What was sweating sickness?

sweating sickness first reared its ugly head in England in summer 1485 and there were for further outbreaks in 1508 15 17 15 28 and 1551 before it completely disappeared in England never to be seen in country again it seems to be in a highly contagious disease which decimated towns around England sometimes taking thousands of lives according to John Caius the English physician writing in 1552 towns thought themselves lucky if half the population survived all those studies have since suggested that it was nowhere near as lethal as the plague sweating sickness caused shock and horror because it was a brand new disease and it killed quickly it was referred to by many different names including the sweat the sued or Anglican or English sweat the SWOT stuck gallant stooop nave and no ThighMaster sweating sickness and the new acquaintance although some experts believe that it was carried to England by French mercenaries in Henry Tudor's Army in August 1485 the Civic records of York recorded disease with the same symptoms as sweating sickness affecting the city in June 1485 two months before Henry's army landed in Milford Haven Wales there also no records of the disease affecting Henry's army all the Welsh populations that it had contact with during its march through Wales to Bosworth it is recorded as reaching London on the 19th of September 1485 the people of England were already well acquainted with diseases like to play malaria dysentery and typhoid fever the sweating sickness was something new it was also distinguishable from the influenza epidemic which affected Europe in 1510 Thomas for sta a French physician living in London wrote a treatise on the disease and in it he described its main symptoms these included a great sweating and stinking redness of the face and body a continual first fever headache and breathlessness John Caius added pain in the back shoulder and extremities accompanied by flushing or redness grief in the liver and stomach ie abdominal pain headache and madness passion of the heart or cardiac palpitations and a marvelous heaviness and a desire to sleep chronicler John Harding recorded people throwing off their bedclothes and running through the streets of London seeking relief from the fever what was so shocking about sweating sickness was the speed it could kill people for SDA recorded people dropping dead while walking down the street or while playing with their children we saw two priests standing together and speaking together and saw both of them die suddenly also in da próxima we see the wife of a tailor and suddenly died another young man walking by the street fell down suddenly also another gentleman riding out of the city died also many others the which were to rehearse we have known that have died suddenly but that immediately killed some in opening their windows some in playing with their children in their street dolls some in one hour many into it destroyed and at the longest to thee that merrily dined it gave a sorrowful suffer as it found them so it took them some in sleep some in wake some in mirth some incur some fasting and some fool some busy and some idle chronicler Edward Hall wrote a bit killing some people within two to three hours this malady was so cruel that it killed some within three hours some within two hours some merry at dinner and dead at supper during the 1517 epidemic the Venetian ambassador recorded the disease being faithful in 24 hours at the furthest many people being carried off in four or five hours it appears that if people survive the first 24 hours than they would make a full recovery while diseases like the plague preyed on the poor record show that sweating sickness mainly affected the upper classes particularly rich young man young children and the elderly tended to be spared it hit mainly rural areas but London and the student communities of Oxford and Cambridge and the monastic communities were badly affected its name the English sweat came from the fact that it initially only affected England and the English population of Calais it did not spread into Ireland Scotland or Wales and when foreigners residing in England were affected they got it mildly and recovered all five epidemics hit England in the summer or early autumn with the peak usually being in August and then the disease dying out in September there is controversy over where and when the first epidemic of sweating sickness started but a citizen of London reported that it hit the Capitol by the 27th of September 1485 and that it went on to kill Thomas Hill the Lord Mayor and then his replacement Sir William Stoker as well as a number of old men and many worshipful commoners according to the Croydon Chronicle Lambert Faust Ike Abbot of Crow Island died of the disease on the 14th of October Thomas fer SDA recorded that 15,000 people died in London alone but it has been pointed out that this must be an exaggeration because that would be a third of the city's population at that time the next recorded outbreak of sweating sickness was 23 years later in 1508 although some suggest that it may cause the death of Prince Arthur in 1502 and there was also an outbreak of an unknown disease in Chester in 1507 which killed 91 people in three days only four of whom were women Thomas More wrote to Cardinal Wolsey in 1508 to draw his attention to the severe depredations of the sweating sickness among the young gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge and there are records of the disease killing members of the household of the Lord treasurer in the July public prayers being said at st. Paul's in August and the Kings servants being struck down by the disease the Lord Chamberlain and Lord privy seal both survived it but the young lord Greystoke and dr. Simeon Dean of the Chapel Royal died chronicler Edward Hall recorded the third outbreak of sweating sickness in 1517 he said suddenly they came at plague sickness called the sweating sickness that turned all his purpose this malady was so cruel particular within three hours some within two hours some merry at dinner and dead at supper many died in the Kings called the Lord Clinton the Lord grave wilton and many nights gentlemen and officers for this plague Michaelmas turn was adjourned the Venetian ambassador wrote on the 6th of August 1517 that many of the king's household is sick and emoni oh his latin secretary died few strangers are dead but an immense number of natives the Venetian ambassador and his son both came down with it but pulled through cardinal wolsey also suffered from an attack and subsequent relapses but he was able to fight off the illness 15 of his household weren't so lucky it was also reported that members of the royal court included in the Queen's steward mr. Morgan and Matthew Jones of the Kings wardrobe perished it was also reported that 400 students died at Oxford although it's not clear whether this was from the plague or from sweating sickness the next outbreak of sweating sickness was in 1528 this time the disease spread across the English Channel but it only affected the English outpost of Calais where only seems to have affected Englishmen it affected the English Court in London in May 1528 causing the court to be broken up and the king and queen to flee this epidemic hit the English clergy hard there was an outbreak at a convent in Wilton in July 1528 an outbreak in Lincolnshire which killed four priests and thule brethren and an outbreak of the Charter House in London which caused many deaths Cardinal Wolsey's household was affected by the disease although the Cardinal escaped infection and we know from the reports of the French ambassador du Bellay that by the 18th of June some 2,000 people in London alone were afflicted and that this had risen to 40,000 by the 30th of June although any 2,000 died du Bellay also wrote that 18 of the Archbishop of Canterbury's domestic staff died of the disease in the July the Bishop of London reported that 13 of his servants had gone down with the sickness on the same day Henry the eighth managed to avoid the disease and his sweetheart Anne Boleyn survived it but William Compton Francis points and William Carey all members of the Kings Privy chamber died and other prominent members of the court including the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset Sir Thomas Chaney Henry Norris Sir John wallop George Boleyn and Thomas Boleyn also came down with the illness that survived on the 30th of June du Bellay recorded that all but one of the Kings Privy chamber had come down with the disease the March enos of Exeter was then recorded as being taken ill on the 9th of July some records suggest that this epidemic also moved to Hamburg via an English ship where it killed 1000 people in less than 24 hours it then spread along the baltic into scandinavia and south further into germany and austria one expert points out that in Vienna which was under siege by the Turks at the time it only affected the local people the Turks were spared 23 years later in 1551 the disease struck again this is the epidemic that the famous English physician John Caius recorded in his 1550 - a book or council against the disease commonly called the sweat or sweating sickness it was also the epidemic that took the lives of the Duchess of Suffolk sons Henry and Charles Caius writes of how the disease began in the middle of April in Shrewsbury and that it spread to Ludlow and the Welsh Marches Coventry Oxford and then to the south and southwest it affected London from the July and then moved to eastern England and the north where it began to diminish until the end of September when it finally died out in Loughborough it killed 19 people in six days and in Oxford it attacked sixteen just one night between the 9th and 16th of July Caius recorded 761 deaths and by the 30th of July 142 more had died prominent court members who died included Sir Thomas speak of the King's Council and Sir John Wallet who'd fought it off successfully in 1528 Caius rate of how people tried to escape the disease by fleeing to Ireland Scotland and France but that it followed English people like a shadow while it spared the natives of those countries it still affected the English people who'd fled there it was never heard of again in England after the 1551 epidemic but a similar disease was reported in Leipzig in 1652 various parts of France in 1818 1821 and 1845 northern Spain in 1835 northern Italy in 18-49 and Holland in 1850 in August 1517 the papal nuncio reported on the sweating sickness epidemic and included the advice given to treat it the sweat lasted 24 hours more or less join the fit it was faithful to take any cold beverage or to allow any air to penetrate the garments or bedclothes in which the patient commenced perspiring it was necessary to have rather more covering than usual though even in this great caution was needed as some had been suffocated by more than requisite amount of covering the bedchamber should have a moderate fire so as not to heat the room but to keep it at a tepid temperature the arms should be crossed on the patient's breast and great care be taken as the least air reached the armpits to neglect these precautions ensured immediate death the great Chronicle of London recorded that much people died suddenly for lack of good guidance for they were kept too hot and clothed that many was smoldered they might have been saved with moderate keeping chronicler John Harding wrote of physicians advising people to lie down in their clothes and bedclothes to stay in bed for 24 hours to avoid eating meat and to drink as little as possible Polydore Vergil rate of how survivors of the disease shared how they'd beaten it and that the advice included retiring immediately to bed at the first sign of illness lying quietly and not moving for exactly 24 hours adding clothing slowly so that the sweating would come gently and naturally avoiding eating for as long as possible drinking lukewarm fluid and keeping the entire body covered many of the contemporary sources report the disease only affecting English people and foreigners being immune to it or catching it mildly this obviously isn't completely true because the disease did spread onto the continent in the late 1520's and a similar disease was recorded in the 19th century in Europe however in 1881 dr. Arthur Bou da presented a paper to the Anthropology Society of Paris in which he argued that the disease did not affect just English people but that it affected the fair-haired races of Northern Europe ie those who descended from the anglo-saxons and that it was those who descended from the Celts who were spared it's an interesting theory nobody knows for sure what the sweating sickness was and what actually caused it theories regarding its identity in caused include arthropod borne virus commonly known as arbovirus the fact that it was a summer disease which affected many rural communities could suggest that it was an arthropod borne virus with a rodent host a viral pulmonary disease such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome HPS this syndrome is caused by catching a virus from infected small rodents and it has the following symptoms in succession fever myalgia headache rapidly progressive non cardiogenic pulmonary edema 88% of patients require mechanical ventilation within 24 hours of admission to hospital and death within 72 hours bad air dirty houses and a rich diet John Caius concluded that the disease was caused by clothes and unstirred air impure spirits and bodies corrupt by repletion too much meat in the diet or eating infected fruits Erasmus in a letter to Frances physician to the Cardinal of York wrote of how English houses were not constructed to make a through draught possible and that their rush floors were unhygenic because sometimes they were not renewed for around 20 years and so they allowed spittle vomit dogs urine and men's to dregs the beer and cast-off bits of fish and other unspeakable kinds of Filth to fester others blend the damp foggy English climate but these factors are unlikely to have caused such an epidemic relapsing fever in the past some has suggested that sweating sickness was actually relapsing fever which is a disease spread by lice or ticks it's symptoms include fever chills headache joint and muscle ache and nausea influenza some believe it have been a format the influenza but influenza was known in 15th and 16th centuries and yet sweating sickness was written about as a new and shocking disease none of the theories seemed to really fit the symptoms and spread of sweating sickness in the 16th century and perhaps this tude killer will always be a mystery in an article the sweating sickness returns in Discover Magazine Gant and Thwaites point out that they could possibly test out their hypothesis which is hantavirus pulmonary syndrome by assuming the body of Henry Brandon Duke of Suffolk who died from sweating sickness in 1551 but they have no plans to disturb his grave because the odds of survival of this type of genetic material is very low I guess we'll just never know you

Channel: The Anne Boleyn Files and Tudor Society

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Rating: 4.7713385 out of 5

Keywords: sweating sickness, medieval, tudors, henry viii, anne boleyn, cardinal wolsey, medieval illness, disease

Id: qwSjvIixzP8

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Thu May 15 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/level1workbench]

pretty sure it was just sickness, as, you know, that's where we get the word sickness from but ok chief