219. [11] Mezeray, p. 1036.
also among the French troops, and we have seen that it
extended its
dominion beyond. the Alps of Savoy.[1] It thus appears that, up to the period of which we have been
speaking, the year 1544 alone was free from great visitations of
disease, but it would be difficult from thenceforth satisfactorily to
define the individual groups of epidemics, if the connexion of the
epidemic Sweating Sickness of the year 1551 with them is to be made
out; for there was, to use an expression of the schools, a continued typhous
constitution, which extended throughout this whole period,
manifesting itself on the slightest causes by malignant diseases; so
that the visitations of sickness which we have hitherto been describing
do but appear as exacerbations of them, with a predominance sometimes
of one and sometimes of another set of symptoms. The camp fever, which prevailed in the spring of 1547 among
the
imperial troops, there is good ground for considering to have been
petechial. A great many soldiers fell sick of it, and it was so much
the more malignant because the imperial army was composed of a variety
of soldiery, Spaniards, Germans, Hungarians, and Bohemians. Those who
were seized complained, as in encephalitis, of insufferable heat of the
head, their eyes were swollen and started glistening from their
sockets, their offensive breath poisoned the atmosphere around them,
their tongues were covered with a brown crust, they vomited bile, their
skin was of a leaden hue, and a deep purple eruption broke forth upon
it. The disease, the fresh seeds of which the imperial hussars had
brought with them out of Hungary, proved fatal as early as the second
or third day, and it may be taken for granted, that both before and
after the battle of Muhlberg (24th of April) it made no small ravages
in Saxony; [2] yet it did not become general. After a short interval the unusual phenomena of 1549 again
increased; the chronicles of central Germany record blights and
murrains in that year. They speak likewise of a northern light seen on
the 21st of September, and of a malignant disease which, till the
winter set in, carried off young people in no small numbers. [3]
According to all appearance this disease was a petechial fever, which
in the following year, 1550, likewise visited the March of Brandenburg,
Thuringia, and Saxony. [4] The mortality was particularly great at
Eisleben, where, in less than four weeks from the 14th of September,
257 fell a sacrifice to it, and after this [1] See p. 219. [2] Thuan. L. IV. p. 73. [4] Leuthinqer, p. 241.
period it happened often that from twenty to twenty-four
bodies
were buried in one day; so that the loss in this little town may be
reckoned at least at 500. [1] From this slight example the great
malignity of the plagues of the sixteenth century will be perceived,
and it would be still more evident if the physicians of those times had
made more careful observations, and historians had more accurately
recorded facts of this kind. In 1551 there prevailed in Swabia a disease of the nature of
plague, which determined the Duke Christoph, of Würtemburg, to
withdraw
himself from Stuttgard. It did not spread, and seems to have remained
unknown to the rest of Germany. [2] In Spain, too, the plague [3]
showed itself, and if to this be added the influenza of the same year,
[4] as well as the numerous cases of malignant fevers in Germany and
Switzerland, which were spoken of as still existing in the two
following years, [5] it will again be seen quite evidently that the
fifth epidemic Sweating Sickness appeared accompanied by a group of
various epidemic diseases, which might be considered as resulting from
general influences. The disease which is the subject of our
research thus took its departure from Europe similarly accompanied as
when it originally sprang up there, while in the interval it thrice
repeated its deadly attacks. SECT. 5.-JOHN KAYE.Let us dedicate a few moments to the observer of the fifth sweating pestilence, whose life presents a lively image of the peculiarities and tendencies of his age. He was born at Norwich on the 6th of October, 1510, and received his education at Gonville Hall, Cambridge. He had early evinced by some productions his great knowledge of the Greek language, and his zeal for theological investigations. At a maturer age he went to Italy, at that time the seat of scientific learning, where Baptista Montanus and Vesalius, at Padua, initiated him in the healing art. He took his Doctor's degree at Bologna, and in 1542 he lectured on Aristotle in conjunction with Realdus Columbus, with great approbation. The following year he travelled throughout Italy, and with much diligence collated manuscripts for the emendation of Galen and Celsus, attended the prelections of Matthaeus ___________________________________________ [1] Spangenberg, fol. 460. a. [3] Villalba, T. 1. p. 95.
Curtius at Pisa, and then returned through France and Germany
to
his own country. After being admitted as a doctor of medicine at Cambridge, he
practised with great distinction at Shrewsbury and Norwich, but was
soon summoned by Henry the Eighth to deliver anatomical lectures to the
surgeons in London. He was much honoured at the court of Edward the
Sixth, and the appointment of body physician, which this monarch
bestowed on him, he retained also under Queen Mary and Elizabeth. In
1547, he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, over which, at a
later period, he presided for seven years. He constantly supported the
honour of this body with great zeal, compiled its Annals from the
period of its foundation by Linacre to the end of his own
presidentship, and originated an establishment, the first of the kind
in England, [1] for annually performing two public dissections of human
bodies. That he was thus established in London before the year 1551 is certain, yet he was present in Shrewsbury during the Sweating Sickness. His pamphlet [2] upon this disease, the first and last published in England, did not, however, appear before 1552, after all was over. It is written in strong language and a popular style, and with a laudable frankness; for Kaye blames in it, without any reserve, the gross mode of living of his country-men, and does not fatigue his reader with too much book learning, which neither he nor his contemporaries could refrain from displaying on other occasions. He reserved this for the Latin version of his pamphlet, which was published four years later, [3] and although, judged according to a modern standard, it is far from being satisfactory, yet it contains an abundance of valuable matter, and proves its author to be a good observer; and in this we eau nowhere mistake that he is an Englishman of the sixteenth century, however numerous the terms he may borrow from Celsus. His doctrines are of the old Greek school throughout, of which the physicians of those times were staunch supporters; hence the term ephemera [4] pestilens, his comparison of the disease with the similar fevers of the ancients, [5] and his ___________________________________________ [1] Aikin, p. 103, et seq. [2] See Appendis.
accurate appreciation of the important doctrine of aethereal
spirits, to which he refers its chief causes, and, according to which,
the corrupted atmosphere (spiritus corrupti) becomes mixed in the lungs
with the spirits of blood (spiritus sanguinis), whence it at once
appears explicable to him, why many persons may be attacked with the
Sweating Sickness at the same time, and even in different places, and
why the parts of the body in which, according to the ancient Greek
notion, the aethereal spirits developed themselves, were most violently
affected with this disease. [1] From the relationship of the infected
air to the athereal spirits in the body, polluted by intemperance, it
also appears explicable to him, why foreigners in England, in whom this
pollution took place in a less degree, were, only in cases of
individual exception, attacked by the Sweating Sickness, [2] not to
mention other theoretical notions. On malaria in general, as he was an observant naturalist, he
was enabled to turn to good account his experience in Italy and his
knowledge of the ancients, and his estimation of the subordinate
causes, with regard to which he takes up the same position as Agricola,
who was also a good naturalist, is likewise on the whole worthy of
approbation. [3] The immoderate use of beer, amongst the English, was
considered by many as the principal reason why the Sweating Sickness
was confined to this nation. On this subject he enlarges even to
prolixity, with evident English predilection for this beverage which
manifestly contributed to the morbid repletion of the people; and he
himself acknowledged this as a principal cause of the Sweating
Sickness. The injurious quality of salt-fish, as alleged by Erasmus and
the German physician Hellwetter, [4] he would not altogether have
ventured to reject, [5] for it caused constant and abundant fetid
perspirations, and might thus have contributed to pave the way for the
Sweating Sickness. A similar source was to be found in the dirty rush
floors in the English houses, [6] and other subordinate causes of the
diseases of which mention has been made in the course of this treatise.
As a zealous advocate of temperance, it were to be wished
that he
had met with more attention; but the words of a good physician are
given to the winds, when they are directed against vices and habits of
sensual indulgence; people require from him an infallible preservative,
and not a lecture on morality. His precepts on food and beverage are
circumstantial, after the manner [1] P. 17. seq. Lat. edit. [2] Ibid. p. 49. [3] Ibid. p. 31. [4] See above, p. 253. [6] Ibid. p. 44. See above, p. 198.
of the ancients, and he recommends such a variety, that it is
difficult to make a choice; while nothing but the greatest simplicity
can be of any avail. Purifying fires, which were kindled
everywhere in times of plague, are also much lauded by him, and we here
learn incidentally, that the smiths and cooks remained free [1] from
the Sweating Sickness. Fumigations with odoriferous substances of all
kinds, even the most costly Indian spices, were everywhere employed in
the houses of the rich, and no one stirred out without having with him
some one of the thousand scents recommended from time immemorial during
the plague. The medicines which he recommends are those that were then
in vogue; among which Theriaca, Armenian Bole, and Pearls, occur in
various combinations, yet most of the prophylactics which he advises
for obviating any defect in the constitution are not very violent. Kaye's treatment of the Sweating Sickness is according
to the
mild
old English plan, which is very judiciously and perspicuously laid
down. He kept himself, on the whole, free from the influence of the
schools in this instance, and the only remedy which he approved in case
of necessity, was a harmless and very favourite preparation of pearls
and odoriferous substances, which were called Manus Christi, [2] or, in
Germany, sugar of pearls. It had its origin in the fifteenth century,
and was the invention of Guainerus, [3] and there
were various receipts for compounding it. [4] He also sometimes
prescribed, at the commencement of the attack, [5] bole or terra
sigilata, for how could a physician of the sixteenth century doubt the
antipoisonous effect of this overrated remedy? Restlessness in the
patient, debility, a too thick skin, and thick blood, are set forth by
him as the chief impediments to the critical sweat, and in order to
remove them, he sets to work with great and laudable caution, ordering,
according to circumstances, even mulled wine and greater warmth.
Sometimes, too, he could not refrain from employing Theriac and
Mithridate, but he did not use these remedies to any great extent. For
dropsical and rheumatic patients who became the subjects of the
Sweating Sickness, he prescribed a beverage of Guaiacum; he also
recommended as a sudorific, the China root, which was at that time much
in use. When the perspiration broke out, he positively prohibited the
urging it beyond the proper point; all medicines were [1] P. 74. Lat. edit. [2] Ibid. p. 94. [3] Practica, fol. 43. a. 263. a. [5] P. 102. Lat. edit.
thence laid aside, and he trusted to aromatic vinegar and
gentle
succession alone for keeping off the lethargy, without considering,
with Damianus, that more severe measures were essential. [1]
As a learned patron of the sciences, Kaye ranks amongst the
most
distinguished men of his country. Through his interest, Gonvile Hall
was, in the reign of Queen Mary, elevated to the rank of a
college, better established, and more richly endowed. To the end of his
life he continued to preside [2] over this his favourite institution,
and passed his old age [3] there, not in Monkish contemplation, like
Linacre, but zealously devoted to study, as the great number of his
writings testifies. He was accused of having changed his faith
according to circumstances. This pliability served, it is true, to
retain him in favour with sovereigns of very opposite modes of
thinking: it is not, however, a sign of elevation of mind, and can only
be explained in part by the spirit of the English Reformation. Kaye
was a reformer in fact, inasmuch as he was a promoter of
instruction, and, perhaps, laid no stress on outward profession. His
versatility as a scholar is extraordinary, and would be worthy of the
highest admiration, had he entirely avoided the reproach of credulity,
had he not been too prolix in subordinate matters, and had he shown
more decided signs of genius. At one time he translated and illustrated
the writings of Galen; at another, he wrote on philology or the medical
art-it must be confessed, without much originality, for he took Galen
and Montanus as his patterns. [4] But where could
physicians be found at that time who did not follow established
doctrines? Some essays on history and English Archaeology are found
among his writings ; and his works on Natural History, dedicated to
Conrad Gesner, are among the best of his age, because he imparted his
observations in them quite plainly and naturally, free from the
trammels of any school. He died at Cambridge on the 29th of July, 1573,
and ordered for himself the following epitaph-"Fui Caius." [1] P. 106, 7. Lat. edit. CHAPTER VI.SWEATING SICKNESSES."Εστι γαρ παθος λυσις των δεσμων της εις ζωην δυναμιος ARETAEUS SECT. 1.-THE CARDIAC DISEASE OF THE ANCIENTS.(MORBUS CARDIACUS.)Thus by the autumn of 1551, the Sweating Sickness had
vanished from
the earth; it has never since appeared as it did then and at earlier
periods; and it is not to be supposed that it will ever again break
forth as a great epidemic in the same form, and limited to a
four-and-twenty hours' course; for it is manifest, that the mode
of
living of the people had a great share in its origin; and this will
never again be the same as in those days. Yet nature is not wanting in
similar phenomena, which have appeared in ancient and modern times; and
if we take into the account the great frequency of cognate rheumatic
maladies, it is possible that isolated cases may have sometimes
occurred, in which repletion of impure fluids, and violently
inflammatory treatment, have augmented a rheumatic fever, even to the
destruction of nervous vitality, by means of profuse
perspiration-only,
perhaps, that they ran a longer course (which does not constitute an
essential difference), and under totally different names, whereby
attention is misled. Of all the diseases that have ever appeared which
can in any way be compared to the English Sweating Sickness, we have
principally three to look back upon-the cardiac disease of
the ancients, the Picardy sweat, and the sweating fever
of Rötingen. The first was, for reasons which have been
already
mentioned, [1] almost unknown to the learned of the sixteenth century;
and it is matter of surprise, that Kaye himself, who had chosen for his
favourite the best Roman physician, we mean Celsus, could have so
entirely overlooked his by no means unimportant statements respecting
this disease. Houlier is the only author who ventures a
comparison of the English Sweating Sickness with the ancient cardiac
disease; his few, and almost lost words, [2] remained, however, [1] See p. 251.
unheeded; nor are the differences between the two diseases
small: but to return. The disease of which we are speaking appeared for a period of 500
years (from 300 B.C. to 200 after Christ), and was a common, almost
every-day occurrence, which is often mentioned even by non-medical
writers. It was exceedingly dangerous, and even esteemed fatal; and as
it was far above the reach of Greek physiology, there were not wanting
extraordinary opinions respecting its nature, and bold and singular
modes of treatment, to which those who were attacked were subjected.
The name Cardiac disease (morbus cardiacus,
νοσος καρδιακα, and probably also νοσος
καρδιτις), was not bestowed by
medical men, but by the people; who, in the fourth century before
Christ, for the name is as ancient as that period, could not know that
the learned would dispute on that subject. Some affirmed, and among
them men of great authority, such as Erasistratus, Asclepiades, and
Aretaeus, that the people were in the right so to call
the disease; that the heart was actually the part affected, and that their
knowledge of the heart's functions was by no means small. [1] Others,
on the contrary, would only acknowledge in that name an expression
indicative, not of the particular seat of the disease, but only of its
importance, inasmuch as the heart is well adapted, as the centre and
source of life, to indicate this. [2] Others again, who attempted more
refined conjectures, wished to represent the pericardium as the seat of
the malady, because darting pains were sometimes felt [3] in the region
of the heart, or the diaphragm, or the lungs, or even the liver. The
opinions were numerous; the actual knowledge was small. [4] The cardiac disease began with rigors and a numbness in the limbs,
[5] and sometimes even throughout the whole body. The pulse then took
on the worst condition, was small, weak, frequent, empty, and as if
dissolving; in a more advanced stage, unequal and fluttering, until it
became completely extinct. Patients were affected with hallucinations;
[6] they were sleepless, despaired of their recovery, and were usually
covered suddenly [1] "Est autem cor praestans atque
salutaris
corpori
particula, praeministrans omnibus sanguinem membris, atque spiritum." Cael.
Aurel. Acut. L. II. c. 34. p. 154. Compare the Autor's
"Doctrine of the Circulation, before Harvey," Berlin, 1831.
8. [3] Ibid. cap. 34. p. 156. [8] Hallucinatio.
with an ill-savoured perspiration over the whole body, whence
the
disorder was likewise called Diaphoresis. Sometimes,
however, a washy sweat broke out, first on the face and neck. This then
spread itself over the whole body; assumed a very disagreeable odour,
became clammy and like water in which flesh had been macerated, and ran
through the bed-clothes in streams, so that the patient seemed to be
melting away. [1] The breath was short and panting, almost to
annihilation (insustentabilis). Those affected were in continual fear
of suffocation; [2] tossed to and fro in the greatest
anguish, and with a very thin and trembling voice uttered
forth only broken words. They constantly felt an insufferable
oppression in the left side, or even over the whole chest;
[3] and in the paroxysms which were ushered in with a fainting
fit, or were followed by one, the heart was tumultuous and
palpitated, without any alteration in the smallness of the pulse.
[4] The countenance was pale as death, the eyes sunk in
their sockets, and when the disease took a fatal turn, all was darkness
around them. The hands and feet turned blue; and whilst the
heart, notwithstanding the universal coldness of the body, still beat
violently, they for the most part retained possession of their senses.
A few only wandered a short time before death, while others were even
seized with convulsions and endowed with the power of prophecy. Finally,
the nails became curved on their cold hands, the skin was
wrinkled, and thus the sufferers resigned their spirit without any
mitigation of their miserable condition. [6] A striking resemblance is plainly perceived, from this
description,
between the ancient cardiac disease and the English Sweating Sickness
in the most exquisite cases of each. In both the same palpitation of
the heart, the same alteration of the voice, the same anxiety, the same
impediment to respiration, and thence the same affection of the nerves
of the chest, the same ill-scented sweat, and by means of this sweat,
the same fatal evacuation; in short, all the essential symptoms arising
from the same circle of functions. For in the sweating
pestilences of the ancients [7] as well as the moderns, the nerves of
the abdomen remained unaffected; the liver, intestines, and kidneys,
took no part in the primary affection; the diaphragm, as in the English
Sweating Sickness, formed the partition. Hence the acute Aretaeus did
not hesitate to call the cardiac disease fainting (syncope), [1] Cael. Aurel. p. 157. [2] Spiratio praefocabilis. [4] C. 35. p. 156. [6] Cael. Aurel. loc. cit. [7] Diaphoretici, cardiaci,
with certainly an unusual extension of the notion implied by
this
term, which in its common acceptation excludes the turbulent commotion
of the heart. In the affection of the brain some difference occurs, for
though the hallucination afforded an unfavourable prognostic in both
diseases, yet the fatal stupor was peculiar to the English Sweating
Sickness, no observer having made mention of it in the cardiac disease.
Greater and altogether essential differences between this
affection
and the English Sweating Sickness appear in another respect. There is
every reason to suppose that the cardiac disease first appeared in the
time of Alexander the Great, that is to say, at the end of
the fourth century before Christ; for the Hippocratic physicians were
unacquainted with it, Erasistratus, who was body physician
to Seleucus Nicator, and was a universally celebrated professor at
Alexandria under the first Ptolemy, being the first to mention it. If
that age be compared even superficially with that of Henry the VIIth
and Henry the VIIIth; and Africa, Asia Minor, and the South of Europe
with England, we shall easily be convinced that the two diseases,
notwithstanding the agreement in their main symptoms, could not be the
same; moreover, much was comprehended by the ancients under the name of
morbus cardiacus, which, on a nearer examination, proves not to be one
and the same definite form of morbid action: [1] Febres continue flammat. Cael. Aurel. c.
31.
p. 147.
But there was doubtless an independent idiopathic form of the
cardiac disease. Whether this was febrile or not, the most celebrated
physicians of ancient times were not agreed. Now, how could they ever
have differed upon the subject, if the cardiac disease had always
appeared only as a sequela on the fifth or sixth day of
inflammatory fevers? Apollophanes, a disciple of
Erasistratus, and physician to Antiochus the First, considered
it, with his master, as constantly febrile, and his opinion prevailed
for a long time: perhaps he was in the right, for it is probable that
in the first half of the third century, the disorder was much more
violent than at a subsequent period. His celebrated contemporary, Demetrius
of Apamea, disciple of Herophilus, affirmed, that he had
recognised fever only in the beginning of the disease, and that it
disappeared in its further progress. Very soon, most physicians decided
that it was not febrile, but Asclepiades distinguished a
febrile and a non-febrile form of the cardiac disease, and it is
certain that this physician was a very accurate observer. Themison
and Thessalus also agreed with him. Aretaeus
described,
in a cursory manner, the febrile form only, and perhaps was not
acquainted with any other. Soranus followed, in the
essential points, Asclepiades, the founder of his school;
and later writers generally regarded the inward heat, the hot breath,
and the burning thirst-symptoms which were occasionally less
marked, as
proofs of the febrile nature of the disease. Numerous theoretical
views, belonging to particular schools, of which we do not here treat,
were intermingled with these, and upon the whole, that form seems to
have been esteemed as non-febrile, in which the signs of feverish
excitement appeared less marked. In all cases the cardiac disease set
in with external coldness, and with a small, contracted, quick pulse,
symptoms which with certainty indicate fever.[1] Respecting the course of the cardiac disease, we are not
furnished
with sufficient information. It was no doubt very rapid, for the frame
could not long endure symptoms of so violent a kind, and the disorder
must of necessity soon have come to a crisis; yet from the ample
directions for treatment, we may conclude that it lasted at least some
days. If the perspiration was well surmounted, patients seemed to
recover rapidly, and their sufferings appeared to them, according to
the expressions of Aretaeus, like a dream, out of which they
awoke to a consciousness [1] Cael. Aurel. c. 33. p. 150.
of the increased acumen of their senses. [1] But the
termination
was not always so fortunate. The disease was very dangerous, and in
many, after the occurrence of an incomplete crisis, an
insidious fever remained behind, which ended in a consumption. [2] The
whole phenomenon was altogether peculiar, and among existing diseases
there are none which bear any comparison with it. There must therefore have been something in the whole state
of
existence among the ancients which favoured the formation of the
cardiac disease. That it arose oftener in summer than in winter, that
it attacked men more frequently than women, and especially young people
full of life, and hot-blooded plethoric persons, who used much bodily
exercise, we learn from credible observers. [3] In this respect,
therefore, it bore a resemblance to the English Sweating Sickness. We
may also add, that indigestion, repletion, drunkenness, as likewise
grief and fear, but especially vomiting and the employment of the bath
after dinner, occasioned an attack of the malady. [4] Let us call to
mind the habits of the ancients. It was in the time of Alexander that
oriental luxury was first introduced. Gluttony became a part of the
enjoyment of life, and warm baths a necessary refinement in sensuality,
which just at this time were philosophically established by Epicurus;
for was this the last instance in which philosophers
encouraged
the errors and infirmities of human society. Here again, therefore, as in the English Sweating Sickness,
we meet
with the relaxed state of skin, and the foul repletion engendered
by the same indulgence in sensuality which we have found to exist in
the sixteenth century. How this corruption of morals increased, and to
what a frightful height it was carried among the Romans, it is not
necessary here further to elucidate; and we may take it for a fact,
that in consequence of it, the general constitution of the ancients
underwent a peculiar modification; that this relaxation of skin and
gross repletion were propagated from generation to generation; and
that, as among chronic diseases, those of a gouty character were
its more frequent results, so among the inflammatory, the cardiac
disease made its appearance as the general effect of this kind of
life. Where, however, such a system of life existed among whole
communities, the original and peculiar occasion was not needed in every
individual case to bring the pre-disposition for a disease [1] L. II. c. 3. p. 30. [2] Aret. Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 193. [4] Ibid.
wich propagated itself by hereditary taint, to an actual
eruption.
Shocks to the constitution of quite a different kind were often
sufficient for the purpose. Thus, among the Romans, it was by no means
always the case, that gluttony and relaxation of the skin immediately
gave rise to the cardiac disease; while, on the other hand, the usual
faintness, induced by too copious bloodletting, passed into this
impetuous agitation of the heart, accompanied by colliquative sweats;
[1] and all over-violent perspirations in other diseases were apt to
take the same dangerous course. [2] We must here also take into account
a practice among the Romans, which was very injurious, and yet rendered
sacred by the laws; namely, visiting the public baths late in the
evening, just after the principal meal, and awaiting the digestion of
their food in these places of soft indulgence. [3] How much must the
tendency of sweating disorders have been favoured by these means! Surmises, founded on the facts already stated, can alone be
offered
respecting the nature of the ancient cardiac disease. The ancients give
us no certain intelligence upon it; for their mode of observing did not
lead to that object at which modern medicine aims. That the
cardiac disease was not of a rheumatic character seems
deducible from several circumstances-from the quality of the
atmosphere
in southern climates, which is not so favourable to rheumatic maladies,
as to give rise to a distinctly defined form of that complaint
throughout a period of five hundred years; from the nature of the
so-called inflammatory fever, which exhibited no rheumatic symptoms in
its course; and lastly, from the treatment of the cardiac disease, for
it was a common practice to cool down the "diaphoretic" patients in the
midst of their perspiration, by sponging them with cold water, to
expose them to the air, and some physicians went so far as to advise
cold baths and effusions. [4] How could they have ventured upon such
remedies if the cardiac disease had been of a rheumatic nature? In the sweating fevers of the sixteenth century, every abrupt
refrigeration, every exposure of the skin, was fatal. It is thence [1] Cael. Aurel. c. 33. p. 153. A
perfectly
similar observation is made in the present day, on the increasing
frequency of liver complaints in England. Parents who have been a long
time in the East Indies, entail the predisposition to these diseases,
which are altogether foreign to the temperate zones, on their
posterity, among whom there is no need of a tropical heat, both merely
common causes acting in their own country, to call forth various liver
complaints. See Bell (George Hamilton).
to be inferred, that the English Sweating Sickness
differed
from the ancient cardiac disease in its rheumatic character; even
although both diseases were founded in common on an impure gross
repletion and relaxation of skin, and the essential phenomena of both
went through the same course: not to advert to other differences which
are manifest from what has been stated. The remaining treatment of the cardiac disorder should not be
altogether passed over in this place, because it shows very clearly the
general style of thinking of the medical profession, as also certain
metaphysical excitations which are innate in that profession, and of
which there is therefore a repetition in all ages. For whilst some
proceeded with commendable care and caution, and Aretaeus feared
[1] a fatal result from the slightest error, others, again, would fain
render excited nature obedient to their rough command by means of the
most violent remedies. It, therefore, occasionally happened that in
their over-hasty activity they were unable to distinguish between a
salutary perspiration and a dangerous "diaphoresis." This they
suppressed at all hazards, and thus sent their patients to the shades
of their fathers. Others forthwith flew to Chrysippic bandaging, the
great means of suppressing profuse evacuations, and even violent
spasms. [2] Others were for obviating the debility as quickly as
possible by means of nourishing diet, and overloaded the stomach, as if
the recovery of strength depended entirely upon eating. Others allowed
as much wine as possible to be drunk for twenty-four hours together,
even to the extent of producing intoxication; [3] and Asclepiades selected
for this extraordinary death-bed carousal the Greek salt wine, [4] for
the sake of bringing on a diarrhoea, whereby the opened pores of the
skin might again close, and the too mobile atoms might be carried
towards the bowels. With the same object he ordered active clysters,
[5] for if they succeeded in causing a full evacuation, he maintained
that the perspiration must necessarily be arrested! Endemus, of
the Methodic sect, recommended even clysters of cold water, [6] and
whatever else the rashness of medical men had fool-hardily contrived;
acting on the ancient notion, that severe diseases always required
violent remedies. Aretaeus recommended blood-letting, which
others pronounced to be [1] "Ην γαρ επι
συγκοπη και
σμικρον
αμαρφη,
ρηιδιως
εις αδου
τρεπει
Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 188. [3] Cael. Aurel. c. 38. p. 171. [6] Cael. Aurel. c. 38. p 171. A cautious employment of wine was apparently of great use,
[2] and
what may excite surprise, physicians gave detailed and frivolous
precepts on the choice and enjoyment of food. If the irritable stomach
rejected this repeatedly, they even went so far, according to the Roman
method, as to make the patient vomit both before and after his meals,
in order that the organ might thus bear the repeated use of
nourishment. It was also asserted that the stomach retained food and
wine better if the body were previously rubbed all over with bruised
onions. [3] All this affords us an insight into the nature of this
remarkable disease, which has now so completely vanished from the
world. Finally, when astringent decoctions proved fruitles, particular
confidence was placed in the application of various powders [4] to the
surface of the body, conjointly with the use of light bed-clothes and
the avoidance of feather-beds, which the effeminacy of the ancients had
already introduced. [5] As astringents they selected pomegranate bark,
the leaves of roses, blackberries, and myrtles, as also fullers'
earth,
gypsum, alum, litharge, slaked lime, [6] and, when nothing else was at
hand, even common road dust! The efficacy of some of these
extraordinary remedies cannot be denied. At least it bas been proved in
modern times with respect to alkalies, which are of a somewhat similar
nature, that they are of great service where there is an abundant
determination of acid towards the skin, and it is very probable that
the perspiration of these diaphoretic patients contained much acid. SECT. 2.-THE PICARDY SWEAT.(SUETTE DES PICARDS-SUETTE MILIAIRE.)The Picardy Sweat is a decided miliary fever, which has often
prevailed, not only in Picardy, but also in other provinces of France,
for more than a hundred years, and even at the present [1] "nihil jugulatione differre." Cael. Aurel. c.
38. p.
171. [4] Aspergines, sympasmata, diapasmata. Cael. Aurel. c. 38. p. 171. [5] Cael. Aurel. c. 37. p. 161. [6] Areteus, p. 192. [7] Celsus, loc. cit.
time exists in some places as an endemic disease. [1] We have
pointed out the affinity between the English Sweating Sickness and
miliary fever. Both are rheumatic fevers-the former of
twenty-four
hours' duration, the latter running a course of at least seven
days. In
the former there was no eruption, or if in isolated cases an eruption
made its appearance, it was doubtless subordinate, not essential. In
the miliary fever, on the contrary, the eruption is so essential, that
this disease may be considered as a completely exanthematous form of
rheumatic fever. The history of miliary fever is full of important facts, and,
the
sweating fever of Picardy forms but a variety of it. The eruption in
itself is of very ancient occurrence, and was most probably, as at
present, observed time immemorial in conjunction with petechi,
occurring as a critical metastasis in the oriental glandular plague,
perhaps even in the ancient plague recorded by Thucydides. It also
occasionally accompanied petechial fever, as unquestionably it did
small-pox and many other diseases, in the same manner as we now see;
for the miliary eruption is a very common symptom, which is easily
induced, and increases the danger of various other accidental
complications. This is different, however, from the idiopathic
miliary fever, which did not exist either before, or even at the
period of, the English Sweating Sickness, but occurred as an epidemic,
frequently mentioned in Saxony, a hundred years later [2] (1652). We cannot, therefore, consider this eruptive disease as
having
proceeded from the English Sweating Sickness, in the same manner as the
petechial fever had its probable origin in the glandular plague, even
supposing a more decided inclination of the Sweating Sickness to the
eruptive character could be proved than is possible from the facts
afforded. A whole century intervened, and what vast national
revolutions! This same separation of so long a period makes also against
the
supposition, that the English Sweating Sickness was an interrupted
miliary fever, which exhausted its power by a too luxuriant activity of
the skin on the first day, before the eruption made its appearance.
Moreover, the similarity and isolation of all the five epidemic
sweating fevers, as regards the brevity of [1] For instance, in the villages of Rue-Saint-Pierre
and
Neuville-en-Hez, between Beauvais and Clermont. Bayer, Suette,
p. 74. Lipsiae, 4to. The principal
work upon the first visitation of miliary fever in Germany.
the course of the disease, and the absence of all transition
forma
of any duration, which certainly would have existed had nature intended
gradually to form a miliary fever out of the English Sweating Sickness,
lead to the same conclusion. But to return to the miliary fever. Some forms of this
disease have
been observed, in which a profuse perspiration, in combination with
nervous symptoms, has endangered life on the first day of the attack;
equally often, too, the eruption bas appeared fully formed on the very
first day; and if we duly consider, as we ought, the regular course of
miliary fever whenever it has assumed an epidemic character, we shall
always find, even in that case, a development of symptoms differing
fundamentally from those of the English Sweating Sickness. If,
occasionally, instances of miliary fever occurred, in which no eruption
came out, as was the case recently (in 1821), they were to be
considered in the same light as other acute eruptive diseases, as, for
example, scarlet fever, in which nature indulges in a like
irregularity, without, however, altering the essence of those diseases.
And since, finally, it has been observed in many cases, [1] that the
miliary eruption could be prevented by the application of cold at the
commencement, a distinguished modern physician has attached great
consequence to this circumstance, as showing that miliary fever and the
English Sweating Sickness were the same disease [2] but a check of this
kind is, at all events, impossible in those miliary fevers where the
eruption breaks forth on the first or second day; and moreover,
experience tells us, that many other diseases also, such as
inflammations, rheumatisms, gastric fevers, and even abdominal typhus,
may be arrested in their course, and confined within narrower bounds,
so as not to manifest all their symptoms. [1] For example, in the epidemic of 1782, which,
during the
course
of a few months, carried off in Languedoc upwards of 30,000 people. Pujol
observed in that epidemic four forms of exanthem. 1. A
Purpura
urticata-elevated rose-like spots, or papula of smaller
circumference:
it was very favourable, and sometimes passed off without fever. 2.
Spots consisting of very small miliary vesicles and pustules which ran
into each other: lese favourable. 3. Small hemispherical pimples, from
the size of a mustard seed to that of a corn of maize. They were
surmounted by a white point before they died away, and the large kind
became converted into pustules, filled with matter or greyish
semitransparent phlyctaenae, with red inflamed bases. This form was the
commonest, and extended, mixed with the others, over the whole surface,
especially the trunk. 4. An exanthem resembling flea-bites, of a bright
red, with a small grey miliary vesicle in the middle, almost invisible,
except through a lens: this form was the worst. Pujol, (OEuvres
diverses de Médecine Pratique, 4 vols. Castres, 1801.
8vo.
We are, therefore, completely entitled to consider the
appearance
of the miliary sweating fevers as altogether a novelty, originating in
the middle of the 17th century, and having no discoverable connexion
with the English Sweating Sickness. There have been in Germany, since
the year 1652, many visitations of miliary fever; but this disease did
not increase much in extent until about the year 1715, when it spread
into France and the neighbouring countries, particularly Piedmont, [1]
whilst England remained almost entirely free from it. The French
epidemics were, upon the whole, much more severe than the German; and
on this account we select one of the most ancient, and also the most
recent of them, in order to give a general view of miliary fever, as
compared with the English Sweating Sickness. The miliary fever first appeared in Picardy, in the year
1718, in
le Vimeux (Vinnemacus pagus), a district on the north of the Somme and
on the south of the Bresle and the department of the Lower Seine. It
increased annually in extent; most places in Picardy were visited by
it, and it was not long before is was seen in Flanders. [2] We are still in possession of a very distinct account, which
we
will here detail, of an epidemic at Abbeville in the year 1733, where
the miliary fever had existed fifteen years previously. There were
scarcely any premonitory symptoms, but the disease commenced at once
with pinching pains in the stomach, extreme prostration of strength,
dull head-ache, and difficulty of breathing, interrupted by sighing.
Patients complained of violent heat, and were bathed in a pungent sweat
of foul odour, while nausea was occasionally felt. Sparks appeared
before the eyes, and the countenance became flushed. Patients
were tormented with burning thirst; and yet the tongue was as moist as
in perfect health. The pulse was frequent and undulating, without
hardness; and in the course of a few hours, an insufferable
itching came on over the whole body, accompanied by distressing
jactitation: upon this, thickly studded, red, round pustules, not
bigger than mustard-seeds, broke out, wherefrom patients emitted an
extremely disagreeable urinous odour, which was imparted to those who
were about their persons. Sometimes they had evacuations, at other
times they suffered from constipation, but all complained [1] On this point see Allioni, who drew his
classical
description of miliary fever from the Piedmont epidemics.
of want of sleep; and when they felt an inclination to doze,
they
were again aroused by fresh chilliness. Many bled at the nose till they
fainted; and with women, the menstrual discharge often appeared, though
not at the proper time. The urine was at times deficient in quantity,
at others discharged in abundance, and without any critical signs; if
pale and plentiful, it betokened delirium; then the eyelids twitched
convulsively, a humming noise commenced in the ears, and the patient
tossed about restlessly. The pulse became strong, irregular, and, like
the breathing, very quick. The countenance grew redder and redder; and
soon after, the sufferers, as though struck by lightning, were seized
with lethargy, and expired, generally in the act of coughing and
spitting blood. Such was the nature of the disease when it attacked many at
once:
there were, however, several varieties. With some the miliary vesicles
broke out on the second day, with others not before the third;
and if all went on favourably, they lost their redness on
the seventh
day, and the skin all over the body
scaled of like bran. The fever was sometimes extremely violent;
at others, without apparent cause, very mild; at least one might be
deceived at the commencement of the attack, by the apparently
favourably symptoms; for those who in the morning had scarcely any
notable degree of fever, who neither suffered from any anxious
sensation for violent heat, in whom no subsultus tendinum was
perceptible, no want of perspiration, nor any retrocession of the
eruption, were sometimes towards evening seized with phrenzy, and died
in a state of lethargy. Evacuations, which alleviate other diseases,
made this miliary fever worse. Favourable symptoms could never be
depended on. In the midst of profuse perspiration the patient died,
either from constipation or diarrhoea. A copious discharge of urine was
a bad sign; composure was succeeded by delirium, cheerfulness by
lethargy: the disease was throughout treacherous and disguised. It was
particularly necessary for those suffering from pleurisy or any
inflammatory fevers to be guarded against its approach. Many fell
sacrifices to this epidemic who thought themselves in a state of
convalescence; and with such it was easier to foretell than to prevent
the consequences. In cases of this kind the miliary vesicles were less
red and grew pale sooner; but if the disease attacked a healthy person,
then they were redder, and continued longer. Of those who recovered,
not a few suffered for many months, nay, even for a whole year, from
night perspirations, without fever or sleeplessess, but with an
eruption of little miliary vesicles, which disappeared [1] again on the
slightest exposure to cold. The later miliary epidemic fevers in
France, which are distinguished by the name of the Picardy Sweating
Sickness, are generally very well described [2] so much so, that we
have few epidemics of modern times whose course and succession we can
trace so well. But the epidemic of 1821, which raged in the departments
of the Oise, and of the Seine and Oise, from March to October, has been
observed by all with the greatest care, including men of distinguished
talent. [3] We shall give the description of this disease. There were no
constant premonitory symptoms; it often broke out quite suddenly, but
many complained some days before of debility, despondency, want of
appetite, nausea, head-ache; sometimes also of giddiness and slight
chilliness. Many retired to rest in health, and awoke during the night
with the disease, covered with a perspiration, which ceased only with
death or recovery. With some the sweating was preceded for some hours,
or even only for some moments, by a scarcely perceptible feverish
commotion, accompanied with burning heat, or with a sensation of
pain which ran through every limb, and nearly always with spasms
in the stomach. With others the disease announced itself by lacerating
rheumatic pains, which gradually increasing, they became bedridden. The
mouth was foul, the taste at times bitter, the tongue white, more
rarely tinged with yellow, and thus it remained till the patient was
restored. The sufferer was shortly covered with a thick,
peculiarly fetid sweat, that certainly produced alleviation, but
became very intolerable to him from its unpleasant stench, which was
even communicated to the clothes of the bystanders. In the mean time it
was discovered by the pulse, that the fever had considerably abated;
but, on the third day, the patient was seized with convulsive spasms
in the stomach, great oppression at the chest, and a
sensation of suffocation--symptoms which caused him insupportable
anguish. These attacks, accompanied by hiccup and eructation, continued
for several hours, and returned from time to time, an eruption, partly
palpular, simultaneously breaking out first on the neck, then on the
shoulders down to the hands and breast, less frequently on the thighs
and face. The little [1] Rayer, Suette, p. 426, where the
principal
passage
of Beliot's dissertation is reprinted word for word.
pimples were of a pale red colour and conical, with
glistening
heads, and between them appeared innumerable small miliary pustules,
filled with transparent serous fluid, which soon thickened and assumed
a whiter hue. At the time and previous to the breaking out of the
exanthem, the patient experienced a very severe burning and
pricking sensation in the skin, which nevertheless sometimes
occurred on the second or fourth day, and which increased sometimes in
one part, sometimes in another, when the sweating declined. Towards the fifth day, however, after the sweating had
entirely
ceased, the complaint grew worse again. The spasms and paroxysms of
suffocation returned, and they were succeeded by renewed eruptions of
the exanthem; a decided improvement, however, shortly took place; the
little pimples lost their redness, the miliary vesicles dried away, and
at a period from the seventh to the tenth day recovery commenced under a
general exfoliation of the cuticle. Sometimes the eruption did
not appear, whether the patients were under medical treatment, or left
to their own guidance, but with those few in whom there was an absence
of miliary vesicles, that peculiar pricking and itching of the skin did
not take place. Between the fifth and seventh day the patients usually
complained
of great weakness, and had a desire to eat. A few tablespoonfuls of
wine then agreed with them very well; for the rest, neither thirst nor
lethargy was observable, but it was particularly remarkable that the
urine was clear and abundant. Up to the seventh day a confined state of
bowels was usual, and, with the exception of the already mentioned
attacks of tightness and oppression, the breathing remained free,
though with great sleeplessness, during the whole malady. Nothing
morbid was to be observed in the chest, and the patients lay stretched
out at full length, so that there was no occasion at any time to raise
their heads. If we compare this epidemic with the one observed at
Abbeville in
1773, we shall find between them but very trifling differences, which
would appear still more clearly in some of the intermediate
visitations, thus conforming to what has been observed in other
eruptive maladies. It is consequently evident that the miliary fevers
[2] which have appeared in France in recent times, do not differ in any
essential point from those of more ancient date. The surest proof of
their identity is, their persistence for nearly two centuries; and from
the manner in which they have presented themselves to observation, they
are to be considered as distinct from the English Sweating Sickness,
though certainly allied to it. It would exceed our limits to pursue
this inquiry further, but it may be as well to give the following short
catalogue [3] of the most important miliary epidemics. ___________________________________________ [1] Bally and François, in
the
Journal Général de Médecine, T. LXXVII. p. 204.
Compare Foderé, T.
III. p. 227. Ozanam, T. III. p. 116. Bayer, Suette,
p. 148. Mal. d. 1. p. T. I. p. 320. SECT. 3.-THE ROETTINGEN SWEATING SICKNESS.We now come to a phenomenon which, notwithstanding its short
duration and very limited extension, is one of the inmost memorable of
this century. Up to the present time, its real importance has not been
recognised, because the clouds of selfsufficient ignorance have
prevented our taking a survey of the formation of diseases, throughout
long periods of time. It has been sunk for an age in the sea of
oblivion, from whence we will now draw it forth to the light of day. In November, 1802, a very hot and dry summer had been
succeeded by
incessant rain. Thick fogs spread over the country, and enveloped such
places in central Germany as were inaccessible to ventilation. Amongst
others, the small Franconian town of Roettingen, situated on the river
Tauber, and surrounded by mountains. [1] Scarcely had a few weeks
elapsed, when unexpectedly, towards the 2oth of November, an extremely
fatal disease broke out in the town, which was without example in the
memory of its inhabitants, and totally unknown to the physicians of the
country. Strong vigorous young men were suddenly seized with unspeakable
dread; the heart became agitated and beat
violently against the ribs, a profuse,sour, ill-smelling
perspiration broke out over the whole body, and at the same time,
they experienced a lacerating pain in the nape of the neck,
as if a violent rheumatic fever had taken possession of the tendinous
tissues. This pain ceased sometimes very quickly, and if it then
shifted to the chest, the distressing palpitation of the heart
recommenced; a spasmodic trembling of the whole body ensued; the
sufferers fainted, their limbs became rigid, and thus they breathed
their last. In most cases, all this occurred within four and
twenty hours. They did not all, however, succumb under the first
attack, but as soon as [1] At that time inhabited by about two hundred and fifty country people. Sinner. p. 7.
the accelerated pulse had sunk to the lowest ebb of smallness
and
feebleness, a corresponding effect being observable in the respiration,
the violent pain would in some cases return to the outward parts. The
patient then felt a benumbing pressure and stiffness in the nape of the
neck; and the pulse and respiration became restored again as in health,
but the perspiration continued to pour incessantly down the skin. This apparent safety was, however, very deceptive, for a
renewed
palpitation of the heart unexpectedly commenced, accompanied by a
feeble pulse; and then death was often inevitable. It was remarkable,
that the patients, though bathed in perspiration, had very little
thirst, and the tongue was not dry, nor ever even foul, but retained
its natural moisture. With most, however, the urine was scanty; as the
skin, under the increasing debility, permitted too much fluid to stream
forth through its pores. 1f the disease passed of without heating
sudorifics, then in general no eruption made its appearance. The
malady then continued till the sixth day, but on the first only did it
display its malignant symptoms, for by the second, the sweating
diminished and lost every unfavourable quality, so that increased
transpiration of the skin, without any other symptoms of importance,
alone remained, and on the sixth day the patient was perfectly
restored. Had there been in Roettingen a physician at hand from the
commencement, well skilled in medical history, and who would
have adopted the old English treatment of the Sweating Sickness, this
new fever would have appeared but as a perfectly mild disease, and
would certainly have carried off but few of the inhabitants of this
peaceful little town. As it was, however, the scenes of Lübeck and
Zwickau were renewed, and it seemed as if the innumerable victims to
the hot treatment, and to Kegeler's truculent medical
work,
had descended to the grave in vain. The sufferers were, as in the
sixteenth century, literally stewed to death! for the moment the
people imagined that they knew how nature meant to escape, they ordered
feather-beds to be heaped on the perspiring patient, so that the mouth
and nose alone remained uncovered. Doors and windows were tightly
closed, and the stove emitted a glowing heat, whilst a most intolerable
odour of perspiration streamed forth from beneath the broad and lofty
beds; added to which, that two and even more patients were often lying
in the same room; nay, even stowed together under the same mountain of
feathers, and in order that inward heat might not be wanting, pots of
theriaca were swallowed, and the patient was incessantly plied with
elder electuary. Thus the bad humours were expelled together with the
perspiration; and whether the sufferers were suffocated, or surmounted,
as by a miracle, this mal-treatment of nature, a conviction was felt,
that the most salutary remedies had been employed, and when at last
eruptions of various colours broke out, it was considered as certain,
that the poison had been carried off in them. The citizens of
Roettingen, therefore, fell into the same erroneous opinion, which,
upheld by medical schools, had, time immemorial, increased inflammatory
diseases, particularly the exanthematous, and caused them to become
malignant. The above-mentioned eruptions were of various sorts; miliary
vesicles of every form and colour, filled with an acrid fluid; actual
blistery eruptions (pemphigus), and even petechi and it is to be
observed, that the patients, during the first days of the sweating
fever, never suffered from that peculiar pricking sensation over the
whole body which precedes the eruption of miliaria, but complained
only, and that not always, of a local itching, where the eruption had
broken out. It was equally rare to observe a regular desquamation of
the skin, and it is therefore to be assumed, that the eruptions
were only symptomatic, and not by any means necessarily connected
with the disease, as in the decidedly miliary fevers. The disease excited, from its very commencement, the greatest
consternation; and as it was increased, even from the first days of its
appearance, by the sudorific system of treatment, deaths were
multiplied; the continual peal of funeral bells struck mortal terror,
as of old at Shrewsbury, into the hearts of both sick and healthy; and
this oppressed little town was shunned as a pesthole by the inhabitants
of the surrounding neighbourhood. At the commencement of the disease,
they were entirely without medical advice, till a skilful physician
arrived from the vicinity, [1] and as most of the
inhabitants were already attacked with the sweating fever, he
immediately prescribed the proper treatment. But the powers of one man
are not sufficient, amid such confusion, to contend with the
deeply-rooted prejudices of the people, and so they continued in most
houses to expel by heat and theriaca both perspiration and life
together; till at last, on the third of December, Dr. Sinner of
Würzburg arrived, without whom the remembrance of this remarkable
disease would have been obliterated, and conjointly with his gallant
colleague, like the anonymous physician formerly in Zwickau, subdued
the destructive prejudices of [1] Dr. Thein, government physician of the town of Aub.
the people. He found eighty-four patients [1] under piles of
featherbeds, who, when pure air was admitted, breathed once more
freely, and by a prudent cooling system, all recovered easily, and
without danger, one only excepted. His method reminds us of the old
English treatment. [2] The disease was confined entirely to Roettingen;
it did not make its appearance anywhere beyond the gates of this little
town. On the fifth of December, however, clear, frosty weather
set in; from that time no new cases occurred, and all traces of this
Roettingen sweating fever, which was never either preceded or followed
by miliary fever in any part of Franconia, have from that time
disappeared. The resemblance of this fever to the English Sweating
Sickness is
manifest, and is proved even by the short (only ten days') duration
of the visitation, which, as we have stated, is a most essential
characteristics of the English sweating epidemic, at least as it
appeared in Germany; the miliary epidemics always have lasted a much
longer period. But if we confine ourselves merely to the symptoms of
the disease, we shall find, that in the Roettingen sweating fever,
there are, throughout, none that can be considered essential, except
the palpitation of the heart, accompanied with anguish, the profuse
perspiration, and the rheumatic pains in the nape of the
neck, which never were wanting in any case; and the very same
symptoms are clearly and perceptibly to be discerned in like proportion
as compared with others, in the representation of the English Sweating
Sickness; whereas, the eruptions were altogether as unessential as in
the epidemic of the sixteenth century. The irritability of the skin,
and tendency to dangerous metastases, were less marked in the
Roettingen fever than in the English Sweating Sickness; for the
patients could, without injury, change their linen in the midst of the
perspiration, which, in the English Sweating Sickness, could not have
been done without fatal consequences; but this difference can easily be
accounted for, from the greater degree of suffering in the latter
disease than in the former. It only now remains to examine the duration
of the disease, and here we plainly perceive that the principal
paroxysm was over in the Roettingen epidemic within the first four and
twenty hours, [1] The whole number of cases and of deaths is not
stated.
Dr. Sinner found nine bodies, none of which had been opened,
shortly
before
the cessation of the disease.
at least when it was undisturbed by treatment; and the sole
symptom
which continued until the sixth day-the increased perspiration
(we
speak here only of perfectly pure cases)-could only reasonably be
regarded as a sequela. The crisis did not occur all on a sudden, as in
the English Sweating Sickness, but this can not constitute any
essential difference. We do not hesitate, therefore, to pronounce the
Roettingen
fever to have been the same disease as the English Sweating Sickness. To
give, however, this phenomenon its proper interpretation-to have
a
clear conception of the causes which again drew down from the clouds,
into the midst of Germany, this mist-born spectre of 1529, and allowed
it to expend its brief fury upon a single place, is beyond the power of
human wisdom. Science is not comprehensive enough to discover, in the
crossings of these unknown comet-paths, the moving causes of this
visitation of disease. But as all insight into the works of nature must
be proceded by a strict investigation and search after phenomena in all
countries, at all times, and under all circumstances of development, so
an improved knowledge of diseases and of the whole human system, will
not fail to follow, when the investigations of epidemics throughout
extensive periods have increased in number and success. The present age demand such a knowledge of medical men,
whose
vocation it is to investigate life minutely in all its bearings. It
demands of them an historical pathology, and to this branch of the
study of nature is the present work intended to contribute. CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.TRANSLATED BYROBERT H. COOKE, M.R.C.S., AUTHOR OF "EPIDEMIC MENTAL DISEASES OF CHILDREN,"
|
POLITICAL EVENTS. 1461-1483. Louis XI.
1485-1509. Henry VII. 1498-1515 Louis XII. 1501. conquers Naples in conjunction with the
Spaniards, and
is by them 1506. Philip I. dies. 1509-1547. Henry VIII. in consequence of the Sweating Sickness and the
Plague.
1524. October, Francis I. passes Mont Cenis, and
is 1532. Imperial Diet at Nuremberg. The
Protestants
obtain
security.
1542. Maurice Duke of Saxony renounces the league
of Schmalkalden. 1547. 24th April, the battle of Muhlberg. Raises 1548. Duke Maurice to the electorate of Saxony, and prescribes the interim, which is not accepted by Magdeburg. 1551. Magdeburg declared to bee under the imperial ban, and besieged in vain by the Saxons. 1552. Henry II. of France (1547-1559), in
alliance with the Protestant princes, takes Metz, Toul, and Verdun. |
FIRST VISITATIONS OF THE SWEATING SICKNESS
1478-1482. Swarms of locusts in the south of
Europe. 1485. The end of August,in Oxford. October, in London. 1485. The middle of September, in Croyland.
1488-1490. Plague in Spain.
SECOND VISITATION 1500-1503. Mould-spots (signacula) in Germany
and
France. 1505. First epidemic petechial fever in Italy.
The
morbid
activity of the organism showed a decided determination towards the
skin during all this period. 1506-1508. Pestilential epidemics in Spain. 1508. Swarms of locusts in Spain.
THIRD VISITATION
1515. Pestilential epidemics in Spain. 1517. Smallpox breaks out in Hispaniola.
FOURTH VISITATION
1524. Great plague at Milan. September the English Sweating Sickness
appears
to
spread universally all over Germany. On the 31st August in
Stettin; termination on the 8st September. On the 1st September in
Dantzic; termination on the 6th September. On the
24th August in Strasburg. On the 5th, 6th, and 7th September
in Cologne, Augsburq, and .Francfort on the Maine.
About the 20th September in Vienna and among the
besieging Turks. On the 27th September in Amsterdam. Termination en the
1th October in Antwerp and the rest of
the
Netherlands; simultaneously, at the end of September, in Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway. At the commencement of November a universal
cessation of the epidemic Sweating Sickness.
FIFTH VISITATION
1538. Epidemic dysentery in France. 1540. The hot summer. The forests take fire spontaneously. 1541. Plague in Constantinople. 1542 Swarms of locusts in the south of Europe, and plague in Hungary during the war of the Turks in that kingdom. 1543. Plague and petechial fever in Germany. Metz. 1545 and 1546. Trousse-galant in France, of which 10,000 English die at Boulogne. 1546. Plague in the Netherlands and France. Englishmen in foreign
countries
sicken with the English Sweating Sickness. The epidemic terminates the
30th of September. |
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