[1] The author seems to me here to allude to what Sydenham
calls the “constitutio epidemica,” as if he would say, “The epidemic
constitution as it exists at any one time, is but a step,” &c.
[4] For suddenlie a deadlie burning sweat so assailed their
bodies and distempered their blood with a most ardent heat, that
scarce one amongst an hundred that sickened did escape with life; for
all in maner as soone as the sweat tooke them, or within a short time
after, yeelded the ghost. Holinshed, Vol. III. p. 482. Godwin, p.
98. Polydor. Vergilius, L. XXVI. p. 567. Wood, T. I. A. 1485. p.
233. Wood takes his testimony respecting the symptoms of the disease
at third hand from Carol. Valesius, (Cap. XIV. p. 226,) a French
physician at Rome, about 1650, who employs P. Foreest’s words. This
last author, however, did not himself observe the English sweating
sickness.
[11] Phil. de Comines, Tom. I. p. 344. Compare the English
chronicles quoted. The history of Croyland Abbey states that the 1st
of August was the day of Richmond’s arrival at Milford Haven. There
exists no reason for departing from this statement with some modern
writers, namely, Kay, du Chesne, p. 1192; Lilie, p. 382, and
Marsolier, who assert the landing of the army to have taken place on
the 7th of August. Historia Croylandensis, p. 573, in Jo. Fell.
[16] Bacon, p. 7. Marsolier, p. 142. Yet in the autumn
of that same year Henry established, what no prior king of England
ever had, a body-guard. It consisted of only 50 “Yomen of the Crowne,”
to each of whom there were appointed two men on foot—an archer and
a demi-lance, and a groom to attend to his three horses. The first
commander of this body-guard, which formed the most ancient stock
whence sprang the English standing army, was Henry Bourchier, Earl
of Essex. Herbert of Cherbury, p. 9. Grafton, and the other
chroniclers, loc. cit. Baker, p. 254.
[17] Bacon, Stow, Baker, loc. cit. Rapin considered the
middle of September as the period of the outbreak. T. IV. p. 386.
[19] The plague can scarcely be said to furnish this
immunity, for though a second attack is an exception to a pretty
general rule, it is one of by no means unfrequent occurrence.—Transl. note.
[24] Henry VII., and Henry VIII. Compare the excellent
biographical account of this learned man by Aikin.
[25] Erasmus expresses himself on this subject in his
usual manner. He was on terms of strict friendship with Linacre,
whom on other occasions he greatly lauds. This, however, does not
prevent him from lashing him with his satire as a philological pedant.
“Novi quendam πολυτεχνότατον, græcum, latinum, mathematicum,
philosophum, medicum, καὶ ταῦτα βασιλικὸν, jam sexagenarium, (he was
born in 1460, and died in 1524,) qui ceteris rebus omissis, annis
plus viginti se torquet ac discruciat in grammatica, prorsus felicem
se fore ratus, si tamdiu liceat vivere, donec certo statuat, quomodo
distinguendæ sint octo partes orationis, quod hactenus nemo Græcorum
aut Latinorum ad plenum præstare valuit.” Laus Stultitiæ, p. 200. That
Linacre is here meant is quite plain; the passage applies to no other
contemporary.
[26] See the author’s History of Medicine, Book II. p. 311.
[29] 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.
[34] Grafton, p. 133, and all the other chroniclers.
Short, Vol. I. p. 201, and several others, even Schnurrer,
erroneously asserted this inundation to have taken place in the year
1485.
[38] Wurstisen, p. 474. cap. 15. Fracastor, p. 136.
Spangenberg (Pestilentz) calls this Epidemic of 1482, which spread
all over Germany, Switzerland and France, “das phrenitische,
schwerhitzig Pestilentzfieber”, the phrenitic, intensely ardent,
plague-fever. Compare Stumpff. fol. 742. b.
[41] 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.
[42] “Il couroit alors (1482) dans la France une dangereuse
et mortelle maladie, qui affligeoit indifferemment les grands et les
petits, bien qu’elle ne fut pas contagieuse. C’étoit une espèce de
fièvre chaude et frenetique, qui s’allumoit tout d’un coup dans le
cerveau, et le brûloit avec de si cruelles douleurs, que les uns s’en
cassoient la teste contre les murailles, les autres se précipitoient
dans les puits, ou se tuoient à force de courir çà et là. On en
attribu la cause à quelque maligne influence des astres et à la
corruption, que la mauvaise nourriture de l’année précédente avoit
formé dans le corps; d’autant que les vins et les bleds n’étant point
venus à maturité, la disette avoit été si grande, principalement dans
les provinces de delà la Loire, que les peuples n’avoient vécu que de
racines et d’herbes.” Mezeray, Tom. II. p. 746.
[43] 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 mind to receive this destructive fever!
[44] Jacques Cotier. He extorted from his patients 10,000
dollars a month, but, after his master’s death, was obliged to refund
to Charles VIII., 100,000 dollars. Comines, L. VI. c. 12. p. 400.
[48] 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.
[49] —Il y avoit seulement en Normandie quelque troupes de
franc-archers, de ceux, que Louis XI. avoit licenciez, qui couroit
la campagne: et plusieurs faineants s’étant joints avec eux, ils
detruisoient tout le païs, et on devoit même craindre, que ce mal ne
se communiquât aux provinces voisines. Mais il se présenta alors une
belle occasion de delivrer la France de ces pillards ... et lui donna
(Charles VIII.) tout ces francs-archers et brigands de Normandie
jusqu’au nombre de 3000. Mezeray, T. II. p. 762.
[50] “La milice estoit plus cruelle et plus desordonnée que
jamais.” So says Mezeray of the French soldiers in general. T. II. p.
750.
[52] Angelus, p. 253. Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 398. b.
The scurvy affected society far more in the 15th and 16th centuries
than it does at present, and made its appearance on several occasions
as an epidemic. Compare, in particular, Reusner, whose work on the
history of epidemics is one of general importance. Sennert, Wier,
and others.
[54] It was conceived not to bee an epidemicke disease, but
to proceed from a malignity in the constitution of the aire, gathered
by the predispositions of seasons: and the speedie cessation declared
as much. Bacon, p. 9.
[55] The name passed into the French, English, and Italian
languages—Lansquenet, Lancichinecho.
[56] ——“flock together like flies in summer, so that any one
would wonder where all these swarms have sprung from, and how they are
maintained during the winter; and truly they are such a miserable crew,
that one ought rather to pity than envy the kind of life they lead and
their precarious fortune.” Franck’s Chronicle. “On the destructive
Lansquenets,” fol. 217. b.
[57] 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.
[58] “Not to mention too the curtailment of life, for one
seldom meets with an old Landsknecht.” Franck, loc. cit.
[59] Those Moors were so called who, in order to remain in
Spain after the conquest of Granada, embraced Christianity.—Transl. note.
[60] The petechial fever which will be spoken of further on.
[67] Empson and Dudley, ministers of Henry VII., who
left behind him treasure to the amount of £1,800,000 sterling.
Compare Hume, Hist. of Eng. Vol. III., Bacon, and almost all the
chroniclers. Both ministers were executed in the following reign, in
the year 1509. Grafton, p. 236.
[68] Villalba, T. I. 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.
[70] Ibid. p. 69—Fracastor, de morbis contagios. L. II. c.
6. p. 155.—Schenck von Grafenberg, L. VI. p. 553. T. II.
[71] Besides those already named, the writings of Omodei
and Pfeufer. Compare Schnurrer, Book II. p. 27.
[72] It was called Puncticula or Peticulæ, also Febris
stigmatica, Pestis petechiosa. Reusner, p. 11. For later synonimes,
see Burserius, Vol. II. p. 293.
[73] Consimilem ergo infectionem in aëre primum fuisse
censendum est, quæ mox in nos ingesta tale febrium genus attulerit, quæ
tametsi pestilentes veræ non sunt, in limine tamen earum videntur esse.
Analogia vero ejus contagionis ad sanguinem præcipue esse constat, quod
et maculæ illæ, quæ expelli consuevere, demonstrant, etc. p. 161.
[74] 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.
[82] Author’s History of Medicine. Book II. p. 146.
[83] Sigebert. Gembl. fol. 58. a. Spangenberg, M. Chr.
fol. 66. b.
[84] Sigebert. Gembl. fol. 82. a. Hermann. Contract, p.
186. Witichind. p. 34.
[85] Compare on this subject Nees v. Esenbeck’s Supplement
to R. Brown’s Miscellaneous Botanical Writings, Book I. p. 571; and
Ehrenberg’s New Observations on Blood-like Appearances in Egypt,
Arabia, and Siberia, together with a review and critique on what was
earlier known, in Poggendorff’s Annalen, 1830; the two best works
on this subject; wherein is also contained a criticism on Chladni’s
Hypermeteorological Views.
[86] Crusius is the most circumstantial on this point,
for he gives the names of many persons on whose clothes crosses were
visible. On a maiden’s shawl the instruments of Christ’s martyrdom
were supposed to have been seen marked. In the vicinity of Biberach,
a miller’s lad made rude sport of the painting of crosses, but he was
seized and burned. Book II. p. 156.
[89] Perhaps Sporotrichum vesicarum, or a kind of Mycoderma.
[90] Vincenzo Sette describes a kind of red mould, which in
the year 1819 coloured vegetable and animal substances in the province
of Padua, and excited superstitious apprehensions among the people. See
his work on this subject.
[91] “Autumnali vero tempore, cum jam vestes, lintea,
culcitræ, panes, omnis generis obsonia, sub dio, vel in conclavibus
patentibus locata talem situ mucorem contraxerunt, qualis oritur in
penore, in opacis domus cellis collocato, aut etiam in ipsis cellis diu
non repurgatis, pestis præsentes ad nocendum vires habet.” L. I. p. 45.
Agricola’s Treatise on the Plague is among the cleverest which the
sixteenth century produced.
[92] For example, at the time of the Justinian Plague, and of
the Black Death.
[95] The former mortality was so far from having ceased, yea,
rather in the great heat (of summer) was still more vehement, that in
some places a third part, and in some even the half of the people were
snatched away by death, and that not by one only, but by various and
hitherto unheard of diseases. Men caught the burning fever so rapidly
and violently, that they thought they must be totally consumed. Some
were seized with such severe and insupportable headache that they
were deprived of their senses, some with such a violent cough that
they expectorated blood incessantly—some with such a very rapid flux,
that it broke their hearts: the bodies of some putrefied, and were so
offensive that no one could remain near them. And by reason of such
extraordinary diseases, it was a most sorrowful and troublous year,
and there followed a hard winter, in the which, the cold lasted for
three months. Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 402. b. Compare Angelus, p.
263, who, following some contemporaries, mentions a comet (doubted by
Pingré, I. 479) as having appeared in the year 1504.
[96] From a Poem on Henry VIII. in Herbert of Cherbury.
[97] They found grazing more profitable, and converted large
tracts of arable land into pasture. Hume, T. IV. p. 277.
[99] Grafton, p. 294. This insurrection is called by the
Chroniclers, “Insurrection of Evill May-day.”—Hume, T. IV. 274.
[100] “Of the common sort they were numberless, that perished
by it.” Godwyn, p. 23.
[101] Is valde sibi videbatur adversus contagionem victus
moderatione munitus: qua factum putavit, ut quum in nullum pene
incideret, cujus non tota familia laboraverat, neminem adhuc e suis
id malum attigerit, id quod et mihi et multis præterea jactavit,
non admodum multis horis antequam extinctus est.“-Erasm. Epist.
L. VII. ep. 4. col. 386. The date of the year of this letter from
Sir Thomas More to Erasmus, 1520, is clearly erroneous, as is
that of many other letters in this collection, for at that time the
Sweating Sickness did not prevail in London; it is also sufficiently
well known from other researches (Biographie Universelle—General
Biographical Dictionary), that Ammonius died in 1517. The date of the
month, however, 19th August, seems to be correct. Sprengel has, in
consequence of this false date of the year, been misled to assume a
specific epidemic Sweating Sickness as having taken place in the year
1520, (Book II. p. 686,) which is wholly unconfirmed.
[102] Grafton, p. 294, is very detailed. Compare
Holinshed, p. 626. Baker, p. 286. Hall, p. 592.
[104] This, from the foregoing remark upon the death of
Ammonius, may be concluded with the greatest probability.
[105] —“omnibus fere intra paucos dies decumbentibus, amissis
plurimis, optimis atque honestissimis amicis.” Th. More in Erasmus’s
Epist. L. VII. ep. 4. col. 386.
[106] Ibid. The only place where the disease is spoken of as
having spread across the channel.
[109] Wintzenberger, fol. 21. a. Angelus, p. 282.
Spangenberg, loc. cit. Pingré, T. I. p. 483.
[110] Such was the name given in Germany to the already
oft-mentioned pernicious fever with inflammation of the brain. We
recognise it for the first time, as an epidemic, in France, in the year
1482. (See above, p. 189.) It frequently made its appearance throughout
the whole of the sixteenth century.
[112] On the 16th of June, 1517, there was a great earthquake,
and a tremendous storm of wind at Nördlingen, so that the parish church
at St. Emeran was completely forced out of the ground and thrown
down, and it was reckoned that there were 2000 houses and stables in
that place which, for a space of two miles long, were overthrown and
rent, and there were few houses there which were not, like the church,
damaged and shaken to pieces. Wintzenberger, fol. 21. b.
[114] “Il est saoul comme un Angloys.”—Rondelet, de dign.
morb. fol. 35. b.
[115] Elyot, in his “Castell of Health,” quoted by Aikin,
p. 64. Rondelet, loc. cit.
[116] In 1724, which was a great fruit year, there arose in
this very county, from the immoderate use of cyder, an epidemic cholic;
the Colica Damnoniorum. Vide Huxham, Opera. (Lips. 1764.) Tom. III.
p. 54.
[120] “Now-a-days, if a boy of seven years of age, or a young
man of twenty years, have not two caps on his head, he and his friends
will think that he may not continue in health; and yet, if the inner
cap be not of velvet or satin, a serving-man feareth to lose his
credence.” Elyot, in Aikin, p. 64.
[121] ——“ubi homines perpetuo in hypocaustis degunt, multoque
carnium esu se ingurgitant, et alimentis piperatis continuo utuntur.
Quare factum est, ut continua hypocaustorum æstuatione meatuum cutis
relaxatio consequeretur, quæ sudoris promptissima et potentissima
causa esse solet, cuius materia in humorum exsuperantia consistebat,
quam frequens alimentorum multum nutrientium et piperatorum usus
colligerat.” Rondelet, loc. cit.
[122] The floors of the houses generally are made of nothing
but loam, and are strewed with rushes, which being constantly put
on fresh, without a removal of the old, remain lying there, in some
cases for twenty years, with fish-bones, broken victuals and other
filth underneath, and impregnated with the urine of dogs and men.
Erasm. Epist. L. xxii. ep. 12. col. 1140. This description is in all
probability overdrawn, and applicable only to the poorest huts. It is,
however, certainly not fictitious, and is not refuted by Kaye.
[123] Fracastoro, Fernel, Valleriola, Houlier, and
most of the other learned physicians of the sixteenth century.
[124] ——“quod, vulgaria diversoria parum tuta sunt a contagio
sceleratæ pestis, quæ 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.
[127] Mezeray, T. II. p. 853. Paré, p. 823. Holler,
Comm. II. in secund. sect. Coac. Hippocrat. p. 323.
[128] “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.