At the same period as in Denmark, the Sweating Sickness spread over theScandinavian 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, whereMagnus Erikson, brother of kingGustavus 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[261]. 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[262], but doubtless there are writtendocuments still in existence in these countries, which only need some careful enquirer to bring them to light. In the mean time, however, it is to be presumed, from the early appearance of the disorder in Prussia, that it prevailed in those countries at the same time as in Germany, Denmark, and the Scandinavian Peninsula. No certain trace is anywhere to be discovered that the Sweating Sickness appeared so late as December, 1529, or in January of the following year, so that, after having lasted upon the whole a quarter of a year, it disappeared everywhere without leaving behind it any sign of its existence, or giving rise to the development of any other diseases. Among these, it pursued its course as a comet among planets, without interfering either with the French Hunger Fever, or the Italian Petechial Fever, proving a striking example to all succeeding ages of those general shocks to which the lives of the human race are subject, and a fearful scourge to the generation which it visited.
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[263]. 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 greatestcare 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[264].
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 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[265]. 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[266]. 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 devotedvictim 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[267]. 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[268]. A person thus disordered in his mind, was recently seen to destroy himself[269]on receiving false intelligence of the return of the late epidemic; thus betraying conduct even more dastardly than those cowardly soldiers, who, when the cannon begin to roar, inflict on themselves slight wounds that they may avoid sharing the dangers of the battle.
To have a full notion how men’s minds were previously prepared for this state, we have but to think on the monstrous events which took place in Germany. Twelve years earlier the gigantic work of the reformation had been begun by the greatest German of that age, and, with the Divine power of the gospel, triumphantly carried through up to that period. The excitement was beyond all bounds. The new doctrine took root in towns and villages, but nevertheless the most mortal party hatred raged on all sides, and as usually happens in times of such empassioned commotion, selfishness was the animating spirit which ruled on both sides, and seized the torch of faith, in order, for her unholy purposes, to envelop the world in fire and flames.
So early as the year 1521, during Luther’s concealmentwithin the walls of Wartburg, false prophets[270]arose, and desired, without the aid of their great Master, who was the soul of that age, to complete a work with the spirit of which they were not imbued. They brought the wildest passions into action, but, destitute of innate firmness, and incapable of curbing themselves, they became incendiaries and iconoclasts. Immediately upon this the unhappy peasant-war broke out—a consequence of the arbitrary conduct and oppression practised from times of old, for which the abettors of Dr. Eck’s sentiments would charge Luther himself as answerable; not perceiving that it was the excitement of the times and of the false prophets which had given occasion to the rebellion. Events occurred, from the recollection of which human feeling still recoils. Never was the fair soil of Germany the scene of more atrocious cruelties; and after vengeance had played her insane part without opposition, the melancholy result was, that hundreds of thousands of once peaceful, and for the most part misled peasants, fell by the sword of the Lansquenets and of the executioner, while their numerous survivors became a prey to the dearth which visited the country in the following years. The battle of Frankenhausen on the 15th of May, 1525, and Münzer’s subsequent execution, closed this bloody scene. The consequences of such intestine commotions continued however to be felt long after, and considered apart from their highly prejudicial influence on the prosperity of the people, conduced not a little to break the spirit of mankind, signs of which the wise men of those times have plainly pointed out[271].
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[272]. 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[273]. 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[274]; but to the everlasting honour of the Germans it must be acknowledged that they withstood this purifying fire with unsullied honour, and in a manner worthy of themselves. For their noble spirits were aroused to unheard-of exertions of energy, and whilst the pusillanimous gave themselves up to despair, they impressed on the gigantic work of their age the stamp of imperishable truth.
The siege of Vienna began on the 22d of September, after the English pestilence had broken out in this capital of Austria, yet nobody regarded this internal danger. The repeated attempts made by the Turks to storm the town were repulsed with great courage, and, on the 15th of October, Soliman raised the siege, after the Sweating Sickness had raged with as much violence among his troops as among the besieged[275]. There isno 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[276].
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[277], sketch the first outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melancthon, has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the following spring, during his stay at Cobourg, he composed his sublime hymn, “Eine feste burg ist unser Gott,” a strong fortress is our God.
It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which took place in these years, especial importance would be attributed to the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in the narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God; and, indeed, this representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in all religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind and body, of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived by a superior insight into things; and the mean selfishness of mankind and their delusions respecting their own qualities induce them to adopt the more easily the partial view, that the Supreme Being allows pestilences to exist only to destroy their enemies of another faith. On this account, not only do most contemporary writers speak of the just wrath of God, and of the chastisement thus prepared for the sins of the world[278], but the papal party took every possiblepains to represent the English pestilence as a punishment for heresy and an evident warning against the triumphant doctrines of Luther. The cases in Hamburgh, where the eruption of the Sweating Sickness almost immediately followed the abolition of the monasteries, may certainly have obtained credit for such representations among the wavering and short-sighted, and, in a hundred other towns also, the Papists may have taken advantage of a similar occurrence of circumstances, for 1529 was a year when great and important questions were decided. At Lübeck, the monks in general preached that the English sweating fever was but a punishment which heaven inflicted on the Martineans, for so they called the followers of Luther, and the people were not undeceived until they saw with astonishment that Catholics also fell sick and died[279]. They went, however, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that the meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the heretics[280]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527, cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds.
In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to endeavour to appease the visible wrath of God by the punishment of the heretics, and it was this sanguinary delusion, worthy of savage barbarians, which hastened the burning of Flistedt and Clarenbach[281]. To the completion of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might be added, of which the following may be taken as an example. In the March of Brandenburgthe 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[282].
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 byTyengius, 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 theSweating Sickness was to be combated by those ignorant interlopers, who many of them gave it out that they had been in England, boasting to the inhabitants of their experience and skill, and with their pills and their “hellish electuaries,” flitting about from place to place[283], especially where rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should they be restored, they obtained the promise of mines of gold[284]. The like occurred in Germany, where, at the commencement, the sound sense of the people was overcome by this officiousness, and violent remedies were recommended as certain means of cure, in a deluge of pamphlets, some of which were written by persons not in the profession.
From this impure source was derived the prescription of the compulsory[285]perspiration for twenty-four hours, which, in the districts of the Rhine, was called the Netherlands regimen[286]; and it is unpardonable, that the physicians, either with blind pride disregarded, or were totally unacquainted with the prior experience of the English, which advocated discretion and the most appropriate line of treatment. This neglect, which was not compensated until thousands had already fallen, may possibly have arisen from the blameable silence of the English physicians, of whom, as if England had not yet been enlightened by the dawn of science, not an individual had written on the Sweating Sickness, or proposed a reasonable line of treatment, since the year 1485. Between England and Germany there existed, nevertheless, a constant intercourse; and it is incredible that that mode of procedure, which did not originate from a formal medical school, but from the sound sense of the people, should not have become earlier known on this side of the North Sea.
We must not here overlook the habits and domestic manners of the Germans, for these favoured not a little the baneful prejudice with regard to heat, for which we would not altogether make the physicians responsible. Housewives, even at that time, set far too much store by high beds, which annually received the feathers of the geese consumed at the table. The comforts of a warm feather bed were highly appreciated, and least of all were they disposed to deny them to the sick. Thus all inflammatory disorders were stimulated to much greater malignity, because such a bed either caused a dry heat, even to the extent of burning fever, or a useless debilitating perspiration. To this effect the very extensive misuse of hot baths conduced; and no less so the custom of clothing much too warmly. Upon the whole the notion was prevalent, as well with the people as with medical men, that diseases were to be combated by warmth and sudorifics. To new epidemics, however, the prevailing notions and customs are always applied; for the great mass of mankind, among whom may be included medical men, are entirely ruled by them; so that in this instance, the Sweating Sickness fell upon a country in which its utmost malignity would be called forth.
Yet after the first few days, in which many unfortunate cases occurred, people became aware of the error they had committed. An advocate of the twenty-four hours’ sudation, who, though not a medical man, had lauded this practice in a pamphlet on the subject[287], 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[288]; for the English plan of treatment was presently known, and intelligent philanthropists, who saw its curative powers, made it public[289]in all quarters, through the medium of their correspondence. In Lübeck there lived at the time of the SweatingFever a learned Protestant Englishman, Dr. Anthony Barns, who, with great kindness, made known everywhere the English treatment of the disease. He was, however, after the cessation of the pestilence, banished from the city, because he had petitioned the bigoted Catholic senate to tolerate his Protestant brethren. Many were saved by him; for it was the practice in this city also,to stew to death[290]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[291], 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 trulybeneficentphysicians may be reckoned Peter Wild, at Worms[292], who warned his countrymen against the Netherlands practice[293]; 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[294]. It alsosoon became a common saying, ”the Sweating Sickness will bear no medicine.”[295]
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[296], Edward Wotton[297], and George Owen[298], were the King’s body physicians about the time of the fourth epidemic visitation of the Sweating Sickness. William Butts[299]of whom Shakespeare[300]has made honourable mention, in all probability likewise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and worthy men[301], but posterity has gained nothing from them on the subject of the English Sweating Sickness. All these physicians were well informed, zealous, and doubtless also cautious followers of the ancient Greek school of medicine, but their merits were of no advantage to the people, who, when they departed from the dictates of their own understanding, and did not content themselves with domestic remedies, to which they had been accustomed, fell into the hands of a set of surgeons so rude and ignorant that they could only exist in the state of society which then prevailed[302].
Inexplicable as the silence of the learned physicians of England, on the Sweating Sickness, appears at first view, (for where is the use of learning if it fail to throw any light on the stormy phenomena of life?) we may yet find, perhaps, its cause in a perfectly simple external circumstance. The reformation had not yet begun in England, the Catholic Church still stood on its ancient foundations, and an intellectual intercourse between the learned and the people was not by any means among the acknowledged desiderata. The faculty would hence have been able to treat of the new disorder only in ponderous Latin works, for they wrote unwillingly in their own language, and the subject could not seem to them an appropriate one for this purpose, because they found it unnoticed and uninvestigated by their highly revered masters the Greeks. They were ignorant that a sweating fever had ever appeared among the ancients, which, otherwise, might have incited them to make researches of their own on the subject; for Aurelian, who describes it to the life, was either unknown to them, or, what at that time was a valid ground, was despised by them, on account of his bad (unclassical) language.
In Germany, on the contrary, the intellectual wants of the people and of the educated classes had already manifested themselves very differently. Twelve years before, the age of pamphlets had there commenced. The thoughts of Luther and of his disciples, as also of his opposers were winged by the rapid press, and the people took an impassioned part in the endeavours of the learned to affect their conviction, and by thisaltogether novel and authoritative mode of religious instruction, became gradually educated and guided. Hence it is not to be wondered at that people began to investigate, in pamphlets, other important subjects likewise, and thus we see this weighty branch of intellectual commerce, with all its advantages and defects, also turned towards the discussion of popular diseases, and for the first time unfolding its numerous leaves on the subject of the English epidemic. In the maritime cities nothing of this kind happened, because the eruption of the pestilence took them by surprise, and as it was over again in the course of a few weeks, it seemed no longer worth while to instruct the people respecting it.
This surprise was very plainly shewn in the answer of the doctors and licentiates who were assembled together at the bedside of the Duchess, at Stettin: “the disease was new and unknown to them: they were at a loss what to advise, excepting strengthening medicines.”[303]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[304]. This same Dr. Bayer writes in the style of an intelligent practical physician, inveighs boldly against the prejudices of mankind, and the ignorance of medicaljourneymen, 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 preventivebleedings, purgatives, and powerful medicines, of which he prescribes so many that his reader is necessarily confused by their multiplicity. His precepts respecting the sweat are very appropriate, for he gives a caution against forcing perspiration, prescribes according to the circumstances, and even commences the treatment with an emetic, if the state of the stomach seems to indicate its employment. In order to guard against contagion, he recommends, at the approaching autumnal fair, that foreigners from “dying lands”should be accommodated in distinct inns, that fumigation should be carefully employed, and that before each booth at the fair a fire should be kept up.
Another pamphlet by Caspar Kegeler, of Leipzig, is a melancholy monument of the credulity which, from Herophilus to the present day, has pervaded the whole medical art. It is a regular pharmacopœia for the Sweating Sickness, thrown together at a venture, without any insight into the nature of the disease. A mine of wonderful pills and electuaries composed of numberless ingredients wherewith this “mysterious worthy” undertakes to raise a commotion in the bodies of his patients. If he had but seen even a single case of the disease he would at least have known how impossible it would be to administer, within the space of four-and-twenty hours, the hundredth part of his pills and draughts. With what approbation this little pharmacopœia was received by physicians of equal penetration and understanding as himself, is shewn by the eight editions which it passed through[305], and the melancholy reflection is therefore forced upon us, that possibly thousands of sick persons were maltreated and sacrificed from the employment of Kegeler’s medicines.
A third physician at Leipzig, Dr. John Hellwetter, states in his pamphlet, that he has become acquainted with the Sweating Fever in foreign countries, and on the subject of perspiration gives some very good advice, evidently the result of his own experience, which reminds us of the original English mode of treatment. His notion that fish is injurious seems to have originated in the fact that the continued employment of fish as an article of diet gives rise to offensive perspirations, and his admonition to his medical brethren not to flee from the sick, but to visit them sedulously and give them consolation, furnishes ground for supposing that some of them had been pusillanimousand dishonourable enough to withdraw themselves or to refuse their assistance to the poor.
Almost all the medical men of those times were in possession of arcana which they employed either in all or at least in most diseases, in a very unprofessional manner, and the efficacy of which the sweet delusions of self-interest did not permit them to call in question. The severe metallic remedies of the Spagyric school, which was then in its infancy, were not yet introduced, but there were not wanting strong heating medicines from the ancient stores of the empyrics, which almost universally obtained the preference over the mild potions and syrups of the Arabians. Hellwetter sold a powder of unknown composition, and a number of distilled waters, which Dr. Magnus Hundt, of Leipzig, notices with much approbation. The pamphlet of this physician is in every respect of the most ordinary kind; it affords no proof that the author had any sound comprehension of the disease, and belongs to that class of low medical compositions which, in times of danger, is so easily derided by the public, and so much diminishes the estimation of the profession, to the material injury of the general welfare.
It must not, however, be supposed that the people, who in such times of commotion often confound together the good and the bad, listened everywhere so readily to these pamphleteers. The composition of one Dr. Klump, at Ueberlingen, who, on the breaking out of the disease, attacked his patients with theriac and all kinds of heating plague powders, excited great derision[306], 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[307], which contains such correct medical views, that our highest approbation is, even now, justly due to its unknown author, as shewing, throughout, great judgment and a very competent knowledge of the Sweating Fever. Hiswhole 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[308], refreshes them with syrup of roses, and impresses upon his readers that the majority of those affected will recover without medicine. In order to guard against the stupor which was so exceedingly fatal, in addition to continual conversation, refreshing odours of rose water and aromatic vinegar were held before the patient’s nose, in a moderately damp cloth, or their temples were cautiously bathed with them. Convalescents were watched with great care, and it is not the least excellence of this very sterling pamphlet that it likewise combated the timidity of the sick with the inculcation of mild, but manly, religious principles, such as corresponded with the spirit of that age. The rules here laid down are, in essentials, the original English precepts which had already broken the force of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in the year 1485, and the author does not conceal his having in this matter received information from Hamburgh, so far back as the 7th of August. That by this mode of treatment not only individual patients[309]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[310]. Besides aromatic odoriferous waters, the very harmless and only remediestherein 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[311], 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[312]during the disease. The court of Holland also recommended a method of cure[313]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 accomplishedEuricius Cordus[314], of Marburg, had, when he wrote[315], no information respecting the successful English mode of treatment, and, with all his celebrity, only followed in the ranks of ordinary advisers. He could not free himself from the medical precepts which he brought from Italy and gave to the only patient at Marburg, who was the subject of the Sweating Sickness, the very disagreeable, though much employed potion of “Benedetto.”[316]His prophylactic ordinances were very burthensome, though with respect to the frequent employment of purgatives, which at that time almost all physicians recommended, it must be taken into account, that the intemperance so prevalent in those days, rendered them in general more necessary, perhaps, than they are at the present time. Bishop Ditmar of Merseburg, has betrayed to posterity, that this celebrated man had a great dread of the new disorder, and did not conceal his anxiety[317].
There is still extant a very complicated prescription ofAchilles Gasser[318], the learned physician of Augsburg, which he employed with childish confidence[319]during the prevalence ofthe 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[320], 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[321]. This very circumstance proves that the man laboured under only an imaginary and not a real sweating fever, but the belief that the bread which was afterwards baked in this oven was infected with the poison, can only be attributed to the credulity of the learned physician.
The Count of Newenar[322]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[323]. 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[324], 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[325], whose own wife fell sick of the sweating fever, and fortunately was again restored[326]. 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[327]. 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[328]: 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[329]of the great extortions of the apothecaries, this was a natural effect of the customary prescriptions, whereof he himself recommends many that are very objectionable.
Whatever the science of medicine of the sixteenth century could oppose to so fearful an enemy, is set forth in the very excellent treatise ofJoachim Schiller[330]of Freiburg, which, however, did not appear until two years later, and unfortunately does not give the wished-for information on the development of the pestilence in the Briesgau. Schiller is moderate in his views, and shews throughout, that he is a very well informed physician, and well versed in Greek literature: and although he cannot steer clear of the rubbish of clumsy remedies, yet thefault should not be charged on him, but on the age in which he lived. This, like every other, had its evils, and enveloped in clouds and darkness the genius of medicine, which, free, great, and elevated above human short-sightedness, is respected only by the intellectual servants of nature.
The notions of contemporary writers respecting the phenomena and the course of the sweating epidemic are, it is true, individually unsatisfactory and defective[331]; 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 theSweating 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[332], 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[333], (as in the most dangerous form of cholera, neither vomiting nor purging takes place,) and which, by its overpowering attack, either destroyed life within a few hours, or perhaps took some other turn of a nature unknown to us.
Premonitory symptoms were wanting altogether, unless we may reckon as such, first, an anguish, combined with palpitation of the heart, which may not have been of corporeal origin, but mayhave 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[334]: or thirdly, rheumatic pains of various kinds, which were frequently felt in the summer of 1529[335]; or finally, a disagreeable taste in the mouth and foul breath, which were very commonly the subject of complaint at that time[336].
In most instances the disease set in like the generality of fevers, with ashort shivering fit[337]and trembling, which in very malignant cases even passed into convulsions of the extremities[338]; in many it began with a moderate and constantly increasing heat[339]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[340], especially in the morning at sunrise[341]. Many patients experienced at the commencement a disagreeablecreeping sensationorformication on their hands and feet[342], which passed into pricking pains, and an exceedinglypainful 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[343]. Some were seen during these attacks, especially women and those who were weak, with their hands and feet swollen[344].
Serious affections of the brain quickly followed; many fell into a state of violent feverish delirium[345], and these generally died[346]. All complained of obscurepain in the head[347]; and it was notlong before an alarminglethargysupervened[348], which, if it was not firmly resisted, led to inevitable death by apoplexy. Thus the unconscious sufferers were, at least, relieved from the pain of separation from their friends, which would have been much more distressing to them in this than in any other complaint, since they lay, as it were, in a stinking swamp, tortured with suffering.
This mortal anguish accompanied them so long as they were in possession of their senses, throughout the whole disease[349].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[350];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 palpitatedconstantly under the oppressive feeling of inward burning, which, in the most malignant cases, flew to the head, and excited fatal delirium[351]. In the course of a short time, and in many cases at the very commencement, thestinking sweatbroke 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[352].
In this severe struggle thespinal marrowwas sometimes, at a later stage, so much affected, that evenconvulsionscame on; and it happened not unfrequently, that, in consequence of theconstriction of the chest, the stomach indicated its excited condition bynauseaandvomiting[353]. These symptoms, however, manifested themselves principally in those who were attacked with the disease upon a full stomach.
Such is the testimony of the contemporary writers of 1529, to whose accounts but little is added by Kaye, an English eye-witness of the epidemic Sweating Sickness of 1551. The observations of this perfectly trustworthy physician, so far as they relate to the form of the disorder, may be here annexed, since no essential differences between the diseases on these two occasions can be discovered. At the first onset the disease in some attacked the neck or shoulders, and in others one leg or one arm, with dragging pains[354]; 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 veryquick and irritable pulse[355]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[356], 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[357], which, when it broke out again, after any interruption to its flow, was still more penetrating[358].
Kaye adds to what we already know of the oppression of the chest, the very important statement that those affected were observed to have awhining, sighing voice, whence we have every reason to conclude that there was a serious affection of the eighth pair of nerves. He, moreover, describes a very mild form of the disease, such as was prevalent in the south of Germany in 1529. It passed off under proper care, without any danger, in the very short period offifteen hours, and was brought to a termination by moderate heat through the medium of a very gentle perspiration[359].
It is remarkable that during this violent disorder neither theactivity 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[360]. 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[361], on which account a French physician proposed to draw off the water in those who suffered from this disease[362]; yet this practice has no higher therapeutical worth than the excitement of perspiration in diabetes or in cholera, and is, moreover, much less practicable. That occasionally diarrhœa supervened, and even to a degree which was not to be restrained, may be gathered from the frequent medical directions as to how it ought to be arrested, which Kaye also repeats[363]. 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, thatafter the perspiration was overthere appeared on the limbssmall vesicles[364], which were not confluent,but rendered the skin uneven, and these were not noticed by any other medical observer, but are spoken of by the author of an old Hamburgh chronicle, and, with this addition, that they had been seen on the dead[365]. By these it is very likely that amiliary eruption, and perhaps spots also, are to be understood; yet every thing militates against the supposition that this phenomenon was constant, or that the Sweating Fever was an eruptive disorder[366]. 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[367].
Those patients were placed in still greater dangerin 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[368]. 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 thethird and fourth time seized with the Sweating Sickness[369], nay, later writers noticea repetition of the disease even to the twelfth time[370], whereby at least the health was completely shattered, for dropsy or some other destructive sequelæ supervened, until death put a period to incurable sufferings, and it is important to observe that even the bowels participated in the great excitability of the system, fortoo early an exposure to the air easily brought on diarrhœa[371].
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[372]; and fortunately did away with all fear of being buried alive. Of post mortem examinations we have no information, and even if they could have been instituted, they would, from the manner of conducting researches in those times, scarcely have thrown any important light on the disease. Hardly any physicians but those who had studied in Italy knew the inward structure of the body from their own observation, superficial as it was; the rest learned it only from Galenic manuals; how could they with such slender knowledge have distinguished between healthy and diseased parts? Moreover, the Sweating Sickness could not in so short a period cause such a palpable and substantial destruction of the viscera as they would alone have sought for. Details respecting the condition of the blood in the dead body, which after such an enormous loss of watery fluid, such severe oppression at the chest, and so great an impediment to the function of respiration, would in all probability be thickened and darkened in colour, as well as respecting the condition of the lungs and of the heart, it would be highly desirable to obtain; but these likewise are wanting altogether, and after the lapse of so long a period there only remains room for conjectures.
The observation was repeated in Germany which had been so frequently made since the year 1485, that the middle period of life was especially exposed to the Sweating Fever. Children, on the contrary, remained almost entirely exempt from this disease, and when the aged were affected by it, it was as individual exceptions to a general rule[373], 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[374]. 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 amongthem 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[375], and our bold forefathers, with respect to these matters, were not in the best repute with their southern neighbours.