The Sweating Sickness in England

Part 1

THE SWEATING SICKNESS IN ENGLAND.

BY FRANCIS C. WEBB, M.D., F.S.A.,

PHYSICIAN TO THE MARGARET STREET DISPENSARY FOR CONSUMPTION, ETC.

Reprinted from THE SANITARY REVIEW AND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, for July 1857.

LONDON: PRINTED BY T. RICHARDS, 37 GREAT QUEEN STREET.

M.DCCC.LVII.

THE SWEATING SICKNESS IN ENGLAND.

There are few subjects which exhibit more points of interest to the epidemiologist and medical historian, than that series of epidemics, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which went by the name of English Sweating Sicknesses. We are chiefly indebted to a learned German professor, Dr. Hecker, and to his translator Dr. Babington, for the acquaintance we in the present day have with these events; and we would here observe that, in whatever light we may view Professor Hecker’s deductions and theories, there can be but one opinion as to his faithfulness and diligence as a medical historian. As his work, however, is published by a society, and is therefore of somewhat limited circulation, we have thought a short historical sketch, embodying, and in some instances slightly amplifying, Professor Hecker’s researches on the subject of the ravages of the disease in England, might not be uninteresting to our readers; who will then be in a position to follow us on some future occasion in a discussion of the nature of a malady, which five times within a hundred years devastated our island, and once, and once only, spread its ravages amongst the Teutonic races on the continent of Europe.

We may preface our historical resumé by noticing that the disease, in the form in which it then presented itself, was unknown before the year 1485, and that it has never reappeared since its last outbreak, in 1551. Its novelty gave it one of its appellations; it was called by the common people the “new acquaintance”; whilst its limitation to British soil gained for it on the continent the names of the King of England’s Sickness, the English Sweating Sickness, Sudor Britannicus.

Characterised by the suddenness of its seizure, by its short and defined course of twenty-four hours, by its great fatality, by the profuse and fetid perspiration in which the patient was bathed, and from which the disease derived its most common name, by the frequency with which it attacked the same individual several times within a short period, or perhaps, we should more correctly say, by its relapsing tendency, by its selection of strong and robust men in the prime of life as its victims, by the equality with which it invaded the palaces of the rich and the cottages of the poor, we cannot wonder at its producing a marked effect on the national mind, and being long held in remembrance. Even as late as the days of the great rebellion, occasional references may be found to it in popular sermons and treatises; whereas we might have supposed its memory would have been effaced by the frequent outbreaks of plague which had intervened. The sweating sickness has come down to us as the remarkable epidemic of a remarkable age. In an era distinguished by the emancipation of thought, by the spread of letters, by the splendours of a social and religious reformation, death appeared in a new garb, and in unwonted tones asserted his dominion.

It has been a frequent observation, that epidemic diseases have had their origin in camps; and it is perfectly needless here to remind the reader of instances. Such will present themselves to every student of history. The English sweat is stated by Caius to have first appeared in the army of the Earl of Richmond, shortly after their landing; and doubtless they were predisposed by the circumstances of the expedition, by their confinement during their voyage in close, dirty ships, and especially by their previous habits (for they are described by Philip de Comines as recruited from the loosest and most profligate class in Normandy), to suffer from any disease. But it is perfectly clear that, granting the distemper to have first appeared in the invading force, it was not long limited to it. It must quickly have spread amongst the population; as we learn from the Historia Croylandensis that, a few days after the landing of the earl, Lord Stanley excused himself from joining Richard III, by alleging that he was attacked by the new disease, he being then at his seat in Lancashire. A mere excuse, no doubt; but such as would not have been urged had not the progress of the epidemic rendered it possibly true. We likewise have proof that a fatal disease reigned at the time in York, although we lack information as to its precise nature. On the 16th of August, 1485, it was determined in the town council to send a messenger to King Richard with the offer of a force “for subduing of his enemies lately arrived in the partes of Wales”. “Also it was determyned that all such aldermen and other of the counsail as was sojournyng, for the plage that reigneth, without the citie, should be sent for to give their best advises in such things as concerned the wele and savegard of the said citie, and all other inhabitants of the same” (Drake’s Eboracum, b. i, p. 120). It is moreover remarkable, that, although the circumstances of the march of Richmond’s army, and of its final struggle and victory, have come down to us with tolerable minuteness, no mention, as far as we are aware, is made by the chroniclers of any pestilence tracking their course. The battle was fought on the 22nd of August; and before the end of that month the epidemic appeared at Oxford, a town through which the army is not reported to have passed, and which, devoted to learning, may be supposed to have suffered less from military occupation than other places.

Whilst, however, the assertion that the malady commenced amongst the soldiery of the Earl of Richmond rests principally on the authority of Dr. Caius, who wrote his account three-quarters of a century after the event, yet, in the lack of other evidence, we believe we must receive it. Caius was evidently aware of the interest and importance of his subject, and would scarcely have hazarded such a statement had he not been assured of its truth. On the other hand, it is a groundless assumption to claim for the sweating sickness a foreign origin. No such disease had appeared in Normandy, Brittany, or elsewhere on the continent; and there is no reason for supposing other causes present to produce the first epidemic of 1485, than those which resulted in the outbreak of 1551, when it commenced at Shrewsbury, and importation from abroad was simply out of the question.

It was on the evening of the 1st of August, 1485, that the sails of Henry’s little fleet were furled in the harbour of Milford Haven. They had accomplished the passage from Harfleur in seven days. The soldiers landed with promptitude, in the neighbourhood of the village of Dale, on the western side of the bay, and there encamped for the night. At sunrise the next morning they removed to Haverfordwest, a march of something less than ten miles. Here, reinforced by the men of Pembrokeshire, they proceeded to Cardigan, where they were joined by forces under Richard Griffith and John Morgan. Crossing the Severn, they entered Shrewsbury, where they were again augmented by a goodly band of Welshmen under Rice ap Thomas. The night before they entered the town, the army was encamped on Forton or Fortune Heath (to the west of Shrewsbury, near the river). They then marched to Newport, and the earl pitched his camp on a little hill adjoining, where he stopped a night. Here he was joined by the power of the young Earl of Shrewsbury, under George Talbot. He next halted at the town of Stafford, and thence marched on Lichfield, where his army bivouacked outside the walls. From this place they removed to Tamworth, their last halting-place before the great battle which decided the fate of England, and placed her crown on Henry’s brow.

Three weeks were occupied in the march, and their road lay chiefly through a mountainous country, not, as far as we are aware, more likely to give origin to malarious influence than other parts of the island. Yet the halt of the army at Shrewsbury, the place at which the last outbreak of the “gret dethe and hasty” undoubtedly commenced; the passage of the river Severn, which in the year 1483, overflowing its banks, had inundated the whole of the surrounding country; and the encampment on the low marshy ground outside the walls of the city of Lichfield, are especially worthy of remark.

Fortune and victory sat on Henry’s helm. Disbanding his army, he advanced by easy stages to London, greeted as he went by the acclamations of the populace. All things seemed to promise a

“harvest of perpetual peace, By this one bloody trial of sharp war”,

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