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THE
"W& -
EPIDEMICS
OF
THE MIDDLE AGES.
FROM THE GERMAN OF
J. F. C. BECKER, M.D.
PROFESSOR AT THE FREDERICK WILLIAM'S UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN,
AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES IN
ALBANY, BERLIN, BONN, COPENHAGEN, DIJON, DRESDEN, ERLANGEN, HANAU,
HEIDELBERG, LEIPZIG, LONDON, LYONS, MARSEILLES, METZ, NAPLES,
NEW YORK, OFFENBURG, PHILADELPHIA, STOCKHOLM,
TOULOUSE, WARSAW, AND ZURICH.
TRANSLATED BY
B. G. BABINGTON, M.D., F.B.S.,
ETC.
Oirfc €bttvm,
COMPLETED BY THE AUTHORS TREATISE
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
LONDON:
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1859.
ADDRESS TO THE READER.
This Volume is one of the Series published by the Sydenham
Society, and, as such, originally issued to its members only. The
work having gone out of print, this new edition — the third — has
been undertaken by the present proprietors of the Copyright,
with the view not only of meeting the numerous demands from
the class to which it was primarily addressed by its learned author,
but also for extending its circulation to the general reader, to
whom it had, heretofore, been all but inaccessible, owing to the
peculiar mode of its publication, and to whom, it is believed, it
will be very acceptable on account of the great and growing
interest of its subject matter, and the elegant and successful treat-
ment thereof. The volume is a verbatim reprint from the second
edition ; but its value has been enhanced by the addition of a
paper on " Child-Pilgrimages, "—never before translated, — and the
present edition is therefore the first and only one in the English
language, which contains all the contributions of Dr. Hecker to
the Historv of Medicine.
TEUBXEE AND CO.
00, Paternoster Row, London,
October 1, 1859.
2056291
GENERAL peeface.
The Council of the Sydenham Society having deemed Hecker's
three treatises on different Epidemics occurring in the Middle
Ages worthy of being collected into a volume, and laid before its
members in an English dress, I have felt much pleasure in pre-
senting them with the copyright of the Black Death ; in negociat-
ing for them the purchase of that of the Dancing Mania,
whereof I could resign only my share of a joint interest ; and, in
preparing for the press these productions, together with a trans-
lation, now for the first time made public, of the Sweating
Sickness. This last work, from its greater length, and from the
immediate relation of its chief subject to our own country, may be
considered the most interesting and important of the series.
Professor Hecker is generally acknowledged to be the most
learned medical historian, and one of the most able medical
writers in Germany. His numerous works suffice to show not
only with what zeal he has laboured, but also how high-ly his
labours have been appreciated by his countrymen ; and when I
state that, with one trifling exception, they have all been trans-
lated into other languages, I furnish a fair proof of the estima-
tion in which they are held in foreign countries ; and, so far at
least as regards the originals, a full justification of the Council
of the S} r denham Society in their choice on the present occasion.
The " Schwarze Tod," or " Black Death," was published in
1832 ; and I was prompted to undertake its translation, from a
belief that it would prove interesting at a moment when another
fearful epidemic, the Cholera, with which it admitted of com-
parison in several particulars, was fresh in the memory of men.
The " Tanzwuth," or " Dancing Mania," came out shortly after-
wards ; and, as it appeared to me that, though relating to a less
terrific visitation, it possessed an equal share of interest, and,
holding a kind of middle place between a physical and a moral
VI GENERAL PREFACE.
pestilence, furnished subject of contemplation for the general as
well as the professional reader, I determined on adding it also to
our common stock of medical literature. When the " Englische
Schweiss," or "Sweating Sickness," which contained much col-
lateral matter little known in England, and which completed the
history of the principal epidemics of the middle ages, appeared
in 1834, I proceeded to finish in} 7 task ; but failing in the accom-
plishment of certain arrangements connected with its publication,
1 laid aside my translation for the time, under a hope, which has
at length been fulfilled, that at some future more auspicious
moment, it might yet see the light.
It must not be supposed that the author, in thus taking up
the history of three of the most important epidemics of the
middle ages, although he has illustrated them by less detailed
notices of several others, considers that he has exhausted his sub-
ject ; on the contrary, it is his belief, that, in order to come at
the secret springs of these general morbific influences, a most
minute as well as a most extended survey of them, such as can
be made only by the united efforts of many, is required. He
would seem to aim at collecting together such a number of facts,
from the medical history of all countries and of all ages, as may
at length enable us to deal with epidemics in the same way as
Louis has dealt with individual diseases ; and thus by a numerical
arrangement of data, together with a just consideration of their
relative value, to arrive at the discovery of general laws. The
present work, therefore, is but one stone of an edifice, for the
construction of which he invites medical men in all parts of the
•world to furnish materials. 1
Whether the information which could be collected even by the
most diligent and extensive research would prove sufficiently co-
pious and accurate to enable us to pursue this method with com-
plete success, may be a matter of doubt ; but it is at least
probable, that many valuable facts, now buried in oblivion, would
thus be brought to light ; and the incidental results, as often
occurs in the pursuit of science, might prove as serviceable as
those which were the direct object of discovery. Of what im-
mense importance, for instance, in the fourteenth century, would
a general knowledge have been of the simple but universal cir-
1 I might here enlarge on the general importance of the study of epidemics ; but
this has been so fully set forth in the author's Address to the Physicians of Germany,
•which immediately follows, as well as in the Preface to the Sweating Sickness, at p. 164,
that any further observations on this subject would be superfluous on my part.
GENERAL PREFACE. Yll
cumstance, that in all severe epidemics, from the time of Thucy-
dides ' to the present day, a false suspicion has been entertained
by the vulgar, that the springs or provisions have been poisoned,
or the air infected, by some supposed enemies to the common weal.
How many thousands of innocent lives would thus have been
spared, which were barbarously sacrificed under this absurd notion !
"Whether Hecker's call for aid in his undertaking has, in any
instance, been answered by the physicians of Germany, I know
not ; but he will be as much pleased to learn, as I am to inform
him, that it was the perusal of the " Black Death " which sug-
gested to Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh the idea of collecting ma-
terials for a history of the Leprosy, as it existed in Great Britain
during the middle ages ; and that this author's very learned and
interesting antiquarian researches on that subject, as published
in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, have been the
valuable, and, I trust, will not prove the solitary result.
As the three treatises, now comprised for the first time under
the title of " The Epidemics of the Middle Ages," came out at
different periods, I have thought it best to prefix to each the
original preface of the author ; and to the two which have already
been published in English, that of the translator also ; while
Hecker's Address to the Phj'sicians of Germany, although written
before the publication of the "Englische Schweiss," forms an ap-
propriate substitute for an author's general preface to the whole
volume.
At the end of the " Black Death," I had originally given, as
No. III. of the Appendix, some copious extracts from Cams'
" Boke or Counscill against the Disease commonly called the
Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse ; " but this little treatise is so
charactei'istic of the times in which it is written, so curious, so
short, and so very scarce, 2 that I have thought it worth while,
with the permission of the council of our Society, to reprint it
entire, and to add it in its more appropriate place, as an Appendix
to the Sweating Sickness.
1 wort teal tXkxQl VIC avriLv wg ol YliKoTrovvijmot (papfiaica to(3ifi\r]icoitv kg ru
tppkara. Thucyd. Hist. B. ii. 49. " The disease was attributed by the people to poi-
son, and nothing apparently could be more authentic than the reports that were spread
of miscreants taken in the act of putting poisonous drugs into the food and drink of the
common people." Observations on the Cholera in St. Petersburg, p. 9, by G. W.
Lefevre, M.D. 8vo. 1831.
2 Only two copies are known to exist, one in the British Museum, and one in the
library of the College of Physicians.
ADDRESS
TO THE
PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY.
By J. F. C. HECKER.
It has long been my earnest desire to address my honoured col-
leagues, especially those with whom I feel myself connected by
congeniality of sentiment, in order to impress on them a subject
in which science is deeply interested, and which, according to the
direct evidence of Nature herself, is one of the most exalted and
important that can be submitted to the researches of the learned.
I allude to the investigation of Epidemic Diseases, on a scale com-
mensurate with the extent of our exertions in other departments,
and worthy of the age in which we live. It is, with justice, re-
quired of medical men, since their sole business is with life, that
they should regard it in a right point of view. They are expect-
ed to have a perception of life, as it exists individually and collect-
ively: in the former, to bear in mind the general system of crea-
tion ; in the latter, to demonstrate the connexion and signification
of the individual phenomena, — to discern the one by the aid of
the other, and thus to penetrate, with becoming reverence, into
the sanctuary of cosmical and microcosmical science. This ex-
pectation is not extravagant, and the truth of the principles
which the medical explorer of nature deduces from it, is so ob-
vious, that it seems scarcely possible that any doubts should be
entertained on the subject.
Yet we may ask, Has medical science as it exists in our days,
with all the splendour which surrounds it, with all the perfection
of which it boasts, satisfied this demand ? This question we are
obliged to answer in the negative.
Let us consider only the doctrine of diseases, which has been
cultivated since the commencement of scientific study. It has
ADDRESS TO THE PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY. IX
grown up amid the illumination of knowledge and the gloom of
ignorance ; it has been nurtured by the storms of centuries^ ; its
monuments of ancient and modern times cannot be numbered,
and it speaks clearly to the initiated, in the languages of all civil-
ized nations. Yet, hitherto, it has given an account only of in-
dividual diseases, so far as the human mind can discern their
nature. In this it has succeeded admirably, and its success be-
comes every year greater and more extensive.
But if we extend our inquiries to the diseases of nations, and
of the whole human race, science is mute, as if it were not her
province to take cognizance of them ; and shows us only an im-
measurable and unexplored country, which many suppose to be
merely a barren desert, because no one to whose voice they are
wont to listen, gives any information respecting it. Small is the
number of those who have traversed it; often have they arrested
their steps, filled with admiration at striking phenomena ; have
beheld inexhaustible mines waiting only for the hand of the la-
bourer, and, from contemplating the development of collective
organic life, which science nowhere else displays to them on so
magnificent a scale, have experienced all the sacred joy of the
naturalist to whom a higher source of knowledge has been open-
ed. Yet could they not make themselves heard in the noisy tu-
mult of the markets, and still less answer the innumerable ques-
tions directed to them by many, as from one mouth, not indeed to
inquire after the truth, but to obtain a confirmation of an ancient-
ly received opinion, which originated in the fifth century before
our era.
Hence it is, that the doctrine of epidemics, surrounded by the
other flourishing branches of medicine, remains alone unfruitful —
we might almost say stunted in its growth. For, to the weighty
opinions of Hippocrates, to the doctrines of Fracastoro which con-
tain the experience of the much-tried Middle Ages, and lastly to
the observations of Sydenham, only trifling and isolated facts
have been added. Beyond these facts there exist, even up to the
present times, only assumptions, which might, long since, have
been reduced to their original nothingness, had that serious spirit
of inquiry prevailed which comprehends space and penetrates ages.
No epidemic ever prevailed during which the need of more ac-
curate information was not felt, and during which the wish of the
learned was not loudly expressed, to become acquainted with the
secret springs of such stupendous engines of destruction. "Was
the disease of a new character ? — the spirit of inquiry was roused
b
X ADDEESS TO THE
among physicians ; nor were the most eminent of them ever de-
ficient either in courage or in zeal for investigation. When the
glandular plague first made its appearance as an universal epi-
demic, whilst the more pusillanimous, haunted by visionary fears,
shut themselves up in their closets, some physicians at Constanti-
nople, astonished at the phenomenon, opened the boils of the
deceased. The like has occurred both in ancient and modern
times, not without favourable results for science ; nay, more ma-
tured views excited an eager desire to become acquainted with
similar or still greater visitations among the ancients ; but as
later ages have always been fond of referring to Grecian antiquity,
the learned of those times, from a partial and meagre predilection,
were contented with the descriptions of Thucydides, even where
nature had revealed, in infinite diversity, the workings of her
powers.
These researches, if indeed they deserved that name, were never
scientific or comprehensive. They never seized but upon a part,
and no sooner had' the mortality ceased, than the scarcely awaken-
ed zeal relapsed into its former indifference to the interesting phe-
nomena of nature, in the same way as abstemiousness, which had
ever been practised during epidemics, only as a constrained virtue,
gave place, as soon as the danger was over, to unbridled indul-
gence. This inconstancy might almost bring to our mind the
pious Byzantines who, on the shock of an earthquake, in 529,
which appeared as the prognostic of the great epidemic, prostrated
themselves before their altars by thousands, and sought to excel
each other in Christian self-denial and benevolence ; but no sooner
did they feel the ground firm beneath their feet, than they again
abandoned themselves, without remorse, to all the vices of the
metropolis. May I be pardoned for this comparison of scientific
zeal with other human excitements ? Alas ! even this is a virtue
which few practise for its own sake, and which, with the multi-
tude, stands quite as much in need as any other, of the incentives
of fear and reward.
But we are constrained to acknowledge that among our medical
predecessors, these incentives were scarcely ever sufficiently
powerful to induce them to leave us circumstantial and scientific
accounts of contemporary epidemics, which, nevertheless, have,
even in historical times, afflicted, in almost numberless visitations,
the whole human race. Still less did it occur to them to take a
more exalted stand, whence they could comprehend at one view
these stupendous phenomena of organic collective life, wherein
PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY. XI
the whole spirit of humanity powerfully and wonderfully moves,
and thus regard them as one whole, in which higher laws of na-
ture, uniting together the utmost diversity of individual parts,
might be anticipated or perceived.
Here a wide, and almost unfathomable, chasm occurs in the
science of medicine, which, in this age of mature judgment and
multifarious learning, cannot, as formerly, be overlooked. His-
tory alone can fill it up ; she alone can give to the doctrine of
diseases that importance without which its application is limited
to occurrences of the moment ; whereas the development of the
phenomena of life, during extensive periods, is no less a problem
of research for the philosopher, who makes the boundless science
of nature his study, than the revolutions of the planet on which
we move. In this region of inquiry the very stones have a lan-
guage, and the inscriptions are yet legible which, before the crea-
tion of man, were engraved by organic life in wondrous forms
on eternal tablets. Exalted ideas of the monuments of primaeval
antiquity are here excited, and the forms of the antemundane
ways and creations of nature are conjured up from the inmost
bosom of the earth, in order to throw their bright beaming light
upon the surface of the present.
Medicine extends not so far. The remains of animals make us
indeed acquainted, even now, with diseases to which the brute crea-
tion was subject long ere the waters overflowed, and the moun-
tains sunk ; but the investigation which is our more immediate ob-
ject, scarcely reaches to the beginning of human culture. Records
of remote and of proximate eras lie before us in rich abundance.
They speak of the deviations and destructions of human life, of
exterminated and newly-formed nations ; they lay before us stu-
pendous facts, which we are called upon to recognise and expound
in order to solve this exalted problem. If physicians cannot boast
of having unrolled these records with the avidity of true explorers
of Nature, they may find some excuse in the nature of the inquiry
— for the characters are dead, and the spirits of which they are
the magic symbols, manifest themselves only to him who knows
how to adjure them. Epidemics leave no corporeal traces; whence
their history is perhaps more intellectual than the science of the
Geologist, who, on his side, possesses the advantage of treating on
subjects which strike the senses, and are therefore more attract-
ive, — such as the impressions of plants no longer extant, and the
skeletons of lost races of animals. This, however, does not en-
tirely exculpate us from the charge of neglecting our science, in a
1)2
Xll ADDRESS TO THE
quarter where the most important facts are to be unveiled. It is
high time to make up for what has been left unaccomplished, if
we would not remain idle and mean-spirited in the rear of other
naturalists.
I was animated by these and similar reflections, and excited too
by passing events, when I undertook to write the history of the
" Black Death." With some anxiety, I sent this book into the
world, for it was scarcely to be expected that it would be every-
where received with indulgence, since it belonged to a hitherto
unknown dejjartment of historical research, the utility of which
might not be obvious in our practical times. Yet I soon received
encouragement, not only from learned friends, but also from other
men of distinguished merit, on whose judgment I placed great re-
liance ; and thus I was led to hope that it was not in vain, and
without some advantage to science, that I had unveiled the dismal
picture of a long-departed age.
This work I have followed, up by a treatise on a nervous dis-
order, which, for the first time, appeared in the same century, as
an epidemic, with symptoms that can be accounted for only by the
spirit of the Middle Ages — symptoms which, in the manner of
the diffusion of the disease among thousands of people, and of its
propagation for more than two centuries, exercised a demoniacal
influence over the human race, yet in close, though uncongenial,
alliance with kindlier feelings. I have prepared materials for
various other subjects, so far as the resources at my disposal ex-
tend, and I may hope, if circumstances prove favourable, to
complete, by degrees, the history of a more extensive series of
Epidemics on the same plan as the " Black Death," and the
"Dancing Mania."
Amid the accumulated materials which past ages afford, the
powers and the life of one individual, even with the aid of pre-
vious study, are insufficient to complete a comprehensive history
of Epidemics. The zealous activity of many must be exerted if
we would speedily possess a work which is so much wanted in
order that we may not encounter new epidemics with culpable
ignorance of analogous phenomena. How often has it appeared
on the breaking out of epidemics, as if the experience of so many
centuries had been accumulated in vain. Men gazed at the phe-
nomena with astonishment, and even before they had a just per-
ception of their nature, pronounced their opinions, which, as they
were divided into strongly opposed parties, they defended with all
the ardour of zealots, wholly unconscious of the majesty of all-
PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY. Xlll
governing nature. In the descriptive branches of natm'al history,
a person would infallibly expose himself to the severest censure,
who should attempt to describe some hitherto unknown natural
production, whether animal or vegetable, if he were ignorant of
the allied genera and species, and perhaps neither a botanist nor
zoologist ; yet an analogous ignorance of epidemics, in those who
nevertheless discussed their nature, but too frequently occurred,
and men were insensible to the justest reproof. Thus it has ever
been, and for this reason we cannot apply to ourselves in this de-
partment the significant words of Bacon, that we are the ancients,
and our forefathers the moderns, for we are equally remote with
them from a scientific and comprehensive knowledge of epidemics.
This might and ought to be otherwise, in an age which, in other
respects, may, with justice, boast of a rich diversity of knowledge,
and of a rapid progress in the natural sciences.
If in the form of an address to the physicians of Germany, I
express the wish to see such a melancholy state of things remedied,
the nature of the subject requires that, with the exception of the
still prevailing Cholera, remarkable universal epidemics should be
selected for investigation. They form the grand epochs, accord-
ing to which those epidemics which are less extensive, but not, on
that account, less worthy of observation, naturally range them-
selves. Far be it from me to recommend any fixed series, or even
the plan and method to be pursued in treating the subject. It
would, perhaps, be, on the whole, most advantageous, if my hon-
oured Colleagues, who attend to this request, were to commence
with those epidemics for which they possess complete materials,
and that entirely according to their own plan, without adopting
any model for imitation, for in this manner simple historical truth
will be best elicited. Should it, however, be found impracticable
to furnish historical descriptions of entire epidemics, a task often at-
tended with difficulties, interesting fragments of all kinds, for
which there are rich treasures in JMSS. and scarce works in vari-
ous places, would be no less welcome and useful towards the great
object of preparing a collective history of epidemics.
Up to the present moment, it might almost seem that the most
essential preliminaries are wanting for the accomplishment of such
an undertaking. The study of medical history is everywhere at
a low ebb ; — in France and England scarcely a trace remains, to
the most serious detriment of the whole domain of medicine ; in
Germany too, there are but few who suspect that inexhaustible stores
of instructive truth are lying dormant within their power; they
XIV ADDRESS TO THE PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY.
may, perhaps, class thorn among theoretical doctrines, and com-
mend the laborious investigation of them without being willing
to recognise their spirit. None of the Universities of Germany,
whose business it ought to be to provide, in this respect, for the
prosperity of the inheritance committed to their charge, can boast
a Professor's chair for the History of Medicine; nay, in many,
it is so entirely unknown, that it is not even regarded as an ob-
ject of secondary importance, so that it is to be apprehended that
the fame of German erudition may, at least in medicine, gradu-
ally vanish, and our medical knowledge become, as practical in-
deed, but at the same time as assuming, as mechanical, and as
defective, as that of France and England. Even those noble in-
stitutions, the Academies, in which the spirit of the eighteenth
century still lingers, and whose more peculiar province it is to ex-
plore the rich pages of science, have not entered upon the history
of Epidemics, and by their silence have encouraged the unfound-
ed and injurious supposition, that this field is desolate and un-
fruitful.
All these obstacles are indeed great, but to determined and
persevering exertion they are not insuperable ; and, though we
cannot conceal them from ourselves, we should not allow them to
daunt our spirit. There is, in Germany, a sufficiency of intellect-
ual power to overcome them; let this power be combined, and
exert itself in active co-operation. Sooner or later a new road
must be opened for Medical Science. Should the time not yet
have arrived, I have at least endeavoured to discharge my duty,
by attempting to point out its future direction.
CONTENTS.
General Preface
Hecker's Address
PAGE
V
via
THE BLACK DEATH.
Translator's Preface
Preface
General Observations
The Disease
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
xx
xxiii
. 1
CHAPTER III.
Causes. — Spread
Mortality
Moral Effects
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V
11
10
30
Physicians
CHAPTER VI.
47
Appendix : —
I. The Ancient Song of the Flagellants . . . . GI
II. Examination of the Jews accused of poisoning the "Wells 70
XVI
CONTENTS.
THE DANCING MANIA.
Preface
Translator's Preface
PAGE
75
7G
CHAPTER I.
DANCING MANIA IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.
Sect. 1. — St. John's Dance
2.— St. Vitus's Dance
3. — Causes ....
4. — More ancient Dancing Plagues
5. — Physicians
0. — Decline and Termination of the Dancing Plague
80
84
87
90
92
95
CHAPTER II.
DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.
Sect. 1. — Tarantism ....
2. — Most ancient Traces. — Causes
3. — Increase ....
4. — Idiosyncracies. — Music
5. — Hysteria ....
G. — Decrease ....
. 99
. 102
. 107
. 110
. 117
. 120
CHAPTER III.
DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINTA.
Sect. 1. — Tigretier
123
CHAPTER IV.
Sympathy ......
Appendix : —
I. Extract from " Vita Gregorii XL," &c.
II. Prom " Chronicon Magnum," &c. .
III. Prom " die Limburger Chronik," &c.
IV. Prom "die Chronica van Coellen," &c.
. 129
. 143
. 144
. 145
. 14G
V. Prom "an Account of Convulsive Diseases in Scotland," &c. 147
VI. Music for the Dance of the Tarantati, &c 157
CONTENTS.
XV11
THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Preface
TAGE
164
CHAPTER I.
FIRST VISITATION. 1485.
Sect.' 1. — Eruption 167
2. — The Physicians 171
3.— Causes 172
4. — Other Epidemics ....... 174
5. — Richmond's Army ....... 175
6. — Nature of the Sweating Sickness. — Preliminary Investi-
gation ........ 176
CHAPTER II.
SECOND VISITATION. 1506.
Sect.
Sect.
1. — Mercenary Troops ....
. 179
2. — New Circumstances ....
. 181
3. — Sweating Sickness ....
. 182
4. — Accompanying Phenomena .
. 183
5. — Petechial Eever in Italy, 1505
. 184
6. — Other Diseases .....
. 188
7. — Blood Spots .....
. 190
CHAPTER III.
THIRD VISITATION. 1517.
1. — Poverty ......
. 193
2. — Sweating Sickness . .
. 194
3. — Causes ......
. 196
4. — Habits of the English
. 197
5. — Contagion ......
. 199
6. — Influenzas . .
. 202
7.— Epidemics of 1517 ....
. 207
XV111
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEE IV.
FOURTH VISITATION. 1528, 1529.
Sect. 1. — Destruction of the French Army before Naples, 1528
2. — Trousse-G-alant in France, 1528, and the following years
3. — Sweating Sickness in England, 1528
4. — Natural Occurrences. — Prognostics
• . . .
5. — Sweating Sickness in Germany, 1529 .
the Netherlands
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway
6.
7.
8.— Terror
9. — Moral Consequences
10. — The Physicians
11. — Pamphlets
12. — Form of the Disease
PAGE
212
218
221
223
228
236
237
239
242
245
251
258
CHAPTER V.
FIFTH VISITATION. 1551.
Sect. 1.-
2.-
3.-
4.-
5.-
— Irruption .......
—Extension and Duration
— Causes. — Natural Phenomena
—Diseases ......
—John Kaye ......
CHAPTEE VI.
. 269
. 270
. 273
. 276
. 279
SWEATING SICKNESSES.
Sect. 1. — The Cardiac Disease of the Ancients. (Morbus Cardiacus.) 284
2. — The Picardy Sweat. (Suette des Picards — Suette Mi-
liare.) 292
3. — The Eoettingen Sweating Sickness .... 301
Chronological Survey ........ 306
Catalogue of "Works referred to ...... 313
Appendix. — A Boke, or Counseill against the Disease commonly
called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse. By
Jhon Caius '.323
Child- Pilgrimages
. 315
THE BLACK DEATH.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In reading Dr. Hecker's account of the Black Death, which de-
stroyed so large a portion of the human race in the fourteenth
century, I was struck, not only with the peculiarity of the
author's views, but also with the interesting nature of the facts
which he has collected. Some of these have never before been
made generally known, while others have passed out of mind,
being effaced from our memories by subsequent events of a
similar kind, which, though really of less magnitude and import-
ance, have, in the perspective of time, appeared greater, because
they have occurred nearer to our own days.
Dreadful as was the pestilence here described, and in few
countries more so than in England, our modern historians only
slightly allude to its visitation : — Hume deems a single paragraph
sufficient to devote to its notice, and Henry and Rapin are equally
brief.
It may not then be unacceptable to the medical, or even to the
general reader, to receive an authentic and somewhat detailed
account of one of the greatest natural calamities that ever afflict-
ed the human race.
My chief motive, however, for translating this small work, and
at this particular period, has been a desire that, in the study of
the causes which have produced and propagated general pesti-
lences, and of the moral effects by which they have been follow-
ed, the most enlarged views should be taken. The contagionist
and the anti-contagionist may each find ample support for his
belief in particular cases ; but in the construction of a theory
sufficiently comprehensive to explain throughout the origin and
dissemination of universal disease, we shall not only perceive the
insufficiency of either doctrine, taken singly, but after admit-
ting the combined influence of both, shall even then find our views
too narrow, and be compelled, in our endeavours to explain the
facts, to acknowledge the existence of unknown powers, wholly
translator's preface. xxi
unconnected either with communication by contact or atmospheric
contamination.
I by no means wish it to be understood, that I have adopted
the author's views respecting astral and telluric influences, the
former of which, at least, I had supposed to have been, with
alchemy and magic, long since consigned to oblivion ; much less
am I prepared to accede to his notion, or rather an ancient
notion derived from the East and revived by him, of an organic
life in the system of the universe. We are constantly furnished
with proofs, that that which affects life is not itself alive ; and
whether we look to the earth for exhalations, to the air for elec-
trical phenomena, to the heavenly bodies for an influence over
our planet, or to all these causes combined, for the formation of
some unknown principle noxious to animal existence, still, if we
found our reasoning on ascertained facts, we can perceive nothing
throughout this vast field for physical research which is not evident-
ly governed by the laws of inert matter — nothing which resembles
the regular succession of birth, growth, decay, death, and regen-
eration, observable in organized beings. To assume, therefore,
causes of whose existence we have no proof, in order to account
for effects which, after all, they do not explain, is making no real
advance in knowledge, and can scarcely be considered otherwise
than an indirect method of confessing our ignorance.
Still, however, I regard the author's opinions, illustrated as
they are by a series of interesting facts diligently collected from
authentic sources, as, at least, worthy of examination before we
reject them, and valuable, as furnishing extensive data on which
to build new theories.
I have another, perhaps I may be allowed to say a better,
motive for laying before my countrymen this narrative of the
sufferings of past ages, — that by comparing them with those of
our own time, we may be made the more sensible how lightly the
chastening hand of Providence has fallen on the present genera-
tion, and how much reason, therefore, we have to feel grateful for
the mercy shown us.
The publication has, with this view, been purposely somewhat
delayed, in order that it might appear at a moment when it is to
be presumed that men's thoughts will be especially directed to
the approaching hour of public thanksgiving, and when a know-
ledge of that which they have escaped, as well as of that which
they have suffered, may tend to heighten their devotional feel-
ings on that solemn occasion.
xxii translator's treface.
When we learn that, in the fourteenth century, one quarter, at
least, of the population of the old world was swept away in the
short space of four years, and that some countries, England among
the rest, lost more than double that proportion of their inhabitants
in the course of a few months, we may well congratulate our-
selves that our visitation has not been like theirs, and shall not
justly merit ridicule, if we offer our humble thanks to the " Crea-
tor and Preserver of all mankind " for our deliverance.
Nor would it disgrace our feelings if, in expiation of the abuse
and obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public on
the medical profession, we should entertain some slight sense of
gratitude towards those members of the community, who were en-
gaged, at the risk of their lives and the sacrifice of their personal
interests, in endeavouring to arrest the progress of the evil, and
to mitigate the sufferings of their fellow men.
I have added, at the close of the Appendix, some extracts from
a scarce little work in black letter, called " A Boke or Counseill
against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng
Sicknesse," published by Caius in 1552. This was written three
years before his Latin treatise on the same subject, and is so
quaint, and, at the same time, so illustrative of the opinions of
his day, and even of those of the fourteenth century, on the causes
of universal diseases, that the passages which I have quoted will
not fail to afford some amusement as well as instruction. If I
have been tempted to reprint more of this curious production than
was necessary to my primary object, it ha3 been from a belief
that it would be generally acceptable to the reader to gather some
particulars regarding the mode of living in the sixteenth century,
and to observe the author's animadversions on the degeneracy and
credulity of the age in which he lived. His advice on the choice
of a medical attendant cannot be too strongly recommended, at least
by a physician ; and his warning against quackery, particularly the
quackery of painters, who " scorne (quaere score ?) you behind
your backs with their medicines, so filthy that I am ashamed to
name them," seems quite prophetic.
In conclusion, I beg to acknowledge the obligation which I
owe to my friend Mr. H. E. Lloyd, whoso intimate acquaintance
with the German language and literature will, I hope, be re-
ceived as a sufficient pledge that no very important errors remain
in a translation which he has kindly revised.
London, 1833.
PREFACE.
We here find an important page of the history of the world laid
open to our view. It treats of a convulsion of the human race,
unequalled in violence and extent. It speaks of incredible disas-
ters, of despair and unbridled demoniacal passions. It shows us
the abyss of general licentiousness, in consequence of an univer-
sal pestilence, which extended from China to Iceland and Green-
land.
The inducement to unveil this image of an age, long since gone
by, i3 evident. A new pestilence has attained almost an equal
extent, and though less formidable, has partly produced, partly
indicated, similar phenomena. Its causes, and its diffusion over
Asia and Europe, call on us to take a comprehensive view of it,
because it leads to an insight into the organism of the world, in
which the sum of organic life is subject to the great powers of
Nature. Now, human knowledge is not yet sufficiently advanced,
to discover the connexion between the processes which occur above,
and those which occur below, the surface of the earth, or even
fully to explore those laws of nature, an acquaintance with which
would be required ; far less to apply them to great phenomena,
in which one spring sets a thousand others in motion.
On this side, therefore, such a point of view is not to be found,
if we would not lose ourselves in the wilderness of conjectures, of
which the world is already too full : but it may be found in the
ample and productive field of historical research.
History — that mirror of human life in all its bearings, offers,
even for general pestilences, an inexhaustible, though scarcely
explored, mine of facts ; here too it asserts its dignity, as the
philosophy of reality delighting in truth.
It is conformable to its spirit to conceive general pestilences as
events affecting the whole world — to explain their phenomena by
the comparison of what is similar. Thus the facts speak for them-
selves, because they appear to have proceeded from those higher
laws which govern the progression of the existence of mankind.
A cosmical origin and convulsive excitement, productive of the
XXIV PREFACE.
most important consequences among the nations subject to them,
are the most striking features to which history points in all gen-
eral pestilences. These, however, assume very different forms, as
well in their attacks on the general organism, as in their diffusion ;
and in this respect a development from form to form, in the course
of centuries, is manifest, so that the history of the world is divid-
ed into grand periods in which positively defined pestilences pre-
vailed. As far as our chronicles extend, more or less certain
information can be obtained respecting them.
But this part of medical history, which has such a manifold and
powerful influence over the history of the world, is yet in its in-
fancy. For the honour of that science which should everywhere
guide the actions of mankind, we are induced to express a wish,
that it may find room to flourish amidst the rank vegetation with
which the field of German medical science is unhappily encum-
bered.
ERRATA.-CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
Page 348, line 5 from foot, for part read past
— 350, line 4, for regarding read regarded
353, line 14, for Arrnstadt read Arnstadt
— 357, line 10, for Christian- read Christian.
— — line 28, for coveteousness read covetousness
— — line 5 from foot, dele' : usa'
— 359, line 27, for Tebb read Jebb
— 360, /wje 17, for perpradictum read per prsedictum
THE BLACK DEATH.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
That Omnipotence which has called the world with all its living
creatures into one animated being, especially reveals himself in
the desolation of great pestilences. The powers of creation come
into violent collision ; the sultry dryness of the atmosphere ; the
subterraneous thunders ; the mist of overflowing waters, are the
harbingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied with the ordin-
ary alternations of life and death, and the destroying angel waves
over man and beast his flaming sword.
These revolutions are performed in vast cycles, which the spirit
of man, limited, as it is, to a narrow circle of perception, is unable
to explore. They are, however, greater terrestrial events than
any of those which proceed from the discord, the distress, or the
passions of nations. By annihilations they awaken new life ; and
when the tumult above and below the earth is past, nature is re-
novated, and the mind awakens from torpor and depression to the
consciousness of an intellectual existence.
Were it in any degree within the power of human research to
draw up, in a vivid and connected form, an historical sketch of
such mighty events, after the manner of the historians of wars
and battles, and the migrations of nations, we might then arrive
at clear views with respect to the mental development of the hu-
man race, and the ways of Providence would be more plainty dis-
cernible. It would then be demonstrable, that the mind of nations
is deeply affected by the destructive conflict of the powers of na-
ture, and that great disasters lead to striking changes in general
civilization. For all that exists in man, whether good or evil, is
rendered conspicuous by the presence of great danger. His in-
l
2 THE BLACK DEATH.
most feelings are roused — the thought of self-preservation masters
his spirit — self-denial is put to severe proof, and wherever dark-
ness and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the
idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are
criminally violated.
In conformity with a general law of nature, such a state of ex-
citement brings about a change, beneficial or detrimental, accord-
ing to circumstances, so that nations either attain a higher degree
of moral worth, or sink deeper in ignorance and vice. All this,
however, takes place upon a much grander scale than through the
ordinary vicissitudes of war and peace, or the rise and fall of em-
pires, because the powers of nature themselves produce plagues,
and subjugate the human will, which, in the contentions of nations,
alone predominates.
CHAPTER II.
THE DISEASE.
The most memorable example of what has been advanced, is
afforded by a great pestilence of the fourteenth century, which
desolated Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of which the people yet
preserve the remembrance in gloomy traditions. It was an ori-
ental plague, marked by inflammatory boils and tumours of the
glands, such as break out in no other febrile disease. On account
of these inflammatory boils, and from the black spots, indicatory
of a putrid decomposition, which appeared upon the skin, it was
called in Germany and in the northern kingdoms of Europe, the
Black Death, and in Italy, la Mortalega Grande, the Great
Mortality}
Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its symptoms
and its course, yet these are sufficient to throw light upon the form
of the malady, and they are worthy of credence, from their co-
incidence with the signs of the same disease in modern times.
»*
1 La Mortalega Grande. Matth. de Griffonibus. Muratori. Script, rer. Italiear.
T. XVIII. p. 167. D. They were called by others Anguinalgia. Andr. Gratiol. Dis-
corso di Teste. Venet. 1576. 4to. Swedish : Diger-dvden. Loccenii Histor. Suecan.
L. III. p. 104. — Danish : den sortc Dod. rontan. Eer. Danicar. Histor. L. TUT. p.
476. — Amstelod. 1631, fol. Icelandic : Svatur Daudi. Saabye, Tagcbuch in Gronland.
Introduction XVIII. Mansa, dc Epidemiis maxime mcniorabililms, quno in Dania gras-
satrc sunt, &c. Tart I. p. 12. Havnioe, 1831, 8.— In Westphalia the name of de groete
Doet was prevalent. Mcibom.
THE DISEASE. 3
The imperial writer, Kantakusenos, 1 whose own son, Androni-
kus, died of this plague in Constantinople, notices great impos-
thumes 2 of the thighs and arms of those affected, which, when
opened, afforded relief by the discharge of an offensive matter.
Buboes, which are the infallible signs of the oriental plague, are
thus plainly indicated, for he makes separate mention of smaller
boils on the arms and in the face, as also in other parts of the
body, and clearly distinguishes these from the blisters, 3 which are
no less produced by plague in all its forms. In many cases, black
spots 4 broke out all over the body, either single, or united and
confluent.
These symptoms were not all found in every case. In many
one alone was sufficient to cause death, while some patients re-
covered, contrary to expectation, though afflicted with all. Symp-
toms of cephalic affection were frequent ; many patients became
stupified and fell into a deep sleep, losing also their speech from
palsy of the tongue ; others remained sleepless and without rest.
The fauces and tongue were black, and as if suffused with blood ;
no beverage would assuage their burning thirst, so that their
sufferings continued without alleviation until terminated by death,
which many in their despair accelerated with their own hands.
Contagion was evident, for attendants caught the disease of their
relations and friends, and many houses in the capital were bereft
even of their last inhabitant. Thus far the ordinary circumstances
only of the oriental plague occurred. Still deeper sufferings, how-
ever, were connected with this pestilence, such as have not been
felt at other times ; the organs of respiration were seized with a
putrid inflammation ; a violent pain in the chest attacked the
patient ; blood was expectorated, and the breath diffused a pesti-
ferous odour.
In the West, the following wore the predominating symptoms
on the eruption of this disease. 5 An ardent fever, accompanied by
an evacuation of blood, proved fatal in the first three days. It
appeal's that buboes and inflammatory boils did not at first come
out at all, but that the disease, in the form of carbuncular (anthrax-
1 Joann. Cantacuzen. Historian L. IV. c. 8. Ed. Paris, p. 730. 5. The ex-em-
peror has indeed copied some passages from Thucydidcs, as Rprengel justly observes
(Appendix to the Geschichte der Medicin. Vol. I. II. I. S. 73), though this was most
probably only for the sake of rounding a period. This is no detriment to his credibility,
because his statements accord with the other accounts.
2 ' AiroGTuatiQ fxtyakai. 3 Mika'tvai
ovv Faifiovi raxd),
'Qg tclkoiQ' inr' tpiorog 6 Mvvdiog avr'iKa AiXfitg.
See Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 251.
and Horace —
"Lanea ct effigies erat, altera cerea."
Lib. 1. Sat. 8. I. 30.
Transl. note.
2 See Arjricola, loc. cit. p. 269. No. 498.
ITS DECLINE AND TERMINATION. 95
Paracelsus recommended harsh treatment and strict fasting. He
directed that the patients should be deprived of their liberty ;
placed in solitary confinement, and made to sit in an uncomfort-
able place, until their misery brought them to their senses and to
a feeling of penitence. He then permitted them gradually to
return to their accustomed habits. Severe corporal chastisement
was not omitted ; but, on the other hand, angry resistance on the
part of the patient was to be sedulously avoided, on the ground
that it might increase his malady, or even destroy him : moreover,
where it seemed proper, Paracelsus allayed the excitement of the
nerves by immersion in cold water. On the treatment of. the
third kind we shall not here enlarge. It was to be effected by all
sorts of wonderful remedies, composed of the quintessences ; and
it would require, to render it intelligible, a more extended ex-
position of peculiar principles than suits our present purpose.
Sect. 6. — Decline and Termination of the Dancing Plague.
About this time the St. Vitus's dance began to decline, so that
milder forms of it appeared more frequently, while the severer
cases became more rare ; and even in these, some of the important
sjonptoms gradually disappeared. Paracelsus makes no mention
of the tympanites as taking place after the attacks, although it
may occasionally have occurred ; and Schenck von Graffenberg, a
celebrated physician of the latter half of the sixteenth century, 1
speaks of this disease as having been frequent only in the time of
his forefathers ; his descriptions, however, are applicable to the
whole of that century, and to the close of the fifteenth. 2 The St.
Vitus's dance attacked people of all stations, especially those who
led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors ; but even the
most robust peasants abandoned their labours in the fields, as if
they were possessed by evil spirits ; and thus those affected were
seen assembling indiscriminately, from time to time, at certain
appointed places, and, unless prevented by the lookers-on, con-
tinuing to dance without intermission, until their very last breath
was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so
completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them
dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings,
1 Johann Schenck vo7i Graffenberg, born 1530, took Lis degree at Tiibingen, in 1554.
He passed the greater part of his life as physician to the corporation of Freiburg in the
Breisgau, and died in 1598.
2 J. Schoikii a Graffenberg Observationum medicarum, rariarura, &c. Libri VII.
Lugdun. 1643. fol. L. I. Obs. VIII. p. 136.
96 THE DANCING MANIA.
or rushed headlong into rapid rivers, where they found a watery
grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the by-standers could
only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs
in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were thus tempted
to take, their strength might be exhausted. As soon as this was
the case, they fell as it were lifeless to the ground, and, by very
slow degrees, again recovered their strength. Many there were
who, even with all this exertion, had not expended the violence
of the tempest which raged within them, but awoke with newly re-
vived powers, and again and again mixed with the crowd of
dancers, until at length the violent excitement of their disordered
nerves was allayed by the great involuntary exertion of their
limbs ; and the mental disorder was calmed by the extreme ex-
haustion of the body. Thus the attacks themselves were in these
cases, as in their nature they are in all nervous complaints, neces-
sary crises of an inward morbid condition, which was transferred
from the sensorium to the nerves of motion, and, at an earlier
period, to the abdominal plexus, where a deep-seated derange-
ment of the system was perceptible from the secretion of flatus in
the intestines.
The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in many cases so
perfect, that some patients returned to the factory or the plough
as if nothing had happened. Others, on the contrary, paid the
penalty of their folly by so total a loss of power, that they could
not regain their former health, even by the employment of the
most strengthening remedies. Medical men were astonished to
observe that women in an advanced state of pregnancy were ca-
pable of going through an attack of the disease, without the
slightest injury to their offspring, which they protected merely
by a bandage passed round the waist. Cases of this kind were
not unfrequent so late as Schenck's time. That patients should
be violently affected by music, and their paroxysms brought on
and increased by it, is natural with such nervous disorders ; where
deeper impressions are made through the ear, which is the most in-
tellectual of all the organs, than through any one of the other senses.
On this account the magistrates hired musicians for the purpose
of carrying the St. Vitus's dancers so much the quicker through
the attacks, and directed, that athletic men should be sent among
them in order to complete the exhaustion, which had been often
observed to produce a good effect. 1 At the same time there was a
1 It is related by Felix Plater (born 1536, died 1614) that he remembered in his
ITS DECLINE AND TERMINATION. 07
prohibition against wearing red garments, because at the sight of
this colour, those affected became so furious, that they flew at the
persons who wore it, and were so bent upon doing them an injury
that they could with difficulty be restrained. They frequently
tore their own clothes whilst in the paroxysm, and were guilty of
other improprieties, so that the more opulent employed confiden-
tial attendants to accompany them, and to take care that they did
no harm either to themselves or others. This extraordinary dis-
ease was, however, so greatly mitigated in Schenck's time, that
the St. Vitus's dancers had long since ceased to stroll from town
to town ; and that physician, like Paracelsus, makes no mention
of the tympanitic inflation of the bowels. Moreover, most of
those affected were only annually visited by attacks ; and the
occasion of them was so manifestly referrible to the prevailing
notions of that period, that if the unqualified belief in the super-
natural agency of saints could have been abolished, they would
not have had any return of the complaint. Throughout the whole
of June, prior to the festival of St. John, patients felt a disquietude
and restlessness which they were unable to overcome. They were de-
jected, timid, and anxious ; wandered about in an unsettled state,
being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly
in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St. John's day, in
the confident hope, that by dancing at the altars of this saint, or
of St. Vitus (for in the Breisgau aid was equally sought from both),
they would be freed from all their sufferings. This hope was not
disappointed ; and they remained, for the rest of the year, exempt
from any further attack, after having thus, by dancing and raving
for three hours, satisfied an irresistible demand of nature. There
were at that period two chapels in the Breisgau, visited by the
St. Vitus's dancers ; namely, the Chapel of St. Vitus at Biessen,
near Breisach, and that of St. John, near Wasenwieler ; and it is
probable that in the south-west of Germany the disease was still
in existence iu the seventeenth century.
However, it grew every year more rare, so that, at the begin-
youth the authorities of Basle having commissioned several powerful men to dano> with
a girl who had the dancing mania, till she recovered from her disorder. They success-
ively relieved each other ; and this singular mode of cure lasted above four weeks,
when the patient fell down exhausted, and being quite unable to stand, was carried to
an hospital, where she recovered. She had remained in her clothes all the time, and
entirely regardless of the pain of her lacerated feet, she had merely sat down occasion-
ally to take some nourishment, or to slumber, during which the hopping movement of
her body continued. Felic. Plateri Praxeos medico opus. L. I. ch. 3. p. 88. Tom. I.
Basil. 1656. 4to. Ejusd. Observation. Basil. 1611. 8. p. 92.
7
98 THE DANCING MANIA.
ning of the seventeenth century, it was observed only occasionally
in its ancient form. Thus in the spring of the year 1623, Gr.
Horst saw some women who annually performed a pilgrimage to
St. Yitus's chapel at Drefelhausen, near Weissenstein, in the terri-
tory of Ulm, that they might wait for their dancing fit there, in
the same manner as those in the Breisgau did, according to
Schenck's account. They were not satisfied, however, with a
dance of three hours' duration, but continued day and night in a
state of mental aberration, like persons in an ecstasy, until they
fell exhausted to the ground ; and when they came to themselves
again, they felt relieved from a distressing uneasiness and painful
sensation of weight in their bodies, of which they had complained
for several weeks prior to St. Vitus's day. 1
After this commotion they remained well for the whole year ;
and such was their faith in the protecting power of the saint,
that one of them had visited this shrine at Drefelhausen more than
twenty times, and another had already kept the Saint's day for
the thirty-second time at this sacred station.
The dancing fit itself was excited here, as it probably was in
other places, by music, from the effects of which the patients were
thrown into a state of convulsion. 2 Many concurrent testimonies
serve to show that music generally contributed much to the con-
tinuance of the St. Vitus's dance, originated and increased its
paroxysms, and was sometimes the cause of their mitigation. So
early as the fourteenth century, the swarms of St. John's dancers
were accompanied by minstrels playing upon noisy instruments,
who roused their morbid feelings ; and it may readily be supposed
that, by the performance of lively melodies, and the stimulating
effects which the shrill tones of fifes and trumpets would produce,
a paroxysm, that was perhaps but slight in itself, might, in many
cases, be increased to the most outrageous fury, such as in later
times was purposely induced in order that the force of the disease
might be exhausted by the violence of its attack. Moreover, by
means of intoxicating music a kind of demoniacal festival for the
rude multitude was established, which had the effect of spreading
this unhappy malady wider and wider. Soft harmony was, how-
ever, employed to calm the excitement of those affected, and it is
mentioned as a character of the tunes played with this view to the
1 The 15th of June. Here therefore they did not wait till the Festival of St. John.
2 Gregor. Horstii Observitionum medicinalium singularium Libri IV. priores.
His aeeessit Epistolarura et Consultationum medicar. Lib. I. Ulm. 1628. 4to. Epistol.
p. 374.
TARANTISM. 99
St. Vitus's dancers, that they contained transitions from a quick
to a slow measure, and passed gradually from a high to a low key. 1
It is to be regretted that no trace of this music has reached our
times, which is owing partly to the disastrous events of the seven-
teenth century, and partly to the circumstance that the disorder
was looked upon as entirely national, and only incidentally con-
sidered worthy of notice by foreign men of learning. If the St.
Vitus's dance was already on the decline at the commencement of
the seventeenth century, the subsequent events were altogether
adverse to its continuance. Wars carried on with animositv and
with various success for thirty years, shook the west of Europe ;
and although the unspeakable calamities which they brought upon
Germany, both during their continuance and in their immediate
consequences, were by no means favourable to the advance of
knowledge, yet, with the vehemence of a purifying fire, they
gradually effected the intellectual regeneration of the Germans ;
superstition, in her ancient form, never again appeared, and the
belief in the dominion of spirits, which prevailed in the middle
ages, lost for ever its once formidable power.
CHAPTER II.
DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.
Sect. 1. — Tauantism.
It was of the utmost advantage to the St. Vitus's dancers that
they made choice of a favourite patron saint ; for not to mention
that people were inclined to compare them to the possessed with
evil spirits, described in the Bible, and thence to consider them as
innocent victims to the power of Satan, the name of their great
intercessor recommended them to general commiseration, and a
magic boundary was thus set to every harsh feeling which might
otherwise have proved hostile to their safety. Other fanatics
were not so fortunate, being often treated with the most relentless
cruelty whenever the notions of the middle ages cither excused or
commanded it as a religious duty. 2 Thus, passing over the innu-
1 Jo. Bodin. Method, historic. Amstelod. 1650. 12mo, Ch. V. p. 99.— Idem, do
Republica. Francofurt. 1591. 8vo. Lib. V. Ch. I. p. 789.
- A very remarkable case, illustrative in part of this observation, where, however, not
the person who was supposed to be the subject of the demoniacal malady, but its alleged
authors, were punished, is thus reported by Dr. Watt of Glasgow .—" It occurred at
7 *
100 THE DANCING MANIA.
merable instances of the burning of witches, who were, after all,
only labouring under a delusion, the Teutonic knights in Prussia
not unfrequently condemned those maniacs to the stake who
imagined themselves to be metamorphosed into wolves ' — an ex-
traordinary species of insanit}* - , which, having existed in Greece,
before our era, spread, in process of time, over Europe, so that it
was communicated not only to the Romaic, but also to the German
and Sarmatian nations, and descended from the ancients, as a
legacy of affliction to posterity. In modern times Lycanthropy,
such was the name given to this infatuation, has vanished from
the earth, but it is nevertheless well worthy the consideration of
the observer of human aberrations, and a history of it by some
Bargarran, in Renfrewshire, in 1696. The patient's name was Christian Shaw, a girl
of eleven years of age. She is described as having had violent fits of leaping, dancing,
running, crying, fainting, &c, but the whole narrative is mixed up with so much credulity
and superstition, that it is impossible to separate truth from fiction. These strange fits
continued from August, 1696, till the end of March in the year following, when the
patient recovered." An account of the whole was published at Edinburgh, in 1698,
entitled " A true Narrative of the Sufferings of a Young Girl, who was strangely mo-
lested by evil spirits, and their instruments, in the West, collected from authentic
testimonies."
The whole being ascribed to witchcraft, the clergy were most active on the occasion.
Besides occasional days of humiliation, two solemn fasts were observed throughout the
whole bounds of the Presbytery, and a number of clergymen and elders were appointed
in rotation, to be constantly on the spot. So far the matter was well enough. But
such was the superstition of the age, that a memorial was presented to his Majesty's
most honourable Privy Council, and on the 19th of January, 1697, a warrant was issued,
setting forth " that there were pregnant grounds of suspicion of witchcraft in Renfrew-
shire, especially from the afflicted and extraordinary condition of Christian Shaw, daughter
of John Shaw, of Bargarran." A commission was therefore granted to Alexander Lord
Blantyre, Sir John Maxwell, Sir John Shaw, and five others, together with the sheriff of
the county, to inquire into the matter, and report. This commission is signed by eleven
privy councillors, consisting of some of the first noblemen and gentlemen in the kingdom.
The report of the commissioners having fully confirmed the suspicions respecting the
existence of witchcraft, another warrant was issued on the 5th of April, 1697, to Lord
Hallcraig, Sir John Houston, and four others, " to try the persons accused of witchcraft,
and to sentence the guilty to be burned, or otherwise executed to death, as the commis-
sion should incline."
The commissioners, thus empowered, were not remiss in the discharge of their duty.
After twenty hours were spent in the examination of witnesses, and counsel heard on
both sides, the counsel for the prosecution " exhorted the jury to beware of condemning
the innocent: but at the same time, should they acquit the prisoners in opposition to
legal evidence, they would be accessory to all the blasphemies, apostacies, murders, tor-
tures, and seductions, whereof these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be
guilty." After the jury had spent six hours in deliberation, seven of the miserable
wretches, three men and four women, were condemned to the flames, and the sentence
faithfully executed at Paisley, on the 10th of June, 1697.— Medico- Chirnrg. Trans.
Vol. V. p. 20, et seq. — Transl. note.
1 Compare Olaus Magnus, de gentibus sqitentrionalibus. Lib. XVIII. Ch. 45—47.
p. 642, seq. Rom. 1555. fol.
TARANTISM. 101
writer who is equally well acquainted with the middle ages as with
antiquity, is still a desideratum. 1 We leave it for the present,
without further notice, and turn to a malady most extraordinary
in all its phenomena, having a close connexion with the St. Vitus' s
1 Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, has the following observations, which, with
the ample references by which they are accompanied, will furnish materials for such a
history.
" Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls cucubuth, others lupinam insaniam, or wolf-
madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be
persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. A'etius (Lib. 6. cap. 11.) and
Paulus (Lib. 3. cap. 16.) call it a kind of melancholy ; but I should rather refer it to
madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it, whether there be any such disease.
Donat. ab Altomari (Cap. 9. Art. Med.) saith, that he saw two of them in his time:
Wierus (De Prasstig. Demonum, 1. 3. cap. 21.) tells a story of such a one at Padua,
1541, that would not believe to the contrary but that he was a wolf. He hath another
instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear. Forestus (Observat. lib. 10. de
Morbis Cerebri, c. 15.) confirms as much by many examples ; one, among the rest, of
which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland.— A poor husbandman that still hunt-
ed about graves, and kept in chm-chyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such,
belike, or little better, were king Prcetus' daughters (Hippocrates lib. de insania), that
thought themselves kine : and Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel, as some interpreters hold,
was only troubled with this kind of madness. This disease, perhaps, gave occasion to
that bold assertion of Pliny (Lib. 8. cap. 22. homines interdum lupos fieri; et contra),
some men were turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again ; and to
that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to
his former shape; to Ovid's (Met. lib. 1.) tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to
hear of this disease, or more examples, let him read Austin in his eighteenth book, de
Civitate Dei, cap. 5; Mizaldus, cent. 5. 77; Schenkius, lib. 1. Hildesheim, Spicil. 2.
de mania; Forestus, lib. 10. de morbis cerebri; Olaus Magnus ; Vicentius Bellavicensis,
spec. met. lib. 31. c. 122; Pierius, Bodine, Zuingcr, Zeilgur, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger,
§c. This malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, and is now-a-days fre-
quent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to Ileurnius. (Cap. de Man.) Schernitzius
will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid, most part, all day, and go abroad in the
night, barking, howling, at graves and deserts ; they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed
legs and thighs, very dry and pale (Ulcerata crura ; sitis ipsis adest immodica ; pallidi ;
lingua sicca), saith Altomarus : he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets
down a brief cure of them." — Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Tenth Edit. : 8ro.
1804. Vol. I. Page 13, et seq.
It is surprising that so learned a writer as Burton should not have alluded to Oriba-
sius, who flourished 140 years before A'etius, and of whom Freind says, "In auctore
hoc miri cujusdam morbi prima mentio est ; is A vKavQpwnoc, sive AvtcavGpujTria dicitur,
estque melancholiae, aut insania?, species quamam ita ab illo descripta : * Quos hoc ma-
lum infestos habet, nocturno tempore domo egressi, Lupos in omnibus rebus imitantur,
et ad diem usque circa tumulos vagantur mortuorum. Hos ita cognosce : pallidi sunt,
oculos hebetes et siccos, non illachrymantes, eosque concavos habent : lingua siccissima
est, nulla penitus in ore saliva conspicitur, siti euecti ; crura vero, quia noctu srcpe of-
fendunt, sine remedio exulcerata.'— 'Quod ad morbum ipsum attinet, si peregrinantibus
fides adhibenda est, fuit olim in quibusdam regionibus, ut in Livonia, Hibernia, et aliis
locis visi non infrequens,' " &c— J. Freind. Opera omnia Med. fol. London. 1733.
De hujus morbi antiquitatibus vide elegantem Bbttigeri disputationem in Sprengelii
Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med. 11. p. 1—45.— Blancard. Lexic. Med. Edit, noviss. 8vo. Lipsise,
1832. — Transl. note.
102 THE DANCING MANIA.
dance, and, by a comparison of facts, which are altogether similar,
affording us an instructive subject for contemplation. We allude
to the disease called Tarantism, which made its first appearance
in Apulia, and thence spread over the other provinces of Italy,
where, during some centuries, it prevailed as a great epidemic. In
the present times it has vanished, or at least has lost altogether
its original importance, like the St. Vitus's dance, lycanthropy,
and witchcraft.
Sect. 2. — Most ancient Traces. — Causes.
The learned Nicholas Perotti 1 gives the earliest account of this
strange disorder. Nobody had the least doubt that it was caused
by the bite of the tarantula?* a ground-spider common in Apulia ;
and the fear of this insect was so general, that its bite was in all
probability much oftener imagined, or the sting of some other
kind of insect mistaken for it, than actually received. The word
tarantula is apparently the same as terrantola, a name given by
the Italians to the stellio of the old Romans, which was a kind of
lizard, 4 said to be poisonous, and invested by credulity with such
extraordinary qualities, that, like the serpent of the Mosaic ac-
count of the Creation, it personified, in the imaginations of the vul-
gar, the notion of cunning, so that even the jurists designated a
1 Born 1430, died 1480. Cornucopiae latiuce linguae. Basil. 1536. fol. Comment, in
primuni Martialis Epigramma, p. 51, 52. " Est et alius stellio ex araneorum genere,
qui, simili modo, ascalabotes a Grjecis dieitur, et eolotes et galeotes, lentiginosus in
cavernulis dehiscentibus, per aestum terra; habitans. Ilic majorum nostrorum tem-
poribus in Italia visus non fuit, nunc frequens in Apulia visitur. Aliquando etiam in
Tarquinensi et Corniculano agro, et vulgo similiter tarantula vocatur. Morsus ejus per-
raro interemit bominem, semistupidum tamen facit, et varie afficit, tarantulam vulgo
appellant. Quidam cantu audit o, aut sono, ita excitantur, ut pleni Itrtitia et semper
ridentes saltetit, nee nisi defatigati et semineces desistant. Alii semper flcntes, quasi
desiderio suorum miserabilem vitam agant. Alii visa muliere, libidinis statim ardore
incensi, veluti furentes in earn prosiliant. Quidam ridendo, quidam flendo moriantur."
* Lycosa Tarantula.
3 Tbe Aranea Tarantula of Linnceits, who, after the technical description, says,
" Habitat in Europa australi, potissimum Apulia, in Barbaria, in Tauria, Bussheque
australis desertis, in Astracania ad montes Sibiriae Altaicos usque, in Persia et reliquo
Orientc, in solo praesertim argillaceo in antris, morsu quamvis interdum dolente, olimque
famosum tarantismum musica sanandum excitare credito, vix unquam periculoso, cine-
rascens, oralis duobus prioribus rubris, thorace in areas nigras diviso in centrum concur-
rentes, abdomine supra fasciis maxillisque nigris." — Systema Natures. Tom. I. pars v.
p. 2956.
For particulars regarding the habits of the Lycosrc, see Griffith's Transl. of Cuvier's
Animal Kingdom. Vol. XIII. p. 427 and p. 480. et seq. The author states that M.
Chabrier has published (Soc. Acad, de Lille 4 e cahier) some curious observations on the
Lycosa tarantula of the south of France. — Transl. note.
1 Matthiol. Commcntar. in Dioscorid. L. II. ch. 59. p. 363. Ed. Venet. 1565. fol.
MOST ANCIENT TRACES. — CAUSES. 103
cunning fraud by the .appellation of a " stellionatus." 1 Perotti
expressly assures us that this reptile was called by the Romans
tarantula; and since he himself, who was one of the most distin-
guished authors of his time, strangely confounds spiders and
lizards together, so that he considers the Apulian tarantula, which
he ranks among the class of spiders, to have the same meaning as
the kind of lizard called a'cFTt]<;, 5. aicXripoictyaXov, and 6. OKioXqiciov. Tetrabl. IV. Serm. I. ch. 18.
in Hen. Steph. Compare Dioscorid. Lib. VI. ch. 42. Mutthiol. Commentar. in Dios-
eorid. p. 1417. Xicand. Theriac. Y. 8. 715. 755. G54.
MOST ANCIENT TRACES. — CAUSES. 105
tenance, difficulty of speech, tremor of the limbs, icy coldness,
pale urine, depression of spirits, head-ache, a flow of tears, nausea,
vomiting, sexual excitement, flatulence, syncope, dysuria, watch-
fulness, lethargy, even death itself, were cited by them as the con-
sequences of being bitten by venomous spiders, and they made
little distinction as to their kinds. To these symptoms we may
add the strange rumour, repeated throughout the middle ages,
that persons who were bitten, ejected by the bowels and kidneys,
and even by vomiting, substances resembling a spider's web.
Nowhere, however, do we find any mention made that those
affected felt an irresistible propensity to dancing, or that they
were accidentally cured by it. Even Constantine of Africa, who
lived 500 years after Aetius, and as the most learned physician of
the school of Salerno, would certainly not have passed over so
acceptable a subject of remark, knows nothing of such a memor-
able course of this disease arising from poison, and merely repeats
the observations of his Greek predecessors. 1 Gariopontus, 2 a
Salernian physician of the eleventh century, was the first to de-
scribe a kind of insanity, the remote affinity of which to the
tarantula disease is rendered apparent by a very striking symptom.
The patients in their sudden attacks behaved like maniacs,, sprang
up, throwing their arms about with wild movements, and, if per-
chance a sword was at hand, thev wounded themselves and others,
so that it became necessary carefully to secure them. They
imagined that they heard voices, and various kinds of sounds, and
if, during this state of illusion, the tones of a favourite instru-
ment happened to catch their ear, they commenced a spasmodic
dance, or ran with the utmost energy which they could muster,
until they were totally exhausted. These dangerous maniacs,
who, it would seem, appeared in considerable numbers, were
looked upon as a legion of devils, but on the causes of their malady
this obscure writer adds nothing further than that he believes
(oddly enough) that it may sometimes be excited by the bite of a
mad dog. He calls the disease Anteneasmus, by which is meant
1 Aranearum multa? species sunt. Qua; ubi mordent, faciunt multum dolorem,
ruborem, frigidum sudorem, et citrinum colorem. Aliquando quasi stranguria; in urina
duritiem, et virgse extensionem, intra inguina, et genua, tetinositatem in stomacho.
Linguae extensionem, ut eorum scrmo non possit discerni. Vomunt kumiditatem qtiasi
arancce tclam, ot ventris emollitioncm similiter, &c. De conimunibus medico cognitu
necessariis locis. Lib. VIII. cap. 22. p. 235. Basil. 1539. fol.
2 He lived in tbe middle of the eleventh century, and was a junior contemporary with
Constantine of Africa. J. Chr. Gottl. Ackermann, Regimen sanitatis Salerni sive
Si hoke Salrnitanse de conservancla bona valetudine pra-cepta. Stcndal. 1790. 8vo. p. £8.
106 THE DANCING MANIA.
no doubt the Enthusiasmus of the Greek physicians. 1 We cite
this phenomenon as an important forerunner of tarantism, under
the conviction that we have thus added to the evidence that the
development of this latter must have been founded on circum-
stances which existed from the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth
century ; for the origin of tarantism itself is referrible, with the
utmost probabilit} 7 , to a period between the middle and the end of
this century, and is consequently contemporaneous with that of the
St. Titus's dance (1374). The influence of the Roman Catholic
religion, connected as this was, in the middle ages, with the pomp
of processions, with public exercises of penance, and with innu-
merable practices which strongly excited the imaginations of its
votaries, certainly brought the mind to a very favourable state for
the reception of a nervous disorder. Accordingly, so long as the
doctrines of Christianity were blended with so much mysticism,
these unhallowed disorders prevailed to an important extent, and
even in our own days we find them propagated with the greatest
facility where the existence of superstition produces the same effect
in more limited districts, as it once did among whole nations. But
this is not all. Every country in Europe, and Italy perhaps more
than any other, was visited during the middle ages by frightful
plagues, which followed each other in such quick succession, that
they gave the exhausted people scarcely any time for recovery.
The oriental bubo-plague ravaged Italy 2 sixteen times between the
years 1119 and 1340. Small-pox and measles were still more
destructive than in modern times, and recurred as frequently. St.
Anthony's fire was the dread of town and country ; and that dis-
gusting disease, the leprosy, which, in consequence of the crusades,
spread its insinuating poison in all directions, snatched from the
1 The passage is as follows: "Antcneasmon est species mania? periculosa nimium.
Irritantur tanquam maniaci, et in se manus injiciunt. Hi subito arripiuntur, cum sal-
tat ione manuum et pedum, quia intra aurium cavernas quasi voces diversas sonar ef also
audiunt, ut sunt diversorum instrumentation musicee so?ii ; quibus delcctantur, ut statim
saltent, aut cursum velocem arripiant ; subito arripientes gladium percutiunt se aut
alios: morsibus se et alios attrectare non dubitant. IIos Latini pereussores, alii dicunt
daemonis legiones esse, ut dum eos arripiunt, vexent et vulnerent. Diligentia eis im-
ponenda est, quando istos sonos audierint, includantur, et post accessionis horas phle-
botomentur, et venter eis moveatur. Cibos leves accipiant cum calida aqua, ut omnis
ventositas, quae in cerebro sonum facit, egeratur. In ipsaaccessione silentium habeant.
Quod si spumam per os ejecerint, vel ex canis rabidi morsu causa fuerit, intra septem
dies moriuntur." Garioponti, medici vetustissimi, de morborum causis, accidentibus et
curationibus. Libri VIII. Basil. 1536. 8vo. I.. I. ch. 2. p. 27.
2 .7. P. Papon. De la peste, ou les epoques memorable* de ce Mean. Paris, an 8.
8vo. Tome II. page 270. (1119. 1126. 113.1 1193. 1225. 1227. 1231. 1234. 1243.
1254. 1288. 1301. 1311. 1316. 1335. 1340.)
MOST ANCIENT TRACES. CAUSES. 107
paternal hearth innumerable victims who, banished from human
society, pined away in lonely huts, whither they were accompanied
only by the pity of the benevolent and their own despair. All
these calamities, of which the moderns have scarcely retained any
recollection, were heightened to an incredible degree by the Black
Death, 1 which spread boundless devastation and misery over Italy.
Men's minds were everywhere morbidly sensitive ; and as it hap-
pens with individuals whose senses, when they are suffering under
anxiety, become more irritable, so that trifles are magnified into
objects of great alarm, and slight shocks, which would scarcely
affect the spirits when in health, give rise in them to severe dis-
eases, so was it with this whole nation, at all times so alive to
emotions, and at that period so sorely pressed with the horrors of
death.
The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear
of its consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not
have done so at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which,
like St. Vitus's dance in Germany, spread by sympathy, increas-
ing in severity as it took a wider range, and still further extend-
ing: its ravages from its long continuance. Thus, from the middle of
the fourteenth century, the furies of the Dance brandished their
scourge over afflicted mortals ; and music, for which the inha-
bitants of Italy, now probably for the first time, manifested sus-
ceptibility and talent, became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks
in those affected, and then furnished the magical means of exor-
cising their melancholy.
Sect. 3. — Increase.
At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had
spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being
bitten by venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of
death itself was expected from the wound which these insects in-
flicted, and if those who were bitten escaped with their lives,
they were said to be seen pining away in a desponding state of
lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or hard of hearing, some
lost the power of speech, and all were insensible to ordinary causes
of excitement. Nothing but the flute or the cithern afforded them
relief. 3 At the sound of these instruments they awoke as it were
1 1347 to 1350.
• Athanasius Kircher gives a full account of the instruments then in use, which
differed very slightly from those of our days. Musurgia universalis, sive Ars m.igna
consoni et dissoni. lionise, 1650, fol. Tom. I. p. 477.
108 THE DANCING MANIA.
by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first,
according to the measure of the music, were, as the time quicken-
ed, gradually hurried on to the most passionate dance. It was
generally observable that country people, who were rude, and
ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions an unusual degree
of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant movements
of the body ; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders of this
kind, that the organs of motion are in an altered condition, and
are completely under the control of the overstrained spirits.
Cities and villages alike resounded throughout the summer season
with the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums ; and patients
where everywhere to be met with who looked to dancing as their
only remedy. Alexander ab Alexandro, 1 who gives this account,
saw a young man in a remote village who was seized with a vio-
lent attack of Tarantism. He listened with eagerness and a fixed
stare to the sound of a drum, and his graceful movements ffradu-
ally became more and more violent, until his dancing was convert-
ed into a succession of frantic leaps, which required the utmost
exertion of his whole strength. In the midst of this overstrained
exertion of mind and body the music suddenly ceased, and he im-
mediately fell pow r erless to the ground, where he lay senseless and
motionless until its magical effect again aroused him to a renewal
of his impassioned performances.
At the period of which we are treating there was a general con-
viction, that by music and dancing the poison of the Tarantula
was distributed over the whole body, and expelled through the
skin, but that if there remained the slightest vestige of it in the
vessels, this became a permanent germ of the disorder, so that the
dancing fits might again and again be excited ad infinitum hy
music. This belief, which resembled the delusion of those insane
persons who, being by artful management freed from the imagined
causes of their sufferings, are but for a short time released from
their false notions, was attended with the most injurious effects:
for in consequence of it those affected necessarily became by de-
grees convinced of the incurable nature of their disorder. They
expected relief, indeed, but not a cure, from music ; and when the
heat of summer awakened a recollection of the dancers of the pre-
ceding year, they, like the St. Vitus's dancers of the same period
1 Genialium dierum Libri VI. Lugdun. Bat. 1673. 8vo. Lib. II. eh. 17. p. 398.
Alex, ab Alexandro, a distinguished Neapolitan lawyer, lived from 1461 to 1523. The
historian Gaudentius Morula, who became celebrated about 1536, makes only a very
slight mention of the Tarantism. Memorabilium Gaud. Merulce Novariensis opus, &c.
I.ugdun. 1656. 8vo. L. III. ch. 69. p. 251.
INCREASE. 109
before St. Vitus's day, again grew dejected and misanthropic, un-
til, by music and dancing, they dispelled the melancholy which
had become with them a kind of sensual enjoyment.
Under such favourable circumstances it is clear that Tarantism
must every year have made further progress. The number of
those affected by it increased beyond all belief, for whoever had
either actually been, or even fancied that he had been, once bitten
by a poisonous spider or scorpion, made his appearance annually
wherever the merry notes of the Tarantella resounded. Inquisitive
females joined the throng and caught the disease, not indeed from
the poison of the spider, bat from the mental poison which they
eagerly received through the eye ; and thus the cure of the Ta-
rantati gradually became established as a regular festival of the
populace, which was anticipated with impatient delight.
Without attributing more to deception and fraud than to the
peculiar nature of a progressive mental malady, it may readily be
conceived that the cases of this strange disorder now grew more
frequent. The celebrated Matthioli, 1 who is worthy of entire con-
fidence, gives his account as an eye-witness. He saw the same
extraordinary effects produced by music as Alexandro, for, how-
ever tortured with pain, however hopeless of relief the patients
appeared, as they lay stretched on the couch of sickness, at the
very first sounds of those melodies which had made an impression
on them — but this was the case only with the Tarantellas com-
posed expressly for the purpose — they sprang up as if inspired
with new life and spirit, and, unmindful of their disorder, began
to move in measured gestures, dancing for hours together without
fatigue, until, covered with a kindly perspiration, they felt a salu-
tary degree of lassitude, which relieved them for a time at least,
perhaps even for a whole year, from their dejection and oppressive
feeling of general indisposition. Alexandre's experience of the
injurious effects resulting from a sudden cessation of the music
was generally confirmed by Matthioli. If the clarinets and drums
ceased for a single moment, which, as the most skilful players
were tired out by the patients, could not but happen occasionally,
they suffered their limbs to fall listless, again sank exhausted to the
ground, and could find no solace but in a renewal of the dance.
On this account care was taken to continue the music until ex-
haustion was produced ; for it was better to pay a few extra
musicians, who might relieve each other, than to permit the pa-
1 Petr. And. Matthioli Ommenlarii in Dioscorid. Vrnct. 1565. fbl. Lib. II. ch. 57.
p. 362.
110 THE DANCING MANIA.
tient, in the midst of this curative exercise, to relapse into so de-
plorable a state of suffering. The attack consequent upon the bite
of the Tarantula, Matthioli describes as varying much in its man-
ner. Some became morbidly exhilarated, so that they remained
for a long while without sleep, laughing, dancing, and singing in
a state of the greatest excitement. Others, on the contrary, were
drowsy. The generality felt nausea and suffered from vomiting,
and some had constant tremors. Complete mania was no uncom-
mon occurrence, not to mention the usual dejection of spirits and
other subordinate symptoms.
Sect. 4. — Idiosyncracies. — Music.
Unaccountable emotions, strange desires, and morbid sensual
irritations of all kinds, were as prevalent as in the St. Vitus's dance
and similar great nervous maladies. So late as the sixteenth
century patients were seen armed with glittering swords which,
during the attack, they brandished with wild gestures, as if they
were going to engage in a fencing match. 1 Even women scorned
all female delicacy 2 and, adopting this impassioned demeanour,
did the same ; and this phenomenon, as well as the excitement
which the Tarantula dancers felt at the sight of anything with
metallic lustre, was quite common up to the period when, in mo-
dern times, the disease disappeared. 3
The abhorrence of certain colours and the agreeable sensations
produced by others, were much more marked among the excitable
Italians than was the case in the St. Vitus's dance with the more
phlegmatic Germans. Red colours, which the St. Vitus's dancers
detested, they generally liked, so that a patient was seldom seen
who did not carry a red handkerchief for his gratification, or
greedily feast his eyes on any articles of red clothing worn by the
by-standers. Some preferred yellow, others black colours, of
which an explanation was sought, according to the prevailing no-
tions of the times, in the difference of temperaments. 4 Others
1 Athanas. Kircher. Magnes sivc de Arte niagnetica Opus. Rom. 1654. fol. p. 5S9.
2 Joann. Juvenis de antiquitate et varia Tarentinorum fortuim Lib. VIII. Neapnl.
1589. fol. Lib. II. cb. 17. p. 107. With the exception of the statement quoted, Juvenis
has borrowed almost everything from Matthioli.
3 Simon. Alloys. Tudecius, physician to Queen Christine, saw a case of this kind in
July, 1656. Bonet. Medicina septentrionalis collatit. Genev. 1684. fol.
4 Epiphan. Ferdinand. Centum historian seu observations et casus medici. Venet.
1621. fol. Hist. LXXXI. p. 259. Ferdinando, a physician in Messapia at the com-
mencement of the seventeenth century, has collected, with much diligence, the various
stntpments respecting the Tarantism of his time. He " was himself an eye-witness of
it " (p. 265), and is by far the most copious of all the old writers on this subject.
IDIOSYNCRACIES. — MUSIC. 1 1 1
again were enraptured with green ; and eye-witnesses describe
this rage for colours as so extraordinary, that they can scarcely
find words with which to express their astonishment. No sooner
did the patients obtain a sight of the favourite colour than, new
as the impression was, they rushed like infuriated animals towards
the object, devoured it with their eager looks, kissed and caressed
it in every possible way, and gradually resigning themselves to
softer sensations, adopted the languishing expression of enamoured
lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or whatever other article
it might be, which was presented to them, with the most intense
ardour, while the tears streamed from their eyes as if they were com-
pletely overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on their senses.
The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in Tarentum ex-
cited so much curiosity, that Cardinal Cajetano proceeded to the
monastery, that he might see with his own eyes what was going
on. As soon as the monk, who was in the midst of his dance, per-
ceived the spiritual prince clothed in his red garments, he no
longer listened to the Tarantella of the musicians, but with strange
gestures endeavoured to approach the Cardinal, as if he wished to
count the very threads of his scarlet robe, and to allay his intense
longing by its odour. The interference of the spectators, and his
own respect, prevented his touching it, and thus the irritation of
his senses not being appeased, he fell into a state of such anguish
and disquietude, that he presently sank down in a swoon, from which
he did not recover until the Cardinal compassionately gave him
his cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest ecstasy, and
pressed now to his breast, now to his forehead and cheeks, and
then again commenced his dance as if in the frenzv of a love fit. 1
At the sight of colours which they disliked, patients flew into
the most violent rage, and, like the St. Vitus's dancers when they
saw red objects, could scarcely be restrained from tearing the
clothes of those spectators who raised in them such disagreeable
sensations. 2
Another no less extraordinary symptom was the ardent longing
for the sea which the patients evinced. As the St. John's dancers
of the fourteenth century saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and
display all the splendour of the saints, so did those who were
suffering under the bite of the Tarantula feel themselves attracted
to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean, and lost themselves
in its contemplation. Some songs, which are still preserved,
' Kircher, l<>e. cit. pp. -588. .589. * Ferdinand, p. 259.
112 THE DANCING MANIA.
marked this peculiar longing, which was moreover expressed by
significant music, and was excited even by the bare mention of
the sea. 1 Some, in whom this susceptibility was carried to the
greatest pitch, cast themselves with blind fury into the blue
waves, 2 as the St. Vitus's dancers occasionally did into rapid rivers.
This condition, so opposite to the frightful state of hydrophobia,
betrayed itself in others only in the pleasure afforded them by the
sight of clear water in glasses. These they bore in their hands
while dancing, exhibiting at the same time strange movements,
and giving way to the most extravagant expressions of their feel-
ings. They delighted also when, in the midst of the space allot-
ted for this exercise, more ample vessels, filled with water, and
surrounded by rushes and water plants, were placed, in which
they bathed their heads and arms with evident pleasure. 3 Others
there were who rolled about on the ground, and were, by their
own desire, buried up to the neck in the earth, in order to allevi-
ate the misery of their condition, not to mention an endless variety
of other symptoms which showed the perverted action of the
nerves.
All these modes of relief, however, were as nothing in compari-
son with the irresistible charms of musical sound. Attempts had
indeed been made in ancient times to mitigate the pain of sciatica, 4
or the paroxysms of mania, 5 by the soft melody of the flute, and,
what is still more applicable to the present purpose, to remove
the danger arising from the bite of vipers 6 by the same means.
This, however, was tried only to a very small extent. But after
being bitten by the Tarantula, there was, according to popular
opinion, no way of saving life except by music, and it was hardly
considered as an exception to the general rule, that every now and
then the bad effects of a wound were prevented by placing a
1 For example : —
" Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati.
Allu mari, alia via :
Cosi m'ama la donna mia.
Allu mari allu mari :
Mcntre campo, t'a^gio amari."
Kircher, loc. cit. p. 592. — Appendix, No. V.
2 Ferdinand, loc. cit. p. 257.
3 Kircher, p. 589.
* Plin. Hist. Nat. Lib. XXVIII. cb. 2. p. 447. Ed. Hard.
5 Cael. Aurelian. Chron. Lib. I. ch. 5. p. 335. Ed. Amman.
6 Democritus and Theophrastus made mention of it. See Gell. Noct. Attic. Lib.
IV. cb. 13.
IDIOSYNCRACIES. — MUSIC. 113
ligature on the bitten limb, or by internal medicine, or that strong
persons occasionally withstood the effects of the poison, without
the employment of any remedies at all. 1 It was much more com-
mon, and is quite in accordance with the nature of so exquisite a
nervous disease, to hear accounts of many who, when bitten by the
Tarantula, perished miserably because the Tarantella, which would
have afforded them deliverance, was not played to them. 2 It was
customary, therefore, so early as the commencement of the seven-
teenth century, for whole bands of musicians to traverse Italy
during the summer months, and, what is quite unexampled either
in ancient or modern times, the cure of the Tarantati in the
different towns and villages was undertaken on a grand scale. This
season of dancing and music was called Cl the women's little car-
nival," 3 for it was women more especially who conducted the
arrangements ; so that throughout the whole country they saved
up their spare money, for the purpose of rewarding the welcome
musicians, and many of them neglected their household employ-
ments to participate in this festival of the sick. Mention is even
made of one benevolent lady (Mita Lupa) who had expended her
whole fortune on this object. 4
The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to the nature
of the malady, and it made so deep an impression on the Italians,
that even to the present time, long since the extinction of the
disorder, they have retained the Tarantella, as a particular species
of music employed for quick lively dancing. The different kinds
of Tarantella were distinguished, very significantly, by particular
names, which had reference to the moods observed in the patients.
Whence it appears that they aimed at representing by these tunes,
even the idiosyncracies of the mind as expressed in the counte-
nance. Thus there was one kind of Tarantella which was called
"Panno rosso," a very lively impassioned style of music, to which
wild dithyrambic songs were adapted; another, called "Panno
verde," which was suited to the milder excitement of the senses,
caused by green colours, and set to Idyllian songs of verdant fields
and shady groves. A third was named " Cinque tempi : " a fourth
"Moresca," which was played to a Moorish dance; a fifth, "Catena?"
and a sixth, with a very appropriate designation, " Spallata,"
as if it were only fit to be played to dancers who were lame in
1 Ferdinand, p. 260.
2 Bagliv. loc. cit. p. 618. From more decided statements, however, we learn, that
of those who had been bitten only one or two in a thousand died. Ferdinand, p. 255.
3 II carnevaletto delle donne. Bagliv. p. 617.
4 Ferdinand, pp. 254. 260.
114 THE DANCING MANIA.
tho shoulder. This was the slowest and least in vogue of all. 1
For those who loved water they took care to select love songs,
which were sung to corresponding music, and such persons de-
lighted in hearing of gushing springs and rushing cascades and
streams. 2 It is to be regretted that on this subject we are unable
to give any further information, for only small fragments of songs,
and a very few Tarantellas, have been preserved which belong to
a period so remote as the beginning of the seventeenth, or at
furthest the end of the sixteenth, centurv. 3
The music was almost wholly in the Turkish style (aria Tur-
chesca), and the ancient songs of the peasantry of Apulia, which
increased in number annually, were well suited to the abrupt and
lively notes of the Turkish drum and the shepherd's pipe. These
two instruments were the favourites in the country, but others of
all kinds were played in towns and villages, as an accompaniment
to the dances of the patients and the songs of the spectators. If
any particular melody was disliked by those affected, they indi-
cated their displeasure by violent gestures expressive of aversion.
They could not endure false notes, and it is remarkable that un-
educated boors, who had never in their lives manifested any per-
ception of the enchanting power of harmony, acquired, in this re-
spect, an extremely refined sense of hearing, as if they had been
initiated into the profoundest secrets of the musical art. 4 It was
a matter of every day's experience, that patients showed a predi-
lection for certain Tarantellas, in preference to others, which gave
rise to the composition of a great variety of these dances. They
were likewise very capricious in their partialities for particular
instruments ; so that some longed for the shrill notes of the trum-
pet, others for the softest music produced by the vibration of
strings. 5
Tarantism was at its greatest height in Italy in the seventeenth
century, long after the St. Yitus's Dance of Germany had dis-
appeared. Is was not the natives of the country only who were
attacked by this complaint. Foreigners of every colour and of every
race, negroes, gipsies, Spaniards, Albanians, were in like manner
affected by it. 6 Against the effects produced by the Tarantula's
bite, or by the sight of the sufferers, neither youth nor age afforded
1 Ferdinand, p. 259. Slow music made the Tarantel dancers feel as if they were
crushed: spczzati, minuzzati, p. 260.
2 A. Kircher, loc. cit. 3 g ec Appendix, No. V.
4 Bagliv. loc. cit. p. 623. ' A. Kircher, loc. cit.
* Ferdinand, p, 262.
IDIOSYNCRASIES. — MUSIC. 1 1 5
any protection ; so that even old men of ninety threw aside their
crutches at the sound of the Tarantella, and, as if some magic
potion, restorative of youth and vigour, were flowing through
their veins, joined the most extravagant dancers. 1 Ferdinando
saw a boy five years old seized with the dancing mania, 2 in conse-
quence of the bite of a tarantula ; and, what is almost past belief,
were it not supported by the testimony of so credible an eye-wit-
ness, even deaf people were not exempt from this disorder, so potent
in its effect was the very sight of those affected, even without the
exhilarating emotions caused by music. 3
Subordinate nervous attacks were much more frequent during
this century than at any former period, and an extraordinary icy
coldness was observed in those who were the subjects of them ; so
that they did not recover their natural heat until they had engaged
in violent dancing. 4 Their anguish and sense of oppression forced
from them a cold perspiration ; the secretion from the kidneys was
pale, 5 and they had so great a dislike to everything cold, that
when water was offered them they pushed it away with abhorrence.
Wine, on the contrary, they all drank willingly, without being
heated bv it, or in the slightest decree intoxicated. 6 During the
whole period of the attack they suffered from spasms in the
stomach, and felt a disinclination to take food of any kind. They
used to abstain some time before the expected seizures from meat
and from snails, which they thought rendered them more severe, 7
and their great thirst for wine may, therefore, in some measure, be
attributable to the want of a more nutritious diet ; yet the dis-
order of the nerves was evidently its chief cause, and the loss of
appetite, as well as the necessity for support by wine, were its
effects. Loss of voice, occasional blindness, 8 vertigo, complete
insanity, with sleeplessness, frequent weeping without any osten-
sible cause, were all usual symptoms. Many patients found relief
from being placed in swings or rocked in cradles ;° others re-
quired to be roused from their state of suffering by severe blows
on the soles of their feet ; others beat themselves, without any in-
tention of making a display, but solely for the purpose of allaying
the intense nervous irritation which they felt ; and a considerable
number were seen with their bellies swollen, 10 like those of the St.
1 This is said of an old man of Avctrano, who was ninety-font years of age. pp.
254. 257. 2 Idem, p. 261.
* Ferdinando saw a man who was hard of hearing listen with great eagerness during
the dance, and endeavour to approach the drums and fifes as nearly as possible. P. 258.
1 Idem, p. 260. 5 Idem, p. 25G. « Idem, p. 260. 7 Idem, p. 261.
a Idem, p. 256. 9 Idem, p. 258. lft Idem, p. 257.
8*
116 THE DANCING MANIA.
John's dancers, while the violence of the intestinal disorder was
indicated in others by obstinate constipation or diarrhoea and
vomiting. 1 These pitiable objects gradually lost their strength
and their colour, and creeping about with injected eyes, jaundiced
complexions, and inflated bowels, soon fell into a state of profound
melancholy, which found food and solace in the solemn tolling of
the funeral bell, and in an abode among the tombs of cemeteries,
as is related of the Lycanth ropes of former times.
The persuasion of the inevitable consequences of being bitten
by the tarantula, exercised a dominion over men's minds which
even the healthiest and strongest could not shake off. So late as
the middle of the sixteenth century, the celebrated Fracastoro found
the robust bailiff of his landed estate groaning, and, with the aspect
of a person in the extremity of despair, suffering the very agonies
of death, from a sting in the neck, inflicted by an insect which
was believed to be a tarantula. He kindly administered, without
delay, a potion of vinegar and Armenian bole, the great remedy
of those days for the plague and all kinds of animal poisons, and
the dying man was, as if by a miracle, restored to life and the
power of speech. 2 Now, since it is quite out of the question that
the bole could have anything to do with the result in this case,
notwithstanding Fracastoro's belief in its virtues, we can only
account for the cure by supposing, that a confidence in so great a
physician prevailed over this fatal disease of the imagination,
which would otherwise have yielded to scarcely any other remedy
except the tarantella. Ferdinando was acquainted with women
who, for thirty years in succession, had overcome the attacks of
this disorder by a renewal of their annual dance — so long did they
maintain their belief in the yet undestroyed poison of the taran-
tula's bite, and so long did that mental affection continue to exist,
after it had ceased to depend on any corporeal excitement. 3
Wherever we turn we find that this morbid state of mind pre-
vailed, and was so supported by the opinions of the age, that it
needed only a stimulus in the bite of the tarantula, and the sup-
posed certainty of its very disastrous consequences, to originate
this violent nervous disorder. Even in Ferdinando's time there
were many who altogether denied the poisonous effects of the
tarantula's bite, whilst they considered the disorder, which annually
set Italy in commotion, to be a melancholy depending on the
1 Ferdinand, p. 2.36.
2 De Contag. Lib. III. ch. 2, p. 212. Opera Lugdun. 1591. 8vo.
3 De Contag. p. 254.
HYSTERIA. 117
imagination. 1 They dearly expiated this scepticism, however,
when they were led, with an inconsiderate hardihood, to test their
opinions by experiment; for many of them became the subjects of
severe tarantism, and even a distinguished prelate, Jo. Baptist
Quinzato, Bishop of Foligno, having allowed himself, by way of
a joke, to be bitten by a tarantula, could obtain a cure in no other
way than by being, through the influence of the tarantella, com-
pelled to dance. 2 Others among the clergy, who wished to shut
their ears against music, because they considered dancing deroga-
tory to their station, fell into a dangerous state of illness by thus
delaying the crisis of the malady, and were obliged at last to save
themselves from a miserable death by submitting to the unwel-
come but sole means of cure. 3 Thus it appears that the age was
so little favourable to freedom of thought, that even the most de-
cided sceptics, incapable of guarding themselves against the re-
collection of what had been presented to the eye, were subdued by
a poison, the power of which they had ridiculed, and which was
in itself inert in its effect.
Sect. 5. — Hysteria.
Different characteristics of morbidly excited vitality having
been rendered prominent by tarantism in different individuals, it
could not but happen that other derangements of the nerves would
assume the form of this, whenever circumstances favoured such a
transition. This was more especially the case with hysteria, that
proteiform and mutable disorder, in which the imaginations, the
superstitions, and the follies of all ages have been evidently reflect-
ed. The " Carnevaletto delle Donne" appeared most opportunely
for those who were hysterical. Their disease received from it, as
it had at other times from other extraordinary customs, a peculiar
direction ; so that whether bitten by the tarantula or not, they felt-
compelled to participate in the dances of those affected, and to
make their appearance at this popular festival, where they had an
opportunity of triumphantly exhibiting their sufferings. Let us
here pause to consider the kind of life which the women in Italy
led. Lonely, and deprived by cruel custom of social intercourse,
that fairest of all enjoyments, they dragged on a miserable exist-
ence. Cheerfulness and an inclination to sensual pleasures passed
into compulsory idleness, and, in many, into black despondency. 4
1 Dc Contag. p. 254. 2 Idem, p. 262. 3 Idem, p. 261.
4 " The imaginations of women are always more excitable than those of men, and
118 THE DANCING MANIA.
Their imaginations became disordered — a pallid countenance and
oppressed respiration bore testimony to their profound sufferings.
How could they do otherwise, sunk as they were in such extreme
misery, than seize the occasion to burst forth from their prisons,
and alleviate their miseries by taking part in the delights of
music. Nor should we here pass unnoticed a circumstance which
illustrates, in a remarkable degree, the psychological nature of
hysterical sufferings, namel} r , that many chlorotic females, by join-
ing the dancers at the Carnevaletto, were freed from their spasms
and oppression of breathing for the whole year, although the cor-
poreal cause of their malady was not removed. 1 After such a re-
sult, no one could call their self-deception a mere imposture, and
unconditionally condemn it as such.
This numerous class of patients certainly contributed not a
little to the maintenance of the evil, for their fantastic sufferings,
in which dissimulation and reality could scarcely be distinguished
even by themselves, much less by their physicians, were imitated,
in the same way as the distortions of the St. Vitus's dancers, by
the impostors of that period. It was certainly by these persons
also that the number of subordinate symptoms was increased to an
endless extent, as may be conceived from the daily observation of
hysterical patients, who, from a morbid desire to render themselves
remarkable, deviate from the laws of moral propriety. Powerful
sexual excitement had often the most decided influence over their
they are therefore susceptible of every folly when they lead a life of strict seclusion,
and their thoughts are constantly turned inwards upon themselves. Hence in orphan
asylums, hospitals, and convents, the nervous disorder of one female so easily and quick-
ly becomes the disorder of all. I have read in a good medical work that a nun, in a
very large convent in France, began to mew like a cat ; shortly afterwards other nuns
also mewed. At last all the nuns mewed together every day at a certain time for
several hours together. The whole surrounding Christian neighbourhood heard, with
equal chagrin and astonishment, this daily cat-concert, which did not cease until all the
nuns were informed that a company of soldiers were placed by the police before the en-
trance of the convent, and that they were provided with rods, and would continue
whipping them until they promised not to mew any more.
" But of all the epidemics of females which I myself have seen in Germany, or of
which the history is known to me, the most remarkable is the celebrated Convent-
epidemic of the fifteenth century, which Cardan describes, and which peculiarly proves
what I would here enforce. A nun in a German nunnery fell to biting all her com-
panions. In the course of a short time all the nuns of this convent began biting each
other. The news of this infatuation among the nuns soon spread, and it now passed
from convent to convent throughout a great part of Germany, principally Saxony and
Brandenburg. It afterwards visited the nunneries of Holland, and at last the nuns had
the biting mania even as far as Konie." — Zimmermann on Solitude, Vol. II. Leipsig.
1784. — Transl. note.
1 Georg. Baglivi, Diss, de Anatome, morsu et effectibus Tarantula?, pp. G16, 617.
Opp. Lugdun. 1710. 4t>.
HYSTERIA. 119
condition. Many of them exposed themselves in the most inde-
cent manner, tore their hair out by the roots, with howling and
gnashing of their teeth ; and when, as was sometimes the case,
their unsatisfied passion hurried them on to a state of frenzy, they
closed their existence by self-destruction ; it being common at
that time for these unfortunate beings to precipitate themselves
into the wells. 1
It might hence seem that, owing to the conduct of patients of
this description, so much of fraud and falsehood would be mixed
up with the original disorder, that having passed into another
complaint, it must have been itself destroyed. This, however,
did not happen in the first half of the seventeenth century ; for
as a clear proof that Tarantism remained substantially the same
and quite unaffected by Hysteria, there were in many places, and
in particular at Messapia, fewer women affected than men, who
in their turn were, in no small proportion, led into temptation by
sexual excitement. 2 In other places, as for example at Brindisi,
the case was reversed, which may, as in other complaints, be in
some measure attributable to local causes. Upon the whole it ap-
pears, from concurrent accounts, that women by no means enjoy-
ed the distinction of being attacked by Tarantism more frequently
than men.
It is said that the cicatrix of the tarantula bite, on the yearly
or half-yearly return of the fit, became discoloured, 3 but on this
point the distinct testimony of good observers is wanting to de-
prive the assertion of its utter improbability.
It is not out of place to remark here, that about the same time
that Tarantism attained its greatest height in Italy, the bite of
venomous spiders was more feared in distant parts of Asia, like-
wise, than it had ever been within the memory of man. There
was this difference, however, that the symptoms supervening on
the occurrence of this accident were not accompanied by the
Apulian nervous disorder, which, as has been shown in the fore-
going pages, had its origin rather in the melancholic temperament
of the inhabitants of the south of Italy, than in the nature of the
tarantula poison itself. This poison is therefore doubtless to be
considered only as a remote cause of the complaint, which, but for
that temperament, would be inadequate to its production. The
Persians employed a very rough means of counteracting the bad
consequences of a poison of this sort. They drenched the wound-
1 Ferdinando, p. 257. 2 Hem, pp. 25G, 257, 258.
" 3 Idem, p. 258.
120 THE DANCING MANIA.
ed person with milk, and then, by violent rotatory motion in a
suspended box, compelled him to vomit. 1
Sect. 6. — Decrease.
The Dancing Mania, arising from the tarantula bite, continued,
with all those additions of self-deception, and of the dissimulation
which is such a constant attendant on nervous disorders of this
kind, through the whole course of the seventeenth century. It
was indeed gradually on the decline, but up to the termination of
this period, showed such extraordinary symptoms, that Baglivi,
one of the best physicians of that time, thought he did a service
to science by making them the subject of a dissertation. 2 He repeats
all the observations of Ferdinando, and supports his own asser-
tions by the experience of his father, a physician at Lecce, whose
testimony, as an eye-witness, may be admitted as unexceptionable.
The immediate consequence of the tarantula bite, the super-
vening nervous disorder, and the aberrations and fits of those who
suffered from Hysteria, he describee in a masterly style, nor does
he ever suffer his credulity to diminish the authenticity of his
account, of which he has been unjustly accused by later writers.
Finally, Tarantism has declined more and more in modern
times, and is now limited to single cases. How could it possibly
have maintained itself unchanged in the eighteenth century, when
all the links which connected it with the middle ages had long
since been snapped asunder ? Imposture 4 grew more frequent,
1 Adam Olearius. Vermehrte Moscowitische und Pcrsianisehe Reisebeschreibung.
Travels in Muscovy and Persia. Schleswig, 1663. fol. Book IV. p. 496.
- Georg. Baglivi, Dissertatio VI. de Anatome, morsu et effectibus Tarantulse (written
in 1595). Opera omnia, Lugdun. 1710. 4to. p. 599.
3 Tins physician once saw three patients, who were evidently suffering from a malig-
nant fever, and whose illness was attributed by the by-standers to the bite of the taran-
tula, forced to dance by having music played to them. One of them died on the spot, and
the two others very shortly after. Ch. 7. p. 616.
4 Among the instances in which imposture successfully taxes popular credulity, per-
haps there is none more remarkable at the present day than that afforded by the Psylli
of Egypt, a country which furnishes another illustration of our author's remark at the
commencement of the next chapter. This sect, according to the testimony of modern
writers, continues to exhibit the same strange spectacles as the ancient serpent-eaters of
Cyrene, described by Strabo, 17 Dio. 51. c. 14. Lucan, 9. v. 894. 937. Herodot. 4. c.
173. Paus. 9. c. 28. Savary states that he witnessed a procession.- at Rosetta, where
a band of these seeming madmen, with bare arms and wild demeanour, held enormous
serpents in their hands which writhed round their bodies and endeavoured to make
their escape. These Psylli, grasping them by the neck, tore them with their teeth and
ate them up alive, the blood streaming down from their polluted mouths. Others of the
DECREASE. 121
and wherever the disease still appeared in its genuine form, its
chief cause, namely, a peculiar cast of melancholy, which formerly
had been the temperament of thousands, was now possessed only
occasionally by unfortunate individuals. It might therefore not
unreasonably be maintained, that the Tarantism of modern times
bears nearly the same relation to the original malady, as the St.
Vitus's dance which still exists, and certainly has all along exist-
ed, bears in certain cases to the original dancing mania of the
dancers of St. John.
To conclude. Tarantism, as a real disease, has been denied in
toto, and stigmatized as an imposition, by most physicians and
naturalists, who in this controversy have shown the narrowness of
their views and their utter ignorance of history. In order to
support their opinion they have instituted some experiments,
apparently favourable to it, but under circumstances altogether
Psylli were striving to wrest their prey from them, so that it seemed a struggle among
them who should devour a serpent. The populace followed them with amazement,
and believed their performances to be miraculous. Accordingly they pass for persons
inspired, and possessed by a spirit who destroys the effect of the serpent.
Sonnini, though not so fortunate as to witness a public exhibition of such perform-
ances, yet gives the following interesting account of what he justly calls a remarkable
specimen of the extravagance of man. After adverting to the superstitious origin of
the sect, he goes on to say that a Saadi, or serpent-eater, came to his apartment accom-
panied by a priest of his sect. The priest carried in his bosom a large serpent of a
dusky green and copper colour, which he was continually handling ; and after having
recited a prayer, he delivered it to the Saadi. The narrative proceeds: — "With a
vigorous hand the Saadi seized the serpent, which twisted itself round his naked arm.
He began to appear agitated ; his countenance was discomposed ; his eyes rolled ; he
uttered terrible cries, bit the animal in the head, and tore off a morsel, which we saw
him chew and swallow. On this his agitation became convulsive ; his howlings were
redoubled, his limbs writhed, his countenance assumed the features of madness, and his
mouth, extended by terrible grimaces, was all in a foam. Every now and then he
devoured a fresh morsel of the reptile. Three men endeavoured to hold him, but he
dragged them all three round the chamber. His arms were thrown about with
violence on all sides, and struck everything within their reach. Eager to avoid him,
M. Forncti and I were obliged sometimes to cling to the wall, to let him pass and
escape his blows. We could have wished the madman far away. At length the priest
took the serpent from him, but his madness and convulsions did not cease immediately ;
he bit his hands, and his fury continued. The priest then grasped him in his arms,
passed his hand gently down his back, lifted him from the ground, and recited some
prayers. By degrees his agitation diminished, and subsided into a state of complete
lassitude, in which he remained a few moments.
" The Turks who were present at this ridiculous and disgusting ceremony were firmly
persuaded of the reality of this religious fury ; and it is very certain that, whether it
were reality or imposture, it is impossible to see the transports of rage and madness
exhibited in a more striking manner, or have before your eyes a man more calculated
to inspire terror." — Hunter's Translation of Sonnini' s Travels, 8vo. 1799.— Transl.
note.
122 THE DANCING MANIA.
inapplicable, since, for the most part, they selected, as the subjects
of them, none but healthy men, who were totally uninfluenced by
a belief in this once so dreaded disease. From individual in-
stances of fraud and dissimulation, such as are found in connexion
with most nervous affections without rendering their reality a
matter of any doubt, they drew a too hasty conclusion respecting
the general phenomenon, of which they appeared not to know that
it had continued for nearly four hundred years, having originated
in the remotest periods of the middle ages. The most learned
and the most acute among these sceptics is Serao the Neapolitan. 1
His reasonings amount to this, that he considers the disease to be a
very marked form of melancholia, and compares the effect of the
tarantula bite upon it to stimulating, with spurs, a horse which is
already running. The reality of that effect he thus admits, and
therefore directly confirms what in appearance only he denies. 2
By shaking the already vacillating belief in this disorder he is said
to have actually succeeded in rendering it less frequent, and in
setting bounds to imposture ; 3 but this no more disproves the re-
ality of its existence, than the oft-repeated detection of imposition
has been able, in modern times, to banish magnetic sleep from the
circle of natural phenomena, though such detection has, on its
side, rendered more rare the incontestable effects of animal mag-
netism. Other physicians and naturalists 4 have delivered their
1 Franc. Serao, della Tarantola o vero Falangio di Puglia. Napol. 1742. — See
Thorn. Fasani, De vita, muniis et scriptis Franc. Serai, &c. Commentarius. Neapol.
1784. 8vo. p. 76. et seq.
2 Thorn. Fasarii, De vita, muniis et scriptis Franc. Serai, &c. Commentarius. p. 88-
3 Idem, p. 89.
4 IT. Mercurialis, de Yenenis et Morbis Venenosis (Yenet. 1601. 4to. Lib. II. ch. 6.
p. 39), repeats the silly tale, that those who were bitten continued, during their par-
oxysm, to be occupied with whatever they had been engaged in at the time they re-
ceived the bite, and proves, by a fact which had been communicated to him, that already,
in the sixteenth century, they were able to distinguish impostures from those who had
been really bitten. H. Cardani, de Subtilitate, Libri XXI. Basil. 1560. 8vo. Lib. IX.
p. 635. The baneful effect of the venom of the tarantula was obviated, not so much
by music as by the great exertion used in dancing. Compare J. C'ces. Scaliger. Exoteric.
Exercitt. Libri XV. de Subtilitate. Francof. 1612. 8vo. Ex. 185. p. 610.— J. M. Fehr
Anchora sacra vel Scorzonera. Jen. 1666. 8vo. p. 127. From Alexander ab Alexan-
dra, and several later writers. — Stalpart van der Wiel, Observatt. rarior. Lugdun. Bat.
1G87. 8vo. Cent. 1. Obs. C. p. 424. According to Kircher.—Rod. a. Castro, Medicua
politicus. Hamburg, 1614. 4to. Lib. IY. ch. 16. p. 275. According to Matthioli. — D.
Cirillo, Some account of the Tarantula, Bhilosoph. Trans. Yol. LX. 1770. describes
Tarantism as a common imposture. So also does /. A. Unzer, The Physician, Yol. II.
pp. 473. 640, vol. III. pp. 466. 526. 528. 529. 530. 533. 553; likewise A. F. Msching,
Eigene Gedanken und gcsammelte Nachrichten von der Tarantel, welche zur giinzlichen
Yertilgung des Yorurtheils von der Schadlichkeit ihres Bisses, und der Heilung dessel-
TIGEETIER. 123
sentiments on Tarantism, but as they have not possessed an en-
larged knowledge of its history, their views do not merit parti-
cular exposition. It is sufficient for the comprehension of every
one, that we have presented the facts freed from all extraneous
speculation.
CHAPTER III.
DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA.
Sect. 1. — Tigretier.
Both the St. Vitus's dance and Tarantism belonged to the ages
in which they appeared. They could not have existed uuder the
same latitude at any other epoch, for at no other period were the
circumstances which prepared the way for them combined in a
similar relation to each other and the mental as well as corporeal
temperaments of nations, which depend on causes such as have
ben durch Musik, dienlich und hiulanglich sind. Observations and statements respect-
ing the Tarantula, Avhich suffice entirely to set aside the prejudice respecting the venom
of its bite, as also its cure by music. Berlin, 1772. 8vo. A very shallow criticism.
—P. Forest. Observatt. et Curatt. medicinal. Libri 30, 31 et 32. Francof. 1509. fol.
Ob. XII. p. 41. diligently compiled from his predecessors. — Phil. Camerar. Opene
horarum subcisivarum. Francof. 1658. 4to. Cent. II. cap. 81. p. 317. — R. Mead, a
mechanical account of poisons: London, 1747- 8vo. p. 99. contends for the reality of
Tarantism M'ith R. Boyle, An essay of the great effects of even languid and unheeded
motion, &e. London, 1685. ch.YI. — So also J. F. Cartheuser, Fundamenta pathologic
et therapiae. Francof. a. V. 1758. 8vo. Tom. I. p. 334. Th. Willis de morbis con-
vulsivis. cap. VII. p. 492. Opp. Lugdun. 1681. 4to. According to Gassendi, Ferdinan-
do, Kircher, and others. — L. Valetta, de Phalangio Apulo opusculum. Neapol. 1706.
— Thorn. Cornel io (professor at Naples in the middle of the seventeenth century).
Letter to J. Dodington concerning some observations made of persons pretending to be
stung by Tarantulas. Phil. Transactions, No. 83. p. 4066. 1672. considers Tarantism to be
St. Vitus's dance. — Jos. Lanzoni, de Venenis, cap. 57. p. 140. Opp. Lausann. 1738.
4to. Tom. I. mostly from Baglivi.—J. Schenk, a Grqfenberg. Observatt. Mcdicar. Lib.
VII. Obs. 122. p. 792. Tom. II. Ed. Francof. 1600. 8vo. was himself an eye-witness.
— Wolfg. Senguerd, Tractatus physicus de Tarantula. Lugd. Bat. 1668. 12mo.— Herm.
Grube, De ictu Tarantulas et vi musices in eius curatione conjectural physico-medica;.
Francof. 1679. 8vo. — Athan. Kircher, Musurgia universalis. Bom. 1650. fol. Tom. II.
IX. ch. 4. p. 218.— M. Kohler, in den Svenska Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar.
1758. p. 29. Transactions of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.— Berlin Collection for
the Furtherance of the Science of Medicine. Vol. V. Pt. 1. p. 53. \Ti2.—Burserii
Institutiones medic, pract. torn. III. p. 1. cap. 7. § 219. p. 159. ed. ITecker.—J. S.
Halle, Gifthistorie. History of Poisons, Berlin, 1786. 8\o.—Blume>ibach, Naturge-
schichte, Natural History, p. 412.— E. F. Lconhardt, Diss, de Tarantismo, Berol. 1827.
8vo. and manv others.
124 THE DANCING MANIA.
been stated, are as little capable of renewal as the different stages
of life in individuals. This gives so much the more importance
to a disease but cursorily alluded to in the foregoing pages, which
exists in Abyssinia, and which nearly resembles the original mania
of the St. John's dancers, inasmuch as it exhibits a perfectly simi-
lar ecstacy, with the same violent effect on the nerves of motion.
It occurs most frequently in the Tigre country, being thence call-
ed Tigretier, and is probably the same malady which is called in
the ./Ethiopian language Astariigaza. 1 On this subject we will in-
troduce the testimony of Nathaniel Pearce, 2 an eye-witness, who
resided nine years in Abyssinia. "The Tigretier," says he, "is more
common among the women than among the men. It seizes the
body as if with a violent fever, and from that turns to a lingering
sickness, which reduces the patients to skeletons, and often kills
them, if the relations cannot procure the proper remedy. During
this sickness their speech is changed to a kind of stuttering, which
no one can understand but those afflicted with the same disorder.
When the relations find the malady to be the real tigretier, they
join together to defray the expenses of curing it ; the first remedy
they in general attempt, is to procure the assistance of a learned
Dofter, who reads the Gospel of St. John, 3 and drenches the patient
with cold water daily for the space of seven days — an application
that very often proves fatal. The most effectual cure, though far
more expensive than the former, is as follows : — The relations
hire, for a certain sum of money, a band of trumpeters, drummers,
and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor ; then all the young men
and women of the place assemble at the patient's house, to per-
form the following most extraordinary ceremony.
" I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife, a very
young woman, who had the misfortune to be afflicted with this
disorder ; and the man being an old acquaintance of mine, and
always a close comrade in the camp, I went every day when at
1 This may, however, be considered merely as a conjecture, founded upon the fol-
lowing passage iii Ludolfs Lexicon vEthiopic. Ed. 2da. Francof. 1699. fol. p. 142.
Astaragaza, de vexatione quadam diabolica accipitur. Marc. i. 26. ix. 18. Luc. ix. 39.
Graecus hahet OTraparrav, vellicare, discerpcre. Sed /Ethiopes, teste Grcgorio, pro
morbo quodam accipiunt, quo quis pcrpetuo pedes agitare et quasi calcitrare cogilur.
Fortassis est Saltatio S. Viti, vulgo St. Ycitstanz.
2 The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, -written by himself, during a resi-
dence in Abyssinia, from the year 1810 to 1819. London, 1831. 8vo. Vol. I. ch. ix.
p. 290.
3 The Evangelist and St. John the Baptist have been at all times, and among all na-
tions, confounded with each other, so that the relation of the latter to one and the
same phenomenon in such different ages and climates is very probable.
TIGRgTIER. 125
home, to see her, but I could not be of any service to her, though
she never refused my medicines. At this time, I could not under-
stand a word she said, although she talked very freely, nor could
any of her relations understand her. She could not bear the sight
of a book or a priest, for at the sight of either, she struggled, and
was apparently seized with acute agony, and a flood of tears, like
blood mingled with water, would pour down her face from her
eyes. She had lain three months in this lingering state, living
upon so little that it seemed not enough to keep a human body
alive ; at last, her husband agreed to employ the usual remedy,
and, after preparing for the maintenance of the band, during the
time it would take to effect the cure, he borrowed from all his
neighbours their silver ornaments, and loaded her legs, arms,
and neck with them.
" The evening that the band began to play, I seated myself close
by her side as she lay upon the couch, and about two minutes
after the trumpets had begun to sound, I observed her should-
ers begin to move, and soon afterwards her head and breast,
and in less than a quarter of an hour she sat upon her couch.
The wild look she had, though sometimes she smiled, made me
draw off to a greater distance, being almost alarmed to see one
nearly a skeleton move with such strength ; her head, neck,
shoulders, hands, and feet, all made a strong motion to the sound
of the music, and in this manner she went on by degrees, until
she stood up on her legs upon the floor. Afterwards she began
to dance, and at times to jump about, and at last, as the music
and noise of the singers increased, she often sprang three feet from
the ground. When the music slackened, she would appear quite
out of temper, but when it became louder, she would smile and be
delighted. During this exercise, she never showed the least
svmptom of being tired, though the musicians were thoroughly
exhausted ; and when they stopped to refresh themselves by drink-
ing and resting a little, she would discover signs of discontent.
" Next clay, according to the custom in the cure of this dis-
order, she was taken into the market-place, where several jars of
maize or tsug were set in order by the relations, to give drink to
the musicians and dancers. "When the crowd had assembled and
the music was ready, she was brought forth and began to dance
and throw herself into the maddest postures imaginable, and in
this manner she kept on the whole day. Towards evening she
began to let fall her silver ornaments from her neck, arms, and
legs, one at a time, so that in the course of three hours she was
126 THE DANCJNG MANIA.
stripped of every article. A relation continually kept going
after her as she danced, to pick up the ornaments, and afterwards
delivered them to the owners from whom they were borrowed.
As the sun went down, she made a start with such swiftness, that
the fastest runner could not come up with her, and when at the
distance of about two hundred yards, she dropped on a sudden, as
if shot. Soon afterwards, a young man, on coming up with her,
fired a matchlock over her body, and struck her upon the back
with the broad side of his large knife, and asked her name, to
which she answered as when in her common senses — a sure proof
of her being cured ; for, during the time of this malady, those
afflicted with it never answer to their Christian names. She was
now taken up in a very weak condition and carried home, and a
priest came and baptized her again in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, which ceremony concluded her cure. Some
are taken in this manner to the market-place for many days be-
fore they can be cured, and it sometimes happens that they can-
not be cured at all. I have seen them in these fits dance with a
bruly, or bottle of maize, upon their heads, without spilling the
liquor, or letting the bottle fall, although they have put them-
selves into the most extravagant postures.
" I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor
could I conceive it possible, until I was obliged to put this remedy
in practice upon my own wife, 1 who was seized with the same dis-
order, and then I was compelled to have a still nearer view of this
strange disorder. I at first thought that a whip would be of some
service, and one day attempted a few strokes when unnoticed by
any person, we being by ourselves, and I having a strong suspicion
that this ailment sprang from the weak minds of women, who
were encouraged in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich dress, and
music which accompany the cure. But how much was I surprised,
the moment I struck a light blow, thinking to do good, to find
that she became like a corpse, and even the joints of her fingers
became so stiff that I could not straighten them ; indeed, I really
thought that she was dead, and immediately made it known to the
people in the house that she had fainted, but did not tell them the
cause, upon which they immediately brought music, which I had
for many days denied them, and which soon revived her ; and I
then left the house to her relations to cure her at my expense, in
the manner I have before mentioned, though it took a much long-
er time to cure my wife than the woman I have just given
1 She was a native Greek.
TIGRETIER. 127
an account of. One day I went privately, with a companion, to
see my wife dance, and kept a short distance, as I was ashamed to
go near the crowd. On looking stedfastly upon her, while
dancing or jumping, more like a deer than a human being, I said
that it certainly was not my wife ; at which my companion burst
into a fit of laughter, from which ho could scarcely refrain all the
way home. Men are sometimes afflicted with this dreadful dis-
order, but not frequently. Among the Amhara and Galla it is
not so common."
Such is the account of Pearce, who is every way worthy of
credit, and whose lively description renders the traditions of form-
er times respecting the St. Yitus's dance and tarantism intelligible,
even to those who are sceptical respecting the existence of a mor-
bid state of the mind and body of the kind described, because, in
the present advanced state of civilization among the nations of
Europe, opportunities for its development no longer occur. The
credibility of this energetic, but by no means ambitious man, is not
liable to the slightest suspicion, for, owing to his want of educa-
tion, he had no knowledge of the phenomena in question, and his
work evinces throughout his attractive and unpretending im-
partiality.
Comparison is the mother of observation, and may here eluci-
date one phenomenon by another — the past by that which still
exists. Oppression, insecurity, and the influence of a veiy rude
priestcraft, are the powerful causes which operated on the Ger-
mans and Italians of the middle ages, as they now continue to
operate on the Abyssinians of the present da} r . However these
people may differ from us in their descent, their manners and
their customs, the effects of the above-mentioned causes are the
same in Africa as they were in Europe, for they operate on man
himself independently of the particular locality in which he may
be planted ; and the condition of the Abyssinians of modern times
is, >in regard to superstition, a mirror of the condition of the Eu-
ropean nations in the middle ages. Should this appear a bold as-
sertion, it will be strengthened by the fact, that in Abyssinia, two
examples of superstitions occur, which are completely in accord-
ance with occurrences of the middle ages that took place contem-
porarily with the dancing mania, The Abyssinians have their
Christian flagellants, and there exists among them a belief in a
Zoomorphism, which presents a lively image of the lycanthropy of
the middle ages. Their flagellants are called Zackarys. They
are united into a separate Christian fraternity, and make their
128 THE DANCING MANIA.
processions through the towns and villages with groat noise and
tumult, scoui'ging themselves till they draw blood, and wounding
themselves with knives. 1 They boast that they are descendants
of St. George. It is precisely in Tigre, the country of the Abys-
sinian dancing mania, where they are found in the greatest num-
bers, and where they have, in the neighbourhood of Axum, a
church of their own, dedicated to their patron saint, Oun Arvel.
Here there is an ever-burning lamp, and they contrive to impress
a belief that this is kept alight by supernatural means. They
also here keep a holy water, which is said to be a cure for those
who are affected by the dancing mania.
The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important phenome-
non, and shows itself in a manner quite peculiar. The black-
smiths and potters form, among the Abyssinians, a society or caste
called in Tigre Tcbbib, and in Amhara Buda, which is held in
some degree of contempt, and excluded from the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, because it is believed that they can change them-
selves into hyaenas and other beasts of prey, on which account they
are feared by everybody, and regarded with horror. They art-
fully contrive to keep up this superstition, because by this separa-
tion they preserve a monopoly of their lucrative trades, and as in
other respects they are good Christians (but few Jews or Mahome-
dans live among them), they seem to attach no great consequence
to their excommunication. As a badge of distinction, they wear
a golden earring, which is frequently found in the ears of hyamas
that are killed, without its having ever been discovered how they
catch these animals, so as to decorate them with this strange orna-
ment, and this removes, in the minds of the people, all doubt at
to the supernatural powers of the smiths and potters. 2 To the
Budas is also ascribed the gift of enchantment, especially that of
the influence of the evil eye. 3 They nevertheless live unmolested,
and are not condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as the
lycanthropes were in the middle ages.
1 Pearce, p. 289. Compare p. 34. — E. G. Forstemann, Die christlichen Geissler-
gesellschaften. The Christian Societies of Flagellants. Halle, 1828. 8vo.
2 Idem, loc. cit.
3 Among the ancient Greeks (5aaKr}oiQ. This superstition is more or less developed
among all the nations of the earth, and has not yet entirely disappeared from Europe.
SYMPATHY. 129
CHAPTER IV.
SYMPATHY.
Imitation — compassion — sympathy, these are imperfect designa-
tions for a common bond of union anions: human beinsrs — for an
instinct which connects individuals with the general body, which
embraces with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, and
diminishes the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.
In this impulse there are degrees, but no essential differences,
from the first intellectual efforts of the infant mind, which are in
a great measure based on imitation, to that morbid condition of the
soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous malady fetters
the mind, and finds its way, through the eye, directly to the dis-
eased texture, as the electric shock is propagated by contact from
body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when it exists in its
highest degree, is united a loss of all power over the will, which
occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly
established, producing a condition like that of small animals when
they are fascinated by the look of a serpent. By this mental
bondage, morbid sympathy is clearly and definitely distinguished
from all subordinate degrees of this instinct, however closely al-
lied the imitation of a disorder may seem to be to that of a mere
folly, of an absurd fashion, of an awkward habit in speech and
manner, or even of a confusion of ideas. Even these latter imita-
tions, however, directed as they are to foolish and pernicious ob-
jects, place the self-independence of the greater portion of man-
kind in a very doubtful light, and account for their union into a
social whole. Still more nearly allied to morbid sympathy than
the imitation of enticing folly, although often with a considerable
admixture of the latter, is the diffusion of violent excitements, espe-
cially those of a religious or political character, which have so
powerfully agitated the nations of ancient and modern times, and
which may, after an incipient compliance, 1 pass into a total loss
of power over the will, and an actual disease of the mind. Far
be it from us to attempt to awaken all the various tones of this
chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets which lie hid
in the inmost recesses of the soul. We might well want powers
adequate to so vast an undertaking. Our business here is only
with that morbid sympathy, by the aid of which the dancing
mania of the middle ages grew into a real epidemic. In order to
1 raracelsus.
9
130 THE DANCING MANIA.
make this apparent by comparison, it may not be out of place, at
the close of this inquiry, to introduce a few striking examples : —
1. "At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire,
a girl, on the fifteenth of February, 178T, put a mouse into the
bosom of another girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl
was immediately thrown into a fit, and continued in it, with the
most violent convulsions, for twenty-four hours. On the follow-
ing da}-, three more girls were seized in the same manner ; and
on the 17th, six more. By this time the alarm was so great, that
the whole work, in which 200 or 300 were employed, was totally
stopped, and an idea prevailed that a particular disease had been
introduced by a bag of cotton opened in the house. On Sunday
the 18th, Dr. St. Clare was sent for from Preston ; before he
arrived three more were seized, and during that night and the
morning of the 19th, eleven more, making in all twenty-four.
Of these, twenty-one were young women, two were girls of about
ten years of age, and one man, who had been much fatigued with
holding the girls. Three of the number lived about two miles
from the place where the disorder first broke out, and three at
another factory at Clitheroe, about five miles distant, which last
and two more were infected entirely from report, not having seen
the other patients, but, like them and the rest of the country,
strongly impressed with the idea of the plague being caught from
the cotton. The symptoms were anxiety, strangulation, and very
strong convulsions ; and these were so violent as to last without
any intermission from a quarter of an hour to twenty-four hours,
and to require four or five persons to prevent the patients from
tearing their hair and dashing their heads against the floor or
walls. Dr. St. Clare had taken with him a portable electrical
machine, and by electric shocks the patients were universally re-
lieved without exception. As soon as the patients and the
country were assured that the complaint was merely nervous,
easily cured, and not introduced by the cotton, no fresh person
was affected. To dissipate their apprehension still further, the
best effects were obtained by causing them to take a cheerful glass
and join in a dance. On Tuesday the 20th, they danced, and
the next day were all at work, except two or three, who were
much weakened by their fits." 1
1 Gentleman's Magazine* 1787, March, p. 268.— F. B. Osiander, Ueber die Ent-
witkelungskrankhcitcn in den Bliithcnjahren des weiblichen Geschlechts. On the dis-
orders of young women, &c. Tubingen, 1820, Vol. I. p. 10.
SYMPATHY. 1 3 ]
The occurrence here described is remarkable on this account,
that there was no important predisposing cause for convulsions in
these young women, unless we consider as such their miserable
and confined life in the work-rooms of a spinning manufactory.
It did not arise from enthusiasm, nor is it stated that the patients
had been the subjects of any other nervous disorders. In another
perfectly analogous case, those attacked were all suffering from
nervous complaints, which roused a morbid sympathy in them at
the sight of a person seized with convulsions. This, together
with the supervention of hysterical fits, may aptly enough be
compared to Tarantism.
2. "A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one years of
age, and of a strong frame, came on the 13th of January, 1801, to
visit a patient in the Charite hospital at Berlin, where she had
herself been previously under treatment for an inflammation of the
chest with tetanic spasms, and immediately on entering the ward,
fell down in strong convulsions. At the sight of her violent con-
tortions, six other female patients immediately became affected in
the same way, and by degrees eight more were in like manner
attacked with strong convulsions. All these patients were from
sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and suffered without excep-
tion, one from spasms in the stomach, another from palsy, a third
from lethargy, a fourth from fits with consciousness, a fifth from
catalepsy, a sixth from syncope, &c. The convulsions, which
alternated in various ways with tonic spasms, were accompanied
by loss of sensibility, and were invariably preceded by languor
with heavy sleep, which was followed by the fits in the course of
a minute or two ; and it is remarkable, that in all these patients
their former nervous disorders, not excepting paralysis, disappear-
ed, returning, however, after the subsequent removal of their new
complaint. The treatment, during the course of which two of the
nurses, who were young women, suffered similar attacks, was
continued for four months. It was finally successful, and con-
sisted principally in the administration of opium, at that time the
favourite remedy." '
Now, every species of enthusiasm, every strong affection, every
violent passion, may lead to convulsions — to mental disorders —
to a concussion of the nerves, from the sensorium to the very
finest extremities of the spinal chord. The whole world is full of
1 This account is given by Fritze. Hufeland's Journal dcr practisch.cn Heilkundc,
Vol. XII. 1801. Tart I. p. 110. Hufeland's Journal of Practical Medicine.
9 *
132 THE DANCING MANIA.
examples of this afflicting state of turmoil, which, when the mind
is carried away by the force of a sensual impression that destroys
its freedom, is irresistibly propagated by imitation. Those who
are thus infected do not spare even their own lives, but, as a
hunted flock of sheep will follow their leader and rush over a
precipice, so will whole hosts of enthusiasts, deluded by their in-
fatuation, hurry on to a self-inflicted death. Such has ever been
the case, from the days of the Milesian virgins to the modern
associations for self-destruction. 1 Of all enthusiastic infatuations,
however, that of religion is the most fertile in disorders of the
mind as well as of the body, and both spread with the greatest
facility by sympathy. The history of the church furnishes in-
numerable proofs of this, but we need go no further than the
most recent times.
3. In a Methodist chapel at Redruth, a man, during divine ser-
vice, cried out with a loud voice, "What shall I do to be saved ?"
at the same time manifesting the greatest uneasiness and solicitude
respecting the condition of his soul. Some other members of the
congregation, following his example, cried out in the same form
of words, and seemed shortly after to suffer the most excruciating
bodily pain. This strange occurrence was soon publicly known,
and hundreds of people, who had come thither, either attracted by
curiosity, or a desire, from other motives, to see the sufferers, fell
into the same state. The chapel remained open for some days
and nights, and from that point the new disorder spread
itself, with the rapidity of lightning, over the neighbouring
towns of Camborne, Helston, Truro, Fenryn, and Falmouth, as
well as over the villages in the vicinity. Whilst thus advancing,
it decreased in some measure at the place where it had first ap-
peared, and it confined itself throughout to the Methodist chapels.
It was only by the words which have been mentioned that it was
excited, and it seized none but people of the lowest education.
Those who were attacked betrayed the greatest anguish, and fell
into convulsions ; others cried out, like persons possessed, that the
Almighty would straightway pour out his wrath upon them, that
the wailings of tormented spirits rang in their ears, and that they
saw hell open to receive them. The clergy, when, in the course of
their sermons, they perceived that persons were thus seized,
1 Compare J. G. Zimmermann, Ueber die Einsamkeit. Leipsig, 1784. 8vo. Vol. IT.
ch. 6. p. 77. On Solitude.— J. r. Falret, De Phypochondric et du suicide. Paris, 1822.
8vo., and others.
SYMPATHY. 133
earnestly exhorted them to confess their sins, and zealously en-
deavoured to convince them that they were by nature enemies to
Christ ; that the anger of God had therefore fallen upon them ;
and that if death should surprise them in the midst of their sins,
the eternal torments of hell would be their portion. The over-
excited congregation upon this repeated their words, which
naturally must have increased the fury of their convulsive attacks.
When the discourse had produced its full effect, the preacher
changed his subject ; reminded those who were suffering of the
power of the Saviour, as well as of the grace of God, and repre-
sented to them in glowing colours the joys of heaven. Upon this
a remarkable reaction sooner or later took place. Those who were
in convulsions felt themselves raised from the lowest depths of
misery and despair to the most exalted bliss, and triumphantly
shouted out that their bonds were loosed, their sins were forgiven,
and that they were translated to the wonderful freedom of the
children of God. In the mean time, their convulsions continued,
and they remained, during this condition, so abstracted from every
earthly thought, that they staid two and sometimes three days
and nights together in the chapels, agitated all the time by spas-
modic movements, and taking neither repose nor nourishment.
According to a moderate computation, 4000 people were, within a
very short time, affected with this convulsive malady.
The course and symptoms of the attacks were in general as
follows : — There came on at first a feeling of faintness, with
rigour and a sense of weight at the pit of the stomach, soon after
which, the patient cried out, as if in the agonies of death or the
pains of labour. The convulsions then began, first showing them-
selves in the muscles of the eyelids, though the eyes themselves
were fixed and staring. The most frightful contortions of the
countenance followed, and the convulsions now took their course
downwards, so that the muscles of the neck and trunk were affect-
ed, causing a sobbing respiration, which was performed with great
effort. Tremors and agitation ensued, and the patients scream-
ed out violently, and tossed their heads about from side to side.
As the complaint increased, it seized the arms, and its victims
beat their breasts, clasped their hands, and made all sorts of
strange gestures. The observer who gives this account remarked
that the lower extremities were in no instance affected. In some
cases, exhaustion came on in a very few minutes, but the attack
usually lasted much longer, and there were even cases in which it
was known to continue for sixty or seventy hours. Many of those
134 THE DANCING MANIA.
who happened to be seated when the attack commenced, bent their
bodies rapidly backwards and forwards during its continuance,
making a corresponding motion with their arms, like persons sawing
wood. Others shouted aloud, leaped about, and threw their bodies
into every possible posture, until they had exhausted their strength.
Yawning took place at the commencement in all cases, but as the
violence of the disorder increased, the circulation and respiration
became accelerated, so that the countenance assumed a swollen and
puffed appearance. When exhaustion came on, patients usually
fainted, and remained in a stiff and motionless state until their re-
covery. The disorder completely resembled the St. Vitus's dance,
but the fits sometimes went on to an extraordinarily violent ex-
tent, so that the author of the account once saw a woman, who
was seized with these convulsions, resist the endeavours of four
or five strong men to restrain her. Those patients who did not
lose their consciousness were in general made more furious by
every attempt to quiet them by force, on which account they
were in general suffered to continue unmolested xmtil nature
herself brought on exhaustion. Those affected complained, more
or less, of debility after the attacks, and cases sometimes occurred
in which they passed into other disorders : thus some fell into a
state of melancholy, which, however, in consequence of their re-
ligious ecstacy, was distinguished by the absence of fear and
despair ; and in one patient inflammation of the brain is said to
have taken place. No sex or age was exempt from this epidemic
malady. Children five years old and octogenarians were alike
affected by it, and even men of the most powerful frame were
subject to its influence. Girls and 3 7 oung women, however, were
its most frequent victims. 1
4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of a perfectly
similar kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes
a striking example, perhaps the only one now existing, of the
very lasting propagation by sympathy of this species of disorders.
The origin of the malady was very insignificant. An epileptic
woman had a fit in church, and whether it was that the minds of
the congregation were excited by devotion, or that, being over-
come at the sight of the strong convulsions, their sympathy was
called forth, certain it is, that many adult women, and even
children, some of whom were of the male sex, and not more than
1 This statement is made by J. Cornish. See Fothcrgill and Want's Medical and
]"iys:cal Journal, vol. xxxi. 1814. pp. 373 — 379.
SYMPATHY. 135
six years old, began to complain forthwith of palpitation, follow-
ed by faintness, which passed into a motionless and apparently
cataleptic condition. These symptoms lasted more than an hour,
and probably recurred frequently. In the course of time, however,
this malady is said to have undergone a modification, such as it
exhibits at the present day. "Women whom it has attacked will
suddenly fall down, toss their arms about, writhe their bodies into
various shapes, move their heads suddenly from side to side, and
with eyes fixed and staring, utter the most dismal cries. If
the fit happen on any occasion of public diversion, they will, as
soon as it has ceased, mix with their companions, and continue
their amusement as if nothing had happened. Paroxysms of this
kind used to prevail most during the warm months of summer,
and about fifty years ago there was scarcely a Sabbath in which
they did not occur. Strong passions of the mind, induced by
religious enthusiasm, are also exciting causes of these fits, but like
all such false tokens of divine workings, they are easily encounter-
ed by producing in the patient a different frame of mind, and
especially by exciting a sense of shame : thus those affected are
under the control of any sensible preacher, who knows how to
" administer to a mind diseased," and to expose the folly of volun-
tarily yielding to a sympathy so easily resisted, or of inviting
such attacks by affectation. An intelligent and pious minister of
Shetland informed the physician, who gives an account of this
disorder as an eye-witness, that being considerably annoyed, on
his first introduction into the country, by these paroxysms, where-
by the devotions of the church were much impeded, he obviated
their repetition by assuring his parishioners, that no treatment
was more effectual than immersion in cold w T ater : and as his kirk
was fortunately contiguous to a fresh-water lake, he gave notice
that attendants should be at hand, during divine service, to ensure
the proper means of cure. The sequel need scarcely be told.
The fear of being carried out of the church, and into the water,
acted like a charm ; not a single Naiad was made, and the worthy
minister, for many years, had reason to boast of one of the best-
regulated congregations in Shetland. As the physician above
alluded to was attending divine service in the kirk of Baliasta, on
the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a convulsion
fit, was heard ; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fctlar, very proper-
ly stopped his discourse, until the disturber was removed ; and,
after advising all those who thought they might be similarly
affected, to leave the church, he gave out, in the mean time, a
136 THE DANCING MANIA.
psalm. The congregation was thus preserved from further in-
terruption ; yet the effect of sympathy was not prevented, for as
the narrator of the account was leaving the church, he saw
several females writhing and tossing about their arms on the
green grass, who durst not, for fear of a censure from the pulpit,
exhibit themselves after this manner within the sacred walls of
the kirk. 1
In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists,
fanaticism certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state of
women out of health, who only needed excitement, no matter of
what kind, to throw them into the prevailing nervous paroxysms.
When, however, that powerful cause of nervous disorders takes
the lead, we find far more remarkable symptoms developed, and
it then depends on the mental condition of the people among
whom they appear, whether, in their spread, they shall take a
narrow or an extended range — whether, confined to some small
knot of zealots, they are to vanish without a trace, or whether
they are to attain even historical importance.
5. The appearance of the Convulsionnaires in France, whose
inhabitants, from the greater mobility of their blood, have in
general been the less liable to fanaticism, is, in this respect, in-
structive and worthy of attention. In the year 1727 there died,
in the capital of that country, the Deacon Paris, a zealous opposer
of the Ultramontanists, division having arisen in the French
church on account of the bull " Unigenitus." People made fre-
quent visits to his tomb, in the cemetery of St. Medard, and four
years afterwards (in September, 1731), a rumour was spread, that
miracles took place there. Patients were seized with convulsions
and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the ground like persons possessed,
were thrown into violent contortions of their heads and limbs, and
suffered the greatest oppression, accompanied by quickness and
irregularity of pidse. This novel occurrence excited the greatest
sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of people re-
sorted daily to the above-named cemetery, in order to see so
wonderful a spectacle, which the Ultramontanists immediately in-
terpreted as a work of Satan, while their opponents ascribed it to
a divine influence. The disorder soon increased, until it produced,
in nervous women, clairvoyance (Schlafwachen), a phenomenon
till then unknown; for one female especially attracted attention,
1 Samuel Hibbert, Description of the Shetland Islands, comprising an account of
their geology, scenery, antiquities, and superstitions. Edinburgh, 1822. 4to. p. 399.
SYMPATHY. 137
who blindfold, and, as it was believed, by means of the sense of
smell, read every writing that was placed before her, and distin-
guished the characters of unknown persons. The very earth
taken from the grave of the Deacon was soon thought to possess
miraculous power. It was sent to numerous sick persons at a dis-
tance, whereby they were said to have been cured, and thus this
nervous disorder spread far beyond the limits of the capital, so
that at one time it was computed that there were more than eight
hundred decided Convulsionnaires, who would hardly have in-
creased so much in numbers, had not Louis XV. directed that the
cemetery should be closed. 1 The disorder itself assumed various
forms, and augmented, by its attacks, the general excitement.
Many persons, besides suffering from the convulsions, became the
subjects of violent pain, which required the assistance of their
brethren of the faith. On this account they, as well as those who
afforded them aid, were called by the common title of Secourists.
The modes of relief adopted were remarkably in accordance with
those which were administered to the St. John's dancers and the
Tarantati, and they were in general very rough ; for the sufferers
were beaten and goaded in various parts of the body with stones,
hammers, swords, clubs, &c, of which treatment the defenders of
this extraordinary sect relate the most astonishing examples, in
proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded by nature in this
disorder, as an effectual counter-irritant. The Secourists used
wooden clubs, in the same manner as paviours use their mallets,
and it is stated that some Convulsionnaires have borne daily from
six to eight thousand blows, thus inflicted, without danger. 2 One
Secourist administered to a young woman, who was suffering un-
der spasm of the stomach, the most violent blows on that part, not
to mention other similar cases, which occurred everywhere in
great numbers. Sometimes the patients bounded from the ground,
impelled by the convulsions, like fish when out of water ; and this
was so frequently imitated at a later period, that the women and
girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not wishing to
1 About this time the following couplet was circulated : —
" De par lc Roi, defense a Dieu
De faire miracle dans ce lieu."
2 This kind of assistance was called the " Grands Secours." Boursier, Memoire
Theologique sur ce qu'on appelle les Secours violens dans les Convulsions. Paris,
1788. 12mo. Many Convulsionnaires were seized with illness in consequence of this
singularly erroneous mode of cure. A Dominican friar died from the effects of it —
though accidents of this kind were kept carefully concealed. See Renault (parish
priest at Vaux, near Auxerre; obiit, 1796), Le Secourisme detruit dans ses fondeinens,
1759, 12mo., and Le Mystere d'Iniquite, 1788. 8vo.
138 THE DANCING MANIA.
appear indecent, put on gowns, made like sacks, closed at the feet.
If they received any bruises by falling down, they were healed
with earth from the grave "of the uncanonized saint. They usu-
ally, however, showed great agility in this respect, and it is scarcely
necessary to remark that the female sex especially was distinguish-
ed by all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable contortions
of body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible rapidity,
as is related of the dervishes ; others ran their heads against walls,
or curved their bodies like rope-dancers, so that their heels touch-
ed their shoulders.
All this degenerated at length into decided insanity. A certain
Convulsionnaire, at Vernon, who had formerly led rather a loose
course of life, employed herself in confessing the other sex ; in
other places women of this sect were seen imposing exercises of
penance on priests, during which these were compelled to kneel
before them. Others played with children's rattles, or drew
about small carts, and gave to these childish acts symbolical signi-
fications. 1 One Convulsionnaire even made believe to shave her
chin, and gave religious instruction at the same time, in order to
imitate Paris, the worker of miracles, who during this operation,
and whilst at table, was in the habit of preaching. Some had a
board placed across their bodies, upon which a whole row of men
stood ; and as, in this unnatural state of mind, a kind of pleasure
is derived from excruciating pain, some too were seen who caused
their bosoms to be pinched with tongs, while others, with gowns
closed at the feet, stood upon their heads, and remained in that
position longer than would have been possible had they been in
health. Pinault, the advocate, who belonged to this sect, barked
like a dog some hours every day, and even this found imitation
among the believers.
The insanity of the Convulsionnaires lasted, without interrup-
tion, until the year 1790, and, during these fifty-nine years, call-
ed forth more lamentable phenomena than the enlightened spirits
of the eighteenth century would be willing to allow. The gross-
est immorality found, in the secret meetings of the believers, a
sure sanctuary, and, in their bewildering devotional exercises, a
convenient cloak. It was of no avail that, in the year 1762, the
Grands Secours was forbidden by act of parliament ; for thence-
' Arouet, the father of Voltaire, visited, in Nantes, a celebrated Convulsionnaire,
Gabrielle Mollet, whom he found occupied in pulling the bells off a child's coral, to de-
signate the rejection of the unbelievers. Sometimes she jumped into the water, and
barked like a dog. She died in 1748.
SYMPATHY. 139
forth this work was carried on in secrecy, and with greater zeal
than ever ; it was in vain, too, that some physicians, and, among
the rest, the austere, pious Hecquet, 1 and after him Lorry, 2 at-
tributed the conduct of the Convulsionnaires to natural causes.
Men of distinction among the upper classes, as, for instance,
Montgeron the deputy, and Lambert an ecclesiastic (obt. 1813),
stood forth as the defenders of this sect ; and the numerous writ-
ings 3 which were exchanged on the subject, served, by the im-
portance which they thus attached to it, to give it stability. The
revolution, finally, shook the structure of this pernicious mysticism.
It was not, however, destroyed ; for, even during the period of
the greatest excitement, the secret meetings were still kept up ;
prophetic books, by Convulsionnaires of various denominations,
have appeared even in the most recent times, and only a few years
ago (in 1828) this once celebrated sect still existed, although with-
out the convulsions and the extraordinarily rude aid of the bre-
thren of the faith, which, amidst the boasted pre-eminence of
French intellectual advancement, remind us most forcibly of the
dark ages of the St. John's dancers. 4
6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations 5 of ancient
and modern times the same phenomena. An overstrained bigotry
1 J. Phil. Hecquet (obiit 1737). Le Naturalisme des Convulsions. Soleure,
1733. 8vo.
2 De Melancholia et Morbis Melancholicis. Paris, 1765. 2 vols. 8vo.
3 Especially from 1784 to 1788.
4 See Gregoire, Histoire des Sectes Iteligieuscs, tome ii. ch. 13. p. 127. Paris,
1828. 8vo. The following words of this meritorious author, on the mental state of his
countrymen, are very well worthy of attention. "L' esprit public est dans un etat de
fluctuation perseverante : des times fietries par V ego'isme n'ont que le caractere de la
servitude ; 1' education viciee ne forme guere que des etres degrades ; la religion est
meconnue ou mal enseignee ; la nation presente des symptCmcs alarmans de sa decrepi-
tude, et presage des malheurs dont on ne peut calculer l'etendue ni la duree." P. 161.
5 " I had occasion to witness at Cairo another species of religious fanaticism. I
heard one day, at a short distance from my residence, for several hours together,
singing, or more properly crying, so uniform and fatiguing, that I inquired the cause
of this singularity. I was told that it was some dervise or monk, who repeated, while
dancing on his heels, the name of Allah, till, completely exhausted, he sank down
insensible. These unhappy visionaries, in fact, often expire at the end of this holy dance;
and the cries of the one whom I heard, having commenced in the afternoon, and con-
tinued during the whole of the night, and part of the following morning, I doubt not
that his pious enthusiasm cost him his life."— Recollections of Egypt, by the Baroness
Von Minutoli. London, 1827.
In Arabia the same fanatical zeal exists, as we find from the following passage of
an anonymous history of the Wahabis, published in Paris, in 1810 : "La priere la plus
meritoire consiste a crier le nom de Dieu, pendant des heures entieres, et le plus saint
est celni qui rcpete ce nom le plus long temps et le plus vite. Ricn de plus curieux
que le spectacle des Schekhs, qui, dans les fetes publiques, s'essayent a 1'envi, et hurlent
le nom d' Allah d'une maniere effrayante. La plupart enrouos sont forces de se taire,
140 THE DANCING MANIA.
is, in itself, and considered in a medical point of view, a destruc-
tive irritation of the senses, which draws men away from the effi-
ciency of mental freedom, and peculiarly favours the most injuri-
ous emotions. Sensual ebullitions, with strong convulsions of the
nerves, appear sooner or later, 1 and insanity, suicidal disgust of
life, and incurable nervous disorders, 2 are but too frequently the
consequences of a perverse, and, indeed, hypocritical zeal, which
has ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of the Mamades and
Corybantes of antiquity, as under the semblance of religion among
the Christians and Mahomedans.
There are some denominations of English Methodists which sur-
pass, if possible, the French Convulsionnaires ; and we may here
mention, in particular, the Jumpers, among whom it is still more
difficult, than in the example given above, to draw the line be-
tween religious ecstacy and a perfect disorder of the nerves ;
sympathy, however, operates perhaps more perniciously on them
than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect of Jumpers was
founded in the year 17G0, in the county of Cornwall, by two
fanatics, 3 who were, even at that time, able to collect together a
considerable party. Their general doctrine is that of the Method-
ists, and claims our consideration here, only in so far as it en-
joins them, during their devotional exercises, to fall into convul-
sions, which they are able to effect in the strangest manner
imaginable. By the use of certain unmeaning words, they work
themselves up into a state of religious frenzy, in which they seem
to have scarcely any control over their senses. They then begin
to jump with strange gestures, repeating this exercise with all
their might, until they are exhausted, so that it not unfrequently
happens that women, who, like the Mamades, practise these reli-
gious exercises, are carried away from the midst of them in a state
of syncope, whilst the remaining members of the congregations, for
miles together, on their way home, terrify those whom they meet by
et abandonnent la palme au saint a forte poitrine, qui, pour jouir de sa victoirc, s'efforce
ct jettc encore quelque cris devant ses rivaux reduits au silence. Epuise de fatigue,
baigne de sueur, il tombe enfin au milieu du peuple devot, qui s'empresse a le relever et
le porte en triompbe. Les principales mosquecs retentissent, tons les Yendredis, des
cris dictes par cette singuliere emulation. Le Scbekh, que ses poumons ont sanctifie,
conserve son odeur de saintete par des extaseset des transports, souvent dangereux pour
les Chretiens que le hazard en rend temoins malgre eux." — Transl. note.
1 For examples see Osiander, Entwiekelungskrankkeiten. Loc. cit. p. 45.
2 Among 108 cases of insanity, Perfect mentions eleven of mania and methodistical
enthusiasm, in nine of which suicide was committed. Annals of Insanity. London,
1808. Svii.
3 Harris Rowland and William Williams.
SYMPATHY. 1-il
the siffht of such demoniacal ravings. There are never more than
a few ecstatics, who, by their example, excite the rest to jump,
and these are followed by the greatest part of the meeting, so that
these assemblages of the Jumpers resemble, for hours together,
the wildest orgies, rather than congregations met for Christian
edification. 1
In the United States of North America, communities of Me-
thodists have existed for the last sixty years. The reports of
credible witnesses of their assemblages for divine service in the
open air (camp meetings), 2 to which many thousands flock from
great distances, 3 surpass, indeed, all belief; for not only do they
there repeat all the insane acts of the French Convulsionnaires
and of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of their minds and
of their nerves attains, at these meetings, a still greater height.
"Women have been seen to miscarry whilst suffering under the
state of ecstacy and violent spasms into which they are thrown,
and others have publicly stripped themselves and jumped into the
rivers. They have swooned away 4 by hundreds, worn out with
ravings and fits ; and of the Barkers, who appeared among the
Convulsionnaires only here and there, in single cases of complete
aberration of intellect, whole bands are seen running on all fours,
and growling 5 as if they wished to indicate, even by their out-
ward form, the shocking degradation of their human nature. At
these camp-meetings the children are witnesses of this mad in-
fatuation, and as their weak nerves are, with the greatest facility,
affected by sympathy, they, together with their parents, fall into
violent fits, though they know nothing of their import, and many
of them retain for life some severe nervous disorder, which, having
1 John Evans, Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World. 13th edition.
London, 1814. 12mo. p. 236.— See Gregoire, loc. cit. tome iv. chap. xiii. p. 483.
2 Mrs. Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans. A Revival, pp. 108— 112.
Shaking Quakers, pp. 195, 196. Camp Meeting, p. 233. London, 2 vols. 1832.—
Transl. note.
3 In Kentucky, assemblies of from ten to twelve thousand have frequently taken
place. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and New York, are also the theatres of
these meetings. — Gregoire, tome iv. p. 496.
4 At one of these camp-meetings a traveller saw above eight hundred persons faint
away. Idem. He nowhere met with more frequent instances of suicide in consequence
of Demonomania, than in North America.
5 Idem. p. 498. These are the Barkers. Numerous other convulsive Methodistical
sects abound in North America. The Shakers, who are inimical to marriage, would
also have been mentioned, were not their contortions much less violent than those of the
Jumpers.— See Gregoire, tome v. p. 195. Evans, p. 267.
142 THE DANCING MANIA.
arisen from fright and excessive excitement, will not afterwards
yield to any medical treatment. 1
But enough of these extravagances, which, even in our own
days, embitter the lives of so many thousands, and exhibit to the
world, in the nineteenth century, the same terrific form of men-
tal disturbance as the St. Vitus's dance once did to the benighted
nations of the middle ages.
1 Sec Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisiancs. Paris, 1805. 8vo. chap. ix.
pp. 64, Go. chap. xvii. pp. 128, 129. — Michaad, Voyage a l'ouest des Monts Alleghanys.
Paris, 1804. 8vo. p. 212. — John Melish, Travels in the United States of America.
Philadelphia, 1812. Svo. vol. i. p. 26. — Lambert, Travels through Canada and the
United States, London, 1810. Svo. vol. iii. p. 44.— Jo/m Hoicison, Sketches of Upper
Canada. Edinburgh, 1822. 8vo. p. 150. — Edward Allen Talbot, Cinq Annees de
Residence au Canada. Paris, 1825. 8vo. tome ii. p. 147.
)
APPENDIX.
i.
Petri de Rerentals, Prioris Plorefnensis Vita Gregoril XL, in Stephan.
Baluzii Vitas Paparum Avenionensium. T. I. Paris, 1693. 4to. p.
483.
Ejus tempore, videlicet A. D. MCCCLXXV, mira secta tarn virorum
quam mulierum venit Aquisgrani de partibus Alamannia?, et aseendit
usque Hanoniam seu Pranciam, cujus talis fuit conditio. Nam homines
utriusque sexus illudebantur a dsemonio, taliter quod tarn in domibus
quam in plateis et in Ecclesiis se invicem manibus tenentes chorizabant
et in altum saltabant, ac quaedam nomina daemoniorum nominabant,
videlicet FrisTces et similia, nullum cognitionem in bujusmodi cborizatione
nee verecundiam sui propter astantes populos babentes. Et in fine bu-
jus chorizationis in tantum circa pectoralia torquebantur, quod nisi map-
pulis lineis a suis amicis per medium ventris fortiter stringerentur,
quasi furiose clamabant se mori. Hi vero in Leodio per conjurationes
sumptas de illis qua3 in catecbismo ante baptismum fiunt, a da?monio
liberabantur, et sanati dicebant, quod videbatur eis quod in liora hujus
chorizationis er ant in Jluvio sanguinis, et propterea sic in altum saltabant.
Vulgus autemapud Leodium dicebat quod hujusmodi plaga populo con-
tigisset eo quod populus male baptizatus erat, maxime a Presbyteribus
suas tenentibus concubinas. Et propter boc proposuerat vulgus insur-
gere in clerum, eos occidendo et bona eorum diripiendo, nisi Deus de
remedio providisset per conjurationes pra?dictas. Quo viso cessavit tem-
pestas vulgi taliter quod clerus multo plus a populo fuit bonoratus. De
isla autem chorizatione seu secta talia extant rigmata :
Oritur in seculo nova quaedam secta
In gestis aut in speculo visa plus nee lecta.
Popidus tripudiat nimium saltando.
Se unus alteri sociat leviter clamando.
Frisch friskes cum gaudio clamat uterque sexus
Cunctus manutergio et baculo connexus.
Capite fert pelleum desuper sertum.
Ccrnit Marice Jilium et caelum apertum.
Hi THE DANCING MANIA.
Deorsum prosternitur. Dud urn fit ululatus.
Calcato ventre ceruitur statiin liberatus.
Vagatur loca varia pompose vivendo.
]\Iendicat necessaria propriis parceudo.
Spernit videre rubea et personam flentem.
Ad fidei contraria erigit hie gensmentem.
Noetis sub umbraculo ista perpetravit.
Cum naturali bacido subtus se calcavit.
Clerum liabet odio. Non curat sacramenta.
Post sunt Leodio remedia inventa,
Hanc nam fraudem qua suggessit sathan est convictus.
Conjuratus evanescit. Hinc sit Christus benedictus.
II.
Jo. Pistorii Rerum familiarumque Belgicarum Cbronicon magnum.
Francof. 1654. fol.p. 319. De chorisantibus.
Item Anno. Dn. MCCCLXXIV. tempore pontificatus venerabilis
Domini Joannis de Arckel Episcopi Leodiensis, in mense Julio in cras-
tino divisionis Apostolorum visi sunt dansatores scilicet chorisantes, qui
postea venerunt Trajectum, Leodium, Tungrim et alia loca istarum par-
tium in mense Septembri. Et coepit hsec dcemoniaca pest is vexare in
dictis locis et circumvicinis masculos et fceminas maxime pauperes et
levis opinionis ad magnum omnium terrorem ; pauci clericorum vel di-
vitum sunt vexati. Serta in capitibus gestabant, circa ventrem mappa
cum bacido se stringebant circa umbilicum, ubi post saltationem cadentes
nimium torquebantur, et ne creparentur pedibus conculcabantur, vel
contra creporem cum baculo ad mappam duriter se ligabant, vel cum
pugno se trudi faciebant, rostra calceorum aliqui clamabant se abhorrere,
unde in Leodio fieri tunc vetabantur. Ecclesias chorisando occupabant,
et crescebant numerose de mense Septembri et Octobri, processiones
fiebant ubique, litaniae et missa? speciales. Leodii apud Sanctam crucem
scbolaris servitor in vesperis dedicationis, coepit ludere cum thuribulo, et
post vesperas fortiter saltare. Evocatus a pluribus, nt diceret Pater
noster, noluit, et Credo respondit in diabolum. Quod videns capel-
lanus, allata stola conjuravit eum per exorcismnm baptizandorum, et
statim dixit : Ecce inquit, scbolaris recedit cum parva toga et calceis
rostratis. Die, tunc inquit, Pater noster et Credo. At ille utrumque dixit
perfecte et curatus est. Apud Iiarstallium uno mane ante omnium
Sanctorum, multi eorum ibi congregati consilium babuerunt, ut pariter
venientes omnes canonicos, presby teres et clericos Leodienses occiderent.
Canonicus quidam parvse mensa? minister Simon in claustro Leodiensi
APrENDIX. 14")
apud capellara Beata? Virginia, in Deo confortatus, scalam projecit in col-
lum unius, dicens Evangelium : In principio erat verbum, super caput
ejus, et per hoc fuit liberatus, et pro miraculo statim fuit pulsatum.
Apud S. Bartolomseum Leodii, prsesentibus multis, cuidam alii exorci-
santi respondit daemon : Ego exibo libenter. Expecta, inquit presbyter,
volo tibi loqui. Et postquam aliquos alios curasset, dixit illi, loquere tu
personaliter et respoude mihi. Turn solus respondit daemon: Nos
eramus duo, sed socius meus nequior me, ante me exivit, habui tot pati
in hoc corpore, si essem extra, nunquam intrarem in corpus Christianura.
Cui presbyter : Quare iutrasti corpora talium personarum ? Eespondit :
Clerici et presbyteres dicunt tot pulchra verba et tot orationes, ut non
possemus iutrare corpora ipsorum. Si adhuc fuisset expectatum per
quindenam vel mensem, nos intrassemus corpora divitum, et postea
priucipum, et sic per eos destruxissemus clerum. Et hsec fuermit ibi a
multis audita et postea a multis narrata. Hsec pestis intra annum satis
invaluit, sed postea per tres aut quatuor annos omuiuo cessavit.
III. 1
Die Limburger Chronik, herausgegeben von C. D. Vogel. Marburg,
1828, Svo. s. 71.
Anno 1371 zu mitten im Sommer, da erhub sich ein wunderlieh
Ding auff Erdreich, und sonderlich in Teutschen Landen, auff dem
Rheiu und aufF der Mosel, also dass Leute anhuben zu tantzen und
«u rasen, und stunden je zwey gegen ein, und tantzeten auff einer Statte
eiuen halben Tag, und in dem Tantz da fielen sie etwan offt nieder,
und liessen sich mit Fiissen tretten auff ihren Leib. Davon nahmen sie
sich an, dass sie genesen waren. End lieffen von einer Stadt zu der an-
dern, und von einer Kirchen zu der andern, und huben Geld auff von
don Leuten, wo es ihnen mocht gewerden. Und wurd des Dings also
viel, dass man zu Colin in der Stadt mehr dann fiiuff hundert Tantzer
fand. Und fand man, dass es eine Ketzerey war, und geschahe um
Golds willen, das ihr ein Theil Erau und Mann in Unkeuschheil
mochten kommen, und die vollbringen. Und fand man da zu Colin
mehr dann hundert Frauen und Dienstmagde, die nicht eheliche Manner
batten. Die wurden alle in der Tantzerey Kinder-tragend, und wann
dass sie tantzeten, so bunden und knebelten sie sich hart tun den Leib,
dass sie desto geringer waren. Hierauff sprachen ein Theila Meister,
sonderlich der guten Artzt, das ein Theil wurden tantzend, die von
1 The substance of Nos. III. and IV. having been embodied in the text, it seems
only necessary to insert here the original old German, which is couched in language too
coarse to admit of translation. — Transl. note.
10
146 THE DANCING MANIA.
heisser Natur wiiren, und von andern gebreehlichen natiirlichen Sachen.
Dann deren war wenig, denen das geschahe. Die Meister von der hei-
ligcn Schrifb, die besehwohren der Tantzer ein Theil, die moynten, dass
sie besessen waren von dem bosen Geist. Also nahin es ein betrogen
End, uud wahrete wohl secbszebn Wccbenin diesen Landen oder in der
Mass. Auch nahmen die vorgenannten Tiintzer Mann und Eraueu sicb
an, dass sie kein roth sehen moehten. Und war ein eitel Teuseherey,
und ist verbottschaft gewesen an Christum nach meinem Bediinken.
IV.
Die Chronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen. A. D. MCCCLXXIV.
fol. 277. Coellen, 1499. fol.
In dem seluen iair stonde eyn groisse kranckheit vp vnder den myn-
schen, ind was doeh niet vill me gesyen dese selue kranckheit vur off
nae ind quam van natuerlichen ursachen as die meyster schrijuen, ind
noemen Sij maniam, dat is raserie off unsynnicheit. Ind vill hide beyde
man ind frauwen junck ind alt hadden die kranckheit. Ind gyngen
vyss huyss ind hoff, dat deden ouch junge meyde, die verliessen yr
ahleren, vrunde ind maege ind lantschaff. Disse vurss mynschen zo
etzlichen tzijden as Sij die kranckheit anstiesse, so hadden Sij eyn won-
derlich bewegung yrre lychamen. Sij gauen vyss kryschende vnd
grusame stymme, ind mit dem wurpen Sij sich haestlich up die erden,
vnd gyngen liggen up yren rugge, ind beyde man ind vrauwen moist
men vmb yren buych ind vmp lenden gurdelen vnd kneuelen mit twelen
vnd mit starcken breyden benden, asso stijff vnd harte als men
mochte.
Item asso gegurt mit den twelen dantzten Sij in kyrchen ind in
clusen ind vp alien gewijeden steden. As Sij dantzten, so sprungen
Sij allit vp ind rieffen, Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro here sent
Jolian.
Item die ghene die die kranckheit hadden wurden gemeynlichen
gesunt bynnen. W. dagen. Zom lesten geschiede vill bouerie vnd
droch dae mit. Eyndeyll naemen sich an dat Sij kranck weren. vp dat
Sij moehten gelt dae durch bedelen. Die anderen vinsden sich kranck
vp dat Sij moehten vnkuyschheit bedrijuen mit den vrauwen. jnd gyn-
gen durch alle hint ind dreuen vill bouerie. Doeh zo lesten brach idt
vyss ind wurden verdreuen vyss den landen. Die selue dentzer quamen
ouch zo Coellen tusschen tzwen vnser lieuen frauwen missen Assump-
tionis ind jNatiuitatis.
APPENDIX. 147
V.
In the third volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,
p. 434, there is an account of " some convulsive diseases in certain parts
of Scotland," which is taken from Sir J. Sinclair's statistical account,
and from which I have thought it illustrative of our author's subject to
make some extracts ; the first that is noticed is peculiar to a part of
Forfarshire, and is called the leaping ague, which bears so close an
analogy to the original St. Vitus's Dance, or to Tarantism, that it seems
to want only the "foul fiend," or the dreaded bite, as a cause, and a
Scotch reel or strathspey as a cure, to render the resemblance quite com-
plete. " Those affected with it first complain of a pain in the head, or
lower part of the back, to which succeed convulsive fits, ovfits of dancing,
at certain periods. During the paroxysm they have all the appearance
of madness, distorting their bodies in various ways, and leaping and
springing in a surprising manner, whence the disease has derived its
vulgar name. Sometimes they run with astonishing velocity, and often
over dangerous passes, to some place out of doors, which they have
fixed on in their own minds, or, perhaps, even mentioned to those in
company with them, and then drop down quite exhausted. At other
times, especially when confined to the house, they climb in the most
singular manner. In cottages, for example, they leap from the floor to
what is called the baulks, or those beams by which the rafters are
joined together, springing form one to another with the agility of a cat,
or whirling round one of them, with a motion resembling the fly of a
jack. Cold bathing is found to be the most effectual remedy ; but when
the fit of dancing, leaping, or running comes on, nothing tends so much
to abate the violence of the disease, as allowing them free scope to exercise
themselves, till nature be exhausted. jSTo mention is made of its being
peculiar to any age, sex, or condition of life, although I am informed by
a gentleman from Brechin, that it is most common before puberty. In
some families it seems to be hereditary ; and I have heard of one, in
which a horse was always kept ready saddled, to follow the young
ladies belonging to it, when they were seized with a fit of running. It
was first observed in the parish of Kenmuir, and has prevailed occasion-
ally in that and the neighbouring parishes, for about seventy years : but
it is not now nearly so frequent as it was about thirty years ago. The
history of this singular affection is still extremely imperfect : and it is
only from some of the medical practitioners in that part of the country
where it prevails, that a complete description can be expected."
Our author has already noticed the convulsive disease prevalent in the
Shetland Islands, and has quoted Hibbert's account of it. The follow-
ing, however, from a very valuable manuscript account of the Orkney
10 *
148 THE DANCING MANIA..
and Shetland Islands, drawn up about 1774, by George Low, with notes,
by Mr. Pennant, is given in the journal already cited, and w T ill be read
with interest. The facts were communicated to Mr. Low by the Rev.
"Win. Archibald, parochial clergyman of Unst, the most northerly of the
Shetlands.
" There is a most shocking distemper, which has of late years pre-
vailed very much, especially among young women, and was hardly
known thirty or forty years ago. About that period only one person
was subject to it. The inhabitants gave it the name of convulsion fits ;
and, indeed, in appearance it something resembles epilepsy. In its first
rise it began with a palpitation of the heart, of which they complained
for a considerable time ; it at length produced swooning fits, in which
people seized with it would lie motionless upwards of an hour. At
length, as the distemper gathered strength, w r hen any violent passion
seized, or on a sudden surprise, they would all at once fall down, toss
their arms about, with their bodies, into many odd shapes, crying out all
the while, most dismally, throwing their heads about from side to side,
with their eyes fixed and staring. At first this distemper obtained, in a
private way, with one female, but she being seized in a public way, at
church, the disease was communicated to others ; but, whether by the
influence oifear or sympathy, is not easy to determine. However this
was, our public assemblies, especially at church, became greatly dis-
turbed by their outcries. This distemper always prevails most violently
during the summer time, in which season, for many years, we are hardly
one sabbath free. In these few years past, it has not prevailed so ex-
tensively, and upon the whole, seems on the decline. One thing re-
markable in this distemper is, that as soon as the fit is over, the persons
affected with it are generally as lively and brisk as before ; and if it
happens at any of their public diversions, as soon as they revive, they
mix with their companions, and continue their amusement as vigorously
as if nothing had happened. Few men are troubled with this distemper,
wdiich seems more confined to women ; but there are instances of its
seizing men, and girls of six years of age. "With respect to the nature
of this disease, people who have made inquiry about it differ, but most
imagine it hysterical ; however, this seems not entirely the case, as men
and children are subject to it ; however, it is a new disease in Shetland,
but whence imported, none can imagine.
" When the statistical account of this parish was published, this aw-
ful and afflicting disease was becoming daily less common. In the
parishes of Aithsting, Saudsting, and Xorthmaven, in which it was once
very frequent, it was now totally extinct. In the last of these the
cure is said to have been effected by a very singular remedy, which, if
true, and there seems no reason to doubt it, shows the influence of
moral causes in removing, as well as inducing, convulsive disorders."
The cure is attributed to a rough fellow of a kirk officer, who tossed a
APPENDIX. 149
woman in that state, with whom he had been frequently troubled, into
a ditch of -water. She was never known to have the disease afterwards,
and others dreaded the same treatment.
It, however, still prevails in some of the northern parishes, particu-
larly in Delting, although, according to the description given of it, with
some alteration in its symptoms.
" Convulsion fits of a very extraordinary kind seem peculiar to this
country. The patient is first seized with something like fainting, and
immediately after utters wild cries and shrieks, the sound of which, at
whatever distance, immediately puts all who are subject to the disorder
in the same situation. It most commonly attacks them when the
church is crowded, and often interrupts the service in this and many
other churches in the country. On a sacramental occasion, fifty or
sixty are sometimes carried out of the church, and laid in the church-
yard, where they struggle and roar with all their strength, for five or ten
minutes, and then rise up without recollecting a single circumstance
that happened to them, or being in the least hurt or fatigued with the
violent exertions they had made during the fit. One observation occurs
on this disorder, that, during the late scarce years it was very uncom-
mon, and, during the two last years of plenty (1791), it has appeared
more frequently.
" Similar instances of epidemical convulsions are already upon record ;
but the history of that which occurred in Anglesea, North "Wales, is the
most remarkable, as its progress was, in all probability, checked by the
judicious precautions recommended by Dr. Haygarth.
" In 1796, on the estates of the Earl of Uxbridge and Holland Grif-
fith, Esq., 23 females, from 10 to 25, and one boy, of about 17 years of
age, who had all intercourse with each other, were seized with an un-
usual kind of convulsions, affecting only the upper extremities. It began
with pain of the head, and sometimes of the stomach and side, not very
violent ; after which there came on violent twitchings or convulsions of
the upper extremities, continuing, with little intermission, and causing
the shoulders almost to meet by the exertion. In bed the disorder was
not so violent : but, in some cases at least, it continued even during
sleep. Their pulse was moderate, the body costive, and the general
health not much impaired. In general they had a hiccough ; and,
when the convulsions were most violent, giddiness came on, with the
loss of hearing and recollection. During their convalescence, and they
all recovered, the least fright or sudden alarm brought on a slight
paroxysm.
" Dr. Haygarth, who was consulted on the means of relieving these
unfortunate people, successfully recommended the use of antispasmodics ;
that all girls and young women should be prevented from having any
communication with persons affected with those convulsions ; and that
those who were ill should be kept separate as much as possible."
150 THE DANCING MANIA.
The same paper from which the above extracts have been taken,
quotes a remarkable instance in which religious enthusiasm was the ex-
citing cause of a convulsive disease analogous to those already noticed.
The account is given by the Eev. Dr. Meik, at great length. It ap-
pears that in January, 1742, about 90 persons in the parish of Cam-
buslaug, in Lanarkshire, were induced to subscribe a petition to the
minister, urging him to give them a weekly lecture, to which he readily
assented. Nothing particular occurred at the first two lectures, but, at
the third, to which the hearers had been very attentive, when the minis-
ter in his last prayer expressed himself thus, " Lord, who hath believed
our report ; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? — where are
the fruits of my poor labours among this people?" several persons in
the congregation cried out publicly, and about fifty men and women
came to the minister's house, expressing strong convictions of sin, and
alarming fears of punishment. After this period, so many people from
the neighbourhood resorted to Cambuslang, that the minister thought
himself obliged to provide them with daily sermons or exhortations, and
actually did so for seven or eight months. The way in which the con-
verts were affected, for it seems they were affected much in the same
way, though in very different degrees, is thus described. " They were
seized, all at once, commonly by something said in the sermons or
prayers, with the most dreadful apprehensions concerning the state of
their souls, insomuch that many of them could not abstain from crying
out, in the most public and frightful manner, ' bewailing their lost and
undone condition by nature ; calling themselves enemies to G-od, and
despisers of precious Christ ; declaring that they were unworthy to live
on the face of the earth ; that they saw the mouth of hell open to
receive them, and that they heard the shrieks of the damned ; ' but the
universal cry was, ' AVhat shall we do to be saved ? ' The agony under
which they laboured was expressed, not only by words, but also by vio-
lent agitations of body ; by clapping their hands and beating their
breasts ; by shaking and trembling ; by faintings and convulsions ; and
sometimes by excessive bleeding at the nose. While they were in this
distress, the minister often called out to them, not to stifle or smother
their convictions, but to encourage them : and, after sermon was ended,
he retired with them to the manse, and frequently spent the best part
of the night with them in exhortations ?nd prayers. Next day, before
sermon began, they were brought out, and, having napkins tied round
their heads, were placed all together on seats before the tents, where they
remained sobbing, weeping, and often crying aloud, till the service was
over. Some of those who fell under conviction were never converted ;
but most of those who fell under it were converted in a few days, and
sometimes in a few hours. In most cases their conversion was as sud-
den and unexpected as their conviction. They Avere raised all at once
from the lowest depth of sorrow and distress, to the highest pitch of
APPENDIX. 151
joy and happiness ; crying out with triumph and exultation, ' that they
had overcome the wicked one ; that they had gotten hold of Christ, and
would never let him go ; that the hlack cloud which had hitherto con-
cealed him from their view, was now dispelled ; and that they saw him,
with a pen in his hand, blotting out their sins.' Under these delightful
impressions, some began to pray, and exhort publicly, and others desired
the congregation to join with them in singing a particular psalm, which
they said God had commanded them to sing. From the time of their con-
viction to their conversion, many had no appetite for food, or inclination
to sleep, and all complained of their sufferings during that interval."
The following account, which closes the paper whence the above quot-
ations have been extracted, is taken from an Inaugural Essay on Chorea
Sancti Viti, by Felix Robertson of Tennessee, 8vo. Philadelph. 1805.
" The Chorea, which is more particularly the subject of this disserta-
tion, made its appearance during the summer of 1S03, in the neighbour-
hood of Maryville (Tennessee), in the form of an epidemic. Previously
to entering on its history, I think it necessary to premise a few cursory
remarks on the mode of life of those amongst whom it originated, for
some time before the appearance of the disease.
" I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States who
have not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion
which burst forth in the western country, about the year 1800 ; but it
is, perhaps, impossible to have a competent idea of its effects, without
personal observation. This religious enthusiasm travelled like elec-
tricity, with astonishing velocity, and was felt, almost instantaneously,
in every part of the states of Tennessee and Kentucky. It often proved
so powerful a stimulus, that every other entirely lost its effect, or was
but feebly felt. Hence that general neglect of earthly things, which
was observed, and the almost perpetual attendance at places of public
worship. Their churches are, in general, small and every way uncom-
fortable ; the concourse of people, on days of worship, particularly of
extraordinary meetings, was very numerous, and hundreds who lived at
too great a distance to return home every evening, came supplied with
provisions, tents, &c, for their sustenance and accommodation, during
the continuance of the meeting, which commonly lasted from three to
five days. They, as well as many others, remained on the spot day and
night, the whole or greater part of this time, worshipping their Maker
almost incessantly. The outward expressions of their worship consisted
chiefly in alternate crying, laughing, singing, and shouting, and, at the
same time, performing that variety of gesticulation, which the muscular
system is capable of producing. It was under these circumstances that
some found themselves unable, by voluntary efforts, to suppress the
contraction of their muscles ; and, to their own astonishment, and the
diversion of many of the spectators, they continued to act from necessity,
the curious character which they had commenced from choice.
152 THE DANCING MANIA.
" The disease no sooner appeared, than it spread with rapidity through
the medium of the principle of imitation ; thus it was not uncommon for
an affected person to communicate it to the greater part of a crowd, who,
from curiosity or other motives, had collected arouud him. It is at this
time in almost every part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and in various
parts of Virginia, hut is said not to he contagious (or readily commu-
nicated), as at its commencement. It attacks both sexes, and every con-
stitution, hut evidently more readily those who are enthusiasts in reli-
gion, such as those above described, and females ; children of six years of
age, and adults of sixty, have been known to have it, but a great majority
of those affected are from fifteen to twenty-five. The muscles generally
affected are those of the trunk, particularly of the neck, sometimes those
of the superior extremities, but very rarely, if ever, those of the inferior.
The contractions are sudden and violent, such as are denominated con-
vulsive, being sometimes so powerful, when in the muscles of the back,
that the patient is thrown on the ground, where for some time his mo-
tions more resemble those of a live fish when thrown on land, than any-
thing else to which I can compare them.
" This, however, does not often occur, and never, I believe, except at
the commencement of the disease. The patients, in general, are capable
of standing and ^walking, and many, after it has continued a short time,
can attend to their business, provided it is not of a nature requiring
much steadiness of body. They are incapable of conversing with any
degree of satisfaction to themselves or company, being continually in-
terrupted by those irregular contractions of their muscles, each causing
a grunt, or forcible expiration ; but the organs of speech do not appear
to be affected, nor has it the least influence on the mind. They have
no command over their actions by any effort of volition, nor does their
lying in bed prevent them, but they always cease during sleep. This
disease has remissions and exacerbations, which, however, observe no
regularity in their occurrence or duration. During the intermission a
paroxysm is often excited at the sight of a person affected, but more fre-
quently by the common salute of shaking hands. The sensations of the
patients in a paroxysm are generally agreeable, which the enthusiastic
class often endeavour to express, by laughing, shouting, dancing, &c.
" Fatigue is almost always complained of after violent paroxysms,
and sometimes a general soreness is experienced. The heart and arte-
ries appear to be no further affected by the disease, than what arises
from the exercise of the body ; nor does any change take place in any
of the secretions or excretions. It has not proved mortal in a single in-
stance within my knowledge, but becomes lighter by degrees, and
finally disappears. In some cases, however, of long continuance,, it is
attended with some degree of melancholia, which seems to arise en-
tirely from the patient's reflections, and not directly from the disease.
" The state of the atmosphere has no influence over it, as it rages
APPENDIX. 153
with equal violence in summer and in winter ; in moist and in
dry air."
In the above examples, nervous disorders, bearing a strong resem-
blance to those of the middle ages, are shown to exist in an epidemic
form, both in Europe and America, at the present time ; but in these
instances some general cause of mental excitement — and none is more
powerful than religious enthusiasm — seems to have been requisite for
their propagation. Their appearance, however, in single cases, is occa-
sionally independent of any such origin, which leads to a belief, not
without support in the experiments of modern physiologists, that they
occasionally proceed from physical causes, and that it is therefore not
necessary to consider them in all cases as the offspring of a disordered
imagination.
A well-marked case of a disease approximating to the original Dancing
Mania, is related by Mr. Kinder Wood, in the 7th volume of the Me-
dico-Chirurgical Transactions, p. 237. The patient, a young married
woman, is described to have suffered from headache and sickness, to-
gether with involuntary motions of the eyelids, and most extraordinary
contortions of the trunk and extremities, for several days, when the
more remarkable symptoms began to manifest themselves, which are
thus recorded : —
" February 26. Slight motions of the limbs came on in bed. She
arose at nine o'clock, after which they increased, and became unusually
severe. She was hurled from side to side of the couch-chair upon which
she sat, for a considerable time, without intermission ; was sometimes
instantaneously and forcibly thrown upon her feet, when she jumped
and stamped violently. She had headache ; the eyelids were frequently
affected, and she had often a sudden propensity to spring or leap up-
wards. The affection ceased about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the
patient being very much fatigued ; but it returned about noon, and a
third time in the afternoon, when she was impelled into every corner of
the room, and began to strike the furniture and doors violently with
the hand, as she passed near them, the sound of which afforded her great
satisfaction. The fourth attack was at night ; was very violent, and
ended with sickness and vomiting. She went to bed at half-past eleven.
Her nights were invariably good. The last three attacks were more vio-
lent than the former ones, but they continued only half an hour each.
"February 27. The attack commenced in bed, and was violent, but
of short duration. When she arose about ten, she had a second attack,
continuing an hour, except an interval of five minutes. She now struck
the furniture more violently and more repeatedly. Kneeling on one
knee, with the hands upon the back, she often sprang up suddenly and
struck the top of the room with the palm of the hand. To do this, she
rose fifteen inches from the floor, so that the family were under the ne-
cessity of drawing all the nails and hooks from the ceiling. She fre-
154 THE DANCING MANIA.
quently danced upon one leg, holding the other with the hand, and
occasionally changing the legs. In the evening, the family observed the
blows upon the furniture to be more continuous, and to assume the
regular time and measure of a musical air. As a strain or series of
strokes was concluded, she ended with a more violent stroke or a more
violent spring or jump. Several of her friends also at this time noticed
the regular measure of the strokes, and the greater regularity the disease
was assuming ; the motions being evidently aifected, or in some measure
modified, by the strokes upon the surrounding bodies. She chiefly struck
a small slender door, the top of a chest of drawers, the clock, a table, or
a wooden screen placed near the door. The affection ceased about nine
o'clock, when the patient went to bed.
" February 28. She arose very well at eight. At half-past nine the
motions recommenced ; they were now of a more pleasant nature ; the
involuntary actions, instead of possessing their former irregularity and
violence, being changed into a measured step over the room, connected
with an air, or series of strokes, and she beat upon the adjacent bodies
as she passed them. In the commencement of the attack, the lips
moved as if words were articulated, but no sound could be distinguished
at this period. It was curious indeed to observe the patient at this
time, moving around the room with all the vivacity of the country dance,
or the graver step of the minuet, the arms frequently carried, not merely
with ease, but with elegance. Occasionally all the steps were so di-
rected as to place the foot constantly where the stone flags joined to
form the floor, particularly when she looked downwards. When she
looked upwards, there was an irresistible impulse to spring up to touch
little spots or holes in the top of the ceiling ; when she looked around,
she had a similar propensity to dart the forefinger into little holes in the
furniture, &c. One hole in the wooden screen received the point of the
forefinger many hundred times, which was suddenly and involuntarily
darted into it with an amazing rapidity and precision. There was one
particular part of the wall to which she frequently danced, and there,
placing herself with the back to it, stood two or three minutes. This
by the family was called ' the measuring place.''
" In the afternoon the motions returned, and proceeded much as in
the morning. At this time a person present, surprised at the manner
in which she beat upon the doors, &c, and thinking he recognised the
air, without further ceremony began to sing the tune ; the moment this
struck her ears, she turned suddenly to the man, and dancing directly
up to him, continued doing so till he was out of breath. The man now
ceased a short time, when commencing again, he continued till the at-
tack stopped. The night before this, her father had mentioned his wish
to procure a drum, associating this dance of his daughter with some
ideas of music. The avidity with which she danced to the tune when
sung as above stated, confirmed this wish, and accordingly a drum and
APPENDIX. 155
fife were procured in the evening. After two hours of rest, the motions
again reappeared, when the drum and fife began to play the air to which
she had danced before, viz. the ' Protestant Boys,' a favourite popular
air in this neighbourhood. In whatever part of the room she happened
to be, she immediately turned and danced up to the drum, and as close
as possible to it, and there she danced till she missed the step, when
the involuntary motions instantly ceased. The first time she missed the
step in five minutes ; but again rose, and danced to the drum two mi-
nutes and a half by her father's watch, when, missing the step, the mo-
tions instantly ceased. She rose a third time, and missing the step in
half a minute, the motions immediately ceased. After this, the drum
and fife commenced as the involuntary actions were coming on, and be-
fore she rose from her seat ; and four times they completely checked
the progress of the attack, so that she did not rise upon the floor to
dance. At this period the affection ceased for the evening.
"March 1. She arose very well at half-past seven. Upon my visit
this morning, the circumstances of the preceding afternoon being stated,
it appeared clear to me that the attacks had been shortened. Slow as I
had seen the effects of medicine in the comparatively trifling disease of
young females, I was very willing that the family should pursue the
experiment, whilst the medical means were continued.
" As I wished to see the effect of the instrument over the disease, I
was sent for at noon, when I found her dancing to the drum, which she
continued to do for half an hour without missing the step, owing to the
slowness of the movement. As I sat counting the pulse, which I found
to be 120, in the short intervals of an attack, I noticed motions of the
lips, previous to the commencement of the dance, and placing my ear
near the mouth I distinguished a tune. After the attack, of which
this was the beginning, she informed me, in answer to my inquiry, that
there always was a tune dwelling upon her mind, which at times be-
coming more pressing, irresistibly impelled her to commence the in-
voluntary motions. The motions ceased at four o'clock.
" At half-past seven the motions commenced again, when I was sent
for. There were two drummers present, and an unbraced drum was
beaten till the other was braced. She danced regularly to the unbraced
drum, but the moment the other commenced she instautly ceased. As
missing the time stopped the affections, I wished the measure to be
changed during the dance, which stopped the attack. It also ceased
upon increasing the rapidity of the beat, till she could no longer keep
time; and it was truly surprising to see the rapidity and violence of the
muscular exertion, in order to keep time with the increasing movement
of the instrument. Five times I saw her sit down the same evening, at
the instant that she was unable to keep the measure ; and in conse-
quence of this I desired the drummers to beat one continued roll, in-
stead of a regular movement. She arose and danced five minutes, when
156 THE DANCING MANIA.
both drums beat a continued roll : the motions instantly stopped, and the
patient sat down. In a few minutes the motions commencing again, she
was suffered to dance five minutes, when the drums again began to roll,
the effect of which was instantaneous ; the motions ceased, and the pa-
tient sat down. In a few minutes the same was repeated with the same
effect. It appeared certain that the attacks could now be stopped in an
instant, and I was desirous of arresting them entirely, and breaking the
chain of irregular associations which constituted the disease. As the
motions at this period always commenced in the fingers, and propagated
themselves along the upper extremities to the trunk, I desired the drum-
mers, when the patient arose to dance, to watch the commencement of
the attack, and roll the drums before she arose from the chair. Six
times successively the patient was hindered from rising, by attending to
the commencement of the affection ; and before leaving the house, I de-
sired the family to attend to the commencement of the attacks, and use
the drum early.
" March 2. She arose at seven o'clock, and the motions commenced
at ten ; she danced twice before the drummer was prepared, after which
she attempted to dance again four several times ; but one roll of a well-
braced drum hindered the patient from leaving her seat, after which the
attacks did not recur. She was left weakly and fatigued by the disease,
but with a good appetite. In the evening of this day an eruption ap-
peared, particularly about the elbows, in diffused patches of a bright
red colour, which went off on the third day."
Other cases might be adduced (see 23rd vol. of the Edinburgh Medical
and Surgical Journal, p. 261 ; 31st vol. of ditto, p. 299 ; 5th vol. of the
Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, pp. 1 to 23, &c), but as there is none
more striking than this, they would unnecessarily swell this number of
the Appendix, which has already extended to an undue length.
VI.
MUSIC FOR THE DANCE OF THE TARANTATI,
FKOM
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THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
11 *
PREFACE.
The present work is a continuation of my treatises on collateral
subjects, and, like them, maintains the opinion, that great epi-
demics are epochs of development, wherein the mental energies of
mankind are exerted in every direction. The history of the world
bears indisputable testimony to this fact. The tendencies of the
mind, the turn of thought of whole ages, have frequently depended
on prevailing diseases ; for nothing exercises a more potent influ-
ence over man, either in disposing him to calmness and submission,
or in kindling in him the wildest passions, than the proximity of
inevitable and universal danger. Often have infatuation and
fanaticism, hatred and revenge, engendered by an overwhelming
fear of death, spread fire and flames throughout the world.
Famine and diseases, among which may be instanced the fiery
plague of St. Anthony, were no less powerful in calling forth the
chivalrous spirit of the crusades than the enthusiastic eloquence of
Peter the Hermit — the Black Death brought thousands to the
stake, and aroused the fearful penances of the Flagellants — while
the oriental leprosy cast a gloomy shade over society throughout
the whole course of the middle ages.
With all such commotions, the most striking events of the
world are in intimate relation, and unquestionably, amid the
changing forms of existence in the human race, more has always
depended on the prevailing tone of thought than on the rude
powers by which those events were produced. The historian,
therefore, who would investigate the hidden influence of mind,
cannot dispense with medical research. The facts themselves con-
vince him of the organic union of the corporeal and the spiritual
in all human affairs, and consequently of the innate vital con-
nexion of all human knowledge. Hence, in a medical point of
view, how vast is the field for observation presented by the history
PREFACE. 1G5
of popular diseases. Present bodily sufferings x are, collectively,
but a step in the development, — but one phase of morbid life
amid a long series of phenomena, and hence are not fully under-
stood without a previous knowledge of the past, and historical
research. How can we recognise the ring of Saturn as such, so
long as our axis of vision is in its plane, and we see it only as a
line. Great pestilences have vanished or been dispersed ; from
causes apparently the most insignificant, the most important con-
sequences have resulted, and throughout the vicissitudes of danger
and devastation, the operations of mighty laws of nature are every-
where manifested in the social tendencies of entire centuries.
This is no aerial realm of transitory conjectures — facts them-
selves speak in a thousand reminiscences. If we do but investigate
the past with unprejudiced assiduity — if we do but consider even
the few successful researches which have hitherto been made in
historical pathology (perhaps those who are kindly disposed will
recognise even mine), we shall not fail to arrive at a centre of
reality, which the healing art, to its great detriment, has hitherto
been far from reaching, whilst it has occasionally penetrated into
a less fertile soil, or even encumbered itself with the accumulated
rubbish of the pedantic dogmas of the schools.
The state, which founds its legislation on a knowledge of
realities, which expects from the physical sciences information
respecting human life collectively, considered in all its relations,
has a right to demand from its physicians a general insight into
the nature and causes of popular diseases. Such an insight, how-
ever, as is worthy the dignity of a science, cannot be obtained by
the observation of isolated epidemics, because nature never in any
one of them displays herself in all her bearings, nor brings into
action, at one time, more than a few of the laws of general disease.
One generation, however rich it may be in stores of important
knowledge, is never adequate to establish, on the foundation of
actually observed phenomena, a doctrine of popular diseases worthy
of the name. The experience of all ages is the source whence we
must in this case draw, and medical investigation is the only road
which leads to this source, unless, indeed, we would be unprepared
to meet new epidemics, and would maintain the unfounded opinion
that medical science, as it now exists, is the full result of all pre-
ceding efforts.
1 The author seems to me here to allude to what Sydenham calls the " constitute
epidemica," as if he would say, " The epidemic constitution, as it exists at any one time,
i< hut a step," &C.
166 PREFACE.
An insight, not only into general visitations of disease, which
in the course of ages have appeared in divers forms, but also into
every single disease, whether it occurs in intimate connexion with
others or not, is rendered more distinct by a knowledge of the
contemporary circumstances which attend its development. I
would fain hope, therefore, that the future research and diligence
of physicians, devoted to the pursuit of truth and science, will be
more generally directed to historical investigation ; and that
universities and academies will concede to it that prominent place
which, from its high importance as an extensive branch of natural
philosophy, it justly demands.
Whether the following inquiry into one of the most remarkable
diseases on record corresponds with these views, I must leave my
readers to judge. The historian will discern what social feelings
are produced among nations by great events, and to the physician
a picture of suffering will be unveiled, to which the diseases of the
present time afford no parallel. I have throughout kept in view
the spirit and the dignity of the sixteenth century, which was as
remarkable for military triumphs as for tragic events ; and I look
with confidence for the same indulgence and goodwill now, which,
through the kindness of friends, I have already enjoyed both at
home and abroad, in a higher degree than my sincere gratitude
can find words to express.
THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST VISITATION OF THE DISEASE. — 1485.
" Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully,
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory ! "— Siiakspeare.
Sect. 1. — Eruption.
After the fate of England had been decided by the battle of
Bosworth, on the 22nd of August, 1485, 1 the joy of the nation was
clouded by a mortal disease which thinned the ranks of the war-
riors, and following in the rear of Henry's victorious army, spread
in a few weeks from the distant mountains of Wales to the me-
ti'opolis of the empire. It was a violent inflammatory fever,
which, after a short rigor, prostrated the powers as with a blow ;
and amidst painful oppression at the stomach, head-ache, and
lethargic stupor, suffused the whole body with a fetid perspiration.
All this took place in the course of a few hours, and the crisis was
always over within the space of a day and night. 2 The internal
heat which the patient suffered was intolerable, yet every refriger-
ant was certain death. The people were seized with consterna-
tion when they saw that scarcely one in a hundred escaped, 3 and
their first impression was that a reign commencing with such
horrors would doubtless prove most inauspicious. 4
1 Grafton, Vol. II. pp. 147. 155. 2 Hall, p. 425.
3 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, ycelded the ghost. Ilolinshed, Vol. III. p. 482. Godwin, p. 98.
Poli/dor. Vergilius, L. XXVI. p. 5G7. Wood, T. I. A. 1485. p. 233. Wood takes
his testimony respecting the symptoms of the disease at third hand from Carol. I"«-
lesius (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.
4 Bacon, p. 36.
168 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
At first the new foe was scarcely heeded ; citizens and peasants
went in joyful processions to meet the victorious army. Henry's
march from Bosworth towards London resembled a triumph,
which was everywhere celebrated by festivals ; for the nation,
after its many years of civil war, looked forward to happier days
than they had enjoyed under the blood-thirsty Richard.
Very shortly, however, after the king's entry into the capital
on the 28th of August, 1 the Sweating Sickness, 2 as the disease
was called, began to spread its ravages among the densely peo-
pled streets of the city. Two lord mayors and six aldermen died
within one week, 3 having scarcely laid aside their festive robes ;
many who had been in perfect health at night, were on the fol-
lowing morning numbered among the dead. The disease for the
most part marked for its victims robust and vigorous men ; and as
many noble families lost their chiefs, extensive commercial houses
their principals, and wards their guardians, the festivities were
soon converted into grief and mourning. The coronation of the
king, which was expected to overcome the scruples that many
entertained of his right to the throne, was of necessity postponed
in this general distress, 4 and the disease, in the mean time, spread
without interruption and over the whole kingdom from east to
west. 5
It is agreed that the pestilence did not commence till the very
beginning of August, 1485, and was in obvious connexion with
the circumstances of the times. To return to their native country
had long been the ardent desire of the Earl of Richmond and his
faithful followers. At the age of 15 (1471), having escaped the
vengeance of the House of York, and the assassins of Edward, he
was overtaken by a storm, and fell into the hands of Francis II.,
Duke of Bretagne, who long detained him prisoner, but on the
death of Edward, in 1483, supplied him with means to enforce
his claims to the English throne, as the last descendant of the
House of Lancaster. This first undertaking miscarried. A storm
drove back the bold adventurer to Dieppe, and compelled him
once more to throw himself, with his five hundred English fol-
lowers, on the hospitality of Duke Francis. Richard's influence
with the Duke, however, rendered his stay there somewhat
dangerous. Richmond withdrew privately, and endeavoured to
1 Fabian, p. 673.
2 Swetynge sykenesse in the Chronicles.
3 The Mayors' names were Thomas Hylle and William Rocker. Fabian, loc. cit.
4 Until the 30th of October. Grafton, p. 158. 5 Wood, loc. cit.
ERUPTION. 1 69
gain over to his cause Charles VIII., who was yet a minor. A
small subsidy of French troops, some pieces of artillery, and an
adequate supply of money, were finally granted to his repeated
solicitations. This little band was quickly augmented to 2000
men, who were all embarked, and on the 25th of July, 1485, they
weighed anchor at Havre, and seven days after, the standard of
Richmond was raised in Milford Haven. 1
They landed at the village of Dale, on the west side of the har-
bour, and on the evening of their arrival, or very early on the fol-
lowing morning, Richmond hastened to Haverfordwest, where no
messenger had yet announced the renewal of the civil war. It
appears that he reached Cardigan, on the northern shore, on the
3rd of August, and for the first time granted to his small but in-
creasing army the repose of an encampment.
After a short halt he set forward with confidence, crossed the
Severn at Shrewsbury, 2 turned from thence to Newport and Staf-
ford, and pitched his camp at Litchfield, probably before the 18th
of August. 3 The distance to this place from Milford Haven is
170 miles, and the road leads over wooded mountains and culti-
vated fields without touching upon any swampy lands. Litchfield,
however, lies low, and it was here that the army encamped in a
damp situation, till it broke up for the neighbouring field of Bos-
worth. Thither Richmond, with scarcely 5000 men, and having
his right wing covered by a morass, went to meet his deadly foe,
whose army doubled his own. The combat was at first furious,
but in two hours Lord Stanley crowned the conqueror with
Richard's diadem. 4
All these events so rapidly succeeded each other in the course
of three weeks, that the knights and soldiers of Richmond, more
and more excited every day by fear and hope, were scarcely equal
to such exertions. Yet the very rapidity of the movements of the
army was the cause why the disease could not spread so quickly,
nor obstruct the final decision of Bosworth, although the report
of it had already, before this event, spread universal terror ; so
that Lord Stanley, when authoritatively summoned by Richard
1 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,y. 119'2, Lilie, p. 382, and J/ar-
solier, who assert the landing of the army to have taken place on the 7th of August.
Historia Croylandensis, p. 573, in Jo. Fell.
2 Grafton, p. 147. 3 Stow, p. 779.
* According to the unanimous statements of the chroniclers.
170 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
to repair to his standard, sought to gain time, and, by way of ex-
cuse, alleged the prevalence of the new disease. 1
After the victory of Bosworth, King Henry remained two days
in Leicester, and then without further delay hastened to London,
which he reached in less than four days, unaccompanied by mili-
tary parade, and attended only by a select body of followers. The
remainder of his army, which stood greatly in need of repose after
its severe toils, were not in a condition for marching, they there-
fore halted in the neighbouring towns, and were probably dis-
banded, according to the custom of the age. 2
The Sweating Sickness is said not to have made its appearance
in London till the 21st of September, 3 but historians have most
likely intended by that day to mark the commencement of its
virulence, which continued to the end of the following month, and
lasted, therefore, in all, about five weeks.
During this short period a large portion of the population 4 fell
victims to the new epidemic, and the lamentation was without
bounds so long as the people were ignorant that this fearful dis-
ease, unable to establish its dominion, would only pass through
the country like a flash of lightning, and then again give place
to the active intercourse of society and the cheering hope of life.
There was no security against a second attack ; for many who
had recovered were seized by it, with equal violence, a second,
and sometimes a third time, so that they had not even the slender
consolation enjoyed by sufferers in the plague 5 and small-pox, of
entire immunity after having once surmounted the danger. 6
Thus by the end of the year the disease had spread over the
whole of England, and visited every place with the same severity
as the metropolis. Many persons of rank, of the ecclesiastical
1 Histor. Croylandens. p. 573. Fell.
2 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.
3 Bacon, Stow, Baker, loc. cit. Rapin considered the middle of September as the
period of the outbreak. T. IV. p. 38G.
4 "Infinite persons." Bacon. "A wonderful number." Stow. "Many thou-
sands." Baker, loc. cit.
5 The plague can scarcely be said to furnish this immunity, for though the second
attack is an exception to a pretty general rule, it is one of by no means unfrequent oc-
currence. — Transl. note.
c Holinshed, Vol. III. p. 482.
THE PHYSICIANS. 171
and the civil classes, became its victims ; and great was the con-
sternation when, in the month of August, it broke out in Oxford.
Professors and students fled in all directions ; but death overtook
many of them, and this celebrated university was deserted for six
weeks. l Three months later it appeared at Croyland, and on the
14th of November, carried off Lambert Fossedyke, abbot of the
monastery. 2 No authentic accounts from other quarters have been
handed down to our times, but we may infer, from the general
grief and anxiety which prevailed, that the loss of human life was
very considerable.
Sect. 2. — The Physicians.
The physicians could do little or nothing for the people in this
extremity. 3 They are nowhere alluded to throughout this epi-
demic, and even those who might have come forward to succour
their fellow-citizens, had fallen into the errors of Galen, and their
dialectic minds sank under this appalling phenomenon. This holds
good even of the famous Thomas Linacre, subsequently physician
in ordinary to two monarchs, 4 and founder of the College of
Physicians, in 1518. In the prime of his youth he had been an
eye-witness of the events at Oxford, and survived even the second
and third eruption of the Sweating Sickness ; but in none of his
writings do we find a single word respecting this disease, which is
of such permanent importance. In fact, the restorers of the medi-
cal science of ancient Greece, who were followed by all the most
enlightened men in Europe, with the single exception of Linacre,
occupied themselves rather with the ancient terms of art than
with actual observation, and in their critical researches overlook-
ed the important events that were passing before their eyes. 5 This
reminds us of the later Greek physicians, who for four hundred
1 Wood, p. 233. 2 Histor. Croyland. p. 569. FeU.
3 No physick afforded any cure. Baker, p. 254.
4 Henry VII., and Henry VI IT. Compare the excellent biographical account of
this learned man by Aikin.
5 Erasmus expresses him>elf on this subject in hi3 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 a.s a philological pe-
dant. " Novi quendam 7ro\urExv6raroi>, grrccum, latinum, mathematicum, philoso-
phum, medicum, Kai rubra fiatnXiicov, jam scxagenarium (he was born in 1460, and
died in 1524), qui ceteris rebus omissis, annis plus viginti se torquct ac discruciat in
grammatica, prorsus felicem se fore ratus, sitamdiu liceat vivere, donee certo statiuit,
quomodo distinguenda sint octo partes orationis, quod hactenus nemo Gracorum aut
Latinorum ad plenum prrcstare valuit." Laus Stultitiae, p. 200. That I. inane is
here meant is quite plain ; the passage applies to no other contemporary.
172 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
years paid no attention to the small-pox, because they could find
no description of it in the immortal works of Galen. 1
No resource was therefore left to the terrified people of Eng-
land but their own good sense, and this led them to the adoption
of a plan of treatment, than which no physician in the world could
have given them a better ; namely, not to resort to any violent
medicines, but to apply moderate heat, to abstain from food,
taking only a -small quantity of mild drink, and quietly to wait
for four-and-twenty hours the crisis of this formidable malady.
Those who were attacked during the day, in order to avoid any
chill, immediately went to bed in their clothes, and those who
sickened by night did not rise from their beds in the morning ;
while all carefully avoided exposing to the air even a hand or
foot. Thus they anxiously guarded against heat or cold, so as not
to excite perspiration by the former, nor to check it by the latter
f or they well knew that either was certain death. 2
The report of the infallibility of this method soon spread over
the whole kingdom, and thus towards the commencement of 1486,
many were rescued from death. On New Year's Day, a violent
tempest arose in the south-east, and by purifying the atmosphere
relieved the oppression under which the people laboured, and thus,
to the joy of the whole nation, the epidemic was swept away with-
out leaving a trace behind. 3
Sect. 3. — Causes.
It was thought remarkable, even at that time, that the Sweat-
ing Sickness did not extend beyond the limits of England, and
that, remaining the unenviable property of that nation, it did not
even spread to Scotland, Ireland, or Calais, which belonged to
Britain. Much, doubtless, was owing to the peculiarity of the
climate, more still to atmospherical changes, and something also
to the habits of the people and the circumstances of the times.
It plainly appeared in the sequel that the English Sweating
Sickness was a spirit of the mist, which hovered amid the dark
clouds. Even in ordinary years, the atmosphere of England is
loaded with these clouds during considerable periods, and in damp
seasons they would prove the more injurious to health, as the
English of those times were not accustomed to cleanliness, modera-
o
1 See the author's History of Medicine, Book II. p. 311.
2 Grafton, p. 161, and the other chroniclers.
3 Wood, loc. cit.
CAUSES. 173
tion in their diet, or even comfortable refinements. Gluttony-
was common among the nobility as well as among the lower
classes ; all were immoderately addicted to drinking, 1 and the
manners of the age sanctioned this excess at their banquets and
their festivities. If we consider that the disease mostly attacked
strong and robust men — that portion of the people who abandon-
ed themselves without restraint to all the pleasures of the table
— while women, old men, and children, almost entirely escaped,
it is obvious that a gross indulgence of the appetite must have had
a considerable share in the production of this unparalleled plague.
To this may be added, the humidity of the year 1485, which
is represented by most chronicles as very remarkable. 2 Through-
out the whole of Europe the rain fell in torrents, and inunda-
tions were frequent. Damp weather is not prejudicial to health
if it be merely temporary, but if the rain be excessive for a series
of years, so that the ground is completely saturated, and the mists
attract baneful exhalations out of the earth, man must necessarily
suffer from the noxious state of the soil and atmosphere. Under
these circumstances epidemics must inevitably follow. The five
preceding years had been unusually wet, 3 1485 proved equally so ;
the last hot and droughty summer was that of 1479. 4 Extensive
inundations of the Tiber, the Po, the Danube, the Rhine, and
most of the other great rivers, took place in 1480, and were at-
tended with the usual consequences, the deterioration of the air,
misery, and disease. 5 The greatest inundation ever remembered
in England was that of the Severn, in October, 1483. It was
long afterwards called the Duke of Buckingham's Great Water,
because it frustrated the rebellion of this powerful subject against
Richard III., whom he had been instrumental in placing
upon the throne ; and consequently defeated also the first enter-
prise of Henry VII. It lasted full ten days, and the tremend-
ous ravages occasioned by the overwhelming torrent dwelt long
in the memory of the people.
1 The luscious Greek wines were at this time the most in vogue, especially Cretan
wine, Malmsey, and Muschat. Lemnius, de compl. L. II. fol. 111. h. Beusner, p. 70.
2 Werlich, p. 2 18. 3 Spangenberg, Mansf. Chr. fol. 395. f.
i Werlich, p. 236. Spangenberg, loc. cit. Ovcrilow of the Lech, 1484. Werlich,
p. 239.
5 Franck von Word, fol. 211. a.
6 Grafton, p. 133, and all the other chroniclers. Short, Vol. I. p. 201, and several
others, even Sehnurrer, erroneously asserted this inundation to have taken place in the
year 1485.
174 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Sect. 4. — Other Epidemics.
During the whole of this period the nations of Europe were
visited with various and destructive plagues. In 1477, the Bubo-
plague broke out in Italy, and raged without interruption till
1485. 1 It was accompanied by striking natural phenomena,
among which we may reckon an enormous flight of locusts in
1478 " and 1482, and remarkable intercurrent diseases, such as
inflammatory pain in the side, throughout the whole of Italy
in 1482. 3 In Switzerland and Southern Germany malignant
epidemics 4 appeared in the train of drought and famine in 1480
and 1481, while putrid fever accompanied by phrenites, 5 prevail-
ed in Westphalia, Hesse, and Friesland. There had never been in
the memory of the inhabitants of these districts so many ignes
fatui as during this period. There too the people suffered from
the failure of the harvest, so that it was necessary to obtain
supplies from Thuringen. 6 France, where, under the fearful reign
of Louis XI., oppression and misery seemed to mock the gifts of
heaven, became in 1482, after a two years' scarcity, the scene of
a devastating plague. It was an inflammatory fever with delirium,
accompanied by such intense pain in the head that many dashed
out their brains against the wall, or rushed into the water ; while
others, after incessantly running to and fro, died in a state of the
greatest agony. According to the notion of the age, this disease
was attributed to astral influences, for it could not have been
brought on only by famine, which left to the poor peasantry,
south of the Loire, nothing but the roots of wild herbs to support
their miserable existence, 7 since the higher classes were also
frequently attacked. 8 This fever was without doubt accompanied
1 Campo, p. 132. I'fetifer, p. 32.
2 Franckv. Word, fol. 211. a. In the plague which followed, about 20,000 people
died in Brixen, and 30,000 in Venice.
3 Fracastor. p. 182. Morb. Contag. L. II.
* 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 Pcstilentzjieber," the phrenitic, intensely ardent, plague-fever.
Compare Slumpjf. fol. 742. b.
5 The so called Hauptkrankheit. e Spangenberg, Mansfeld. Chr. fol. 396. a.
7 In many places women and children were obliged to draw the plough, from the
want of draught cattle ; they were obliged too to carry on the cultivation by night,
that they might not be observed by the king's inhuman revenue officers. — Mezeray,
Tom. II. p. 750.
8 "II couroit alors (1482) dans la France line dangcreuse et mortcllc maladie, qui
affligcoit indiffcremment les grands et les petits, bicn qu'ellc nc fut pas contagieuse.
Richmond's army. 175
by inflammation of the meninges, or even of the brain itself, and
was, perhaps, identical with that which at the same period desolat-
ed the north-west of Germany as far as the shores of the North
Sea, only that it was heightened by the greater natural vivacity and
m iserable situation of the French people, who were kept in a state
of perpetual dread by the cruel executions of Louis. 1 This pesti-
lence occasioned the king to follow the advice of his morose
physician 2 in ordinary, and to keep himself closely confined with-
in the town of Plessis des Tours. It was prohibited under a
heavy penalty to speak in his presence of death which was car-
rying off its victims in all directions, and forty crossbowmen kept
guard in the fosse of the castle to put to death every living thing
which might approach. 3 Two years after, in 1484, virulent dis-
eases 4 again visited Germany and Switzerland ; and thus it seemed
as if the nations were everywhere threatened with death and
destruction.
Sect. 5. — Richmond's Army.
From these data, which might easily be extended, it is evident
that the Sweating Sickness of 1485 did not make its appearance
without great and general premisory events, which for a series of
years imparted to the people of England a susceptibility to danger-
ous and unusual diseases. If, besides this, we take into account
the gloomy temperament of the English, and the general depres-
sion of their spirits, in consequence of the sanguinary wars of
the red and white roses, a series of events which seems to have
shaken their faith in an overruling Providence, we may readily
conceive that it would require but a very slight impulse to excite
C'etoit une espeee defevre ckaude et frenetique, qui s'allumoit tout d'un coup dans le
cerveau, et le briiloit avec de si cruelles douleurs, que les tins s'en cassoient la teste
contre les murailles, les autres se precipitoient dans les puits, ou sc tuoient ;\ force dc
courir ca et la. On en attribu la cause a quelque malignc influence des astres, et a
la corruption, que la mauvaise nourriture de l'annee precedente avoit forme dans le
corps; d'autant que les vins et les bleds n'ctant point venus a maturity, la disette avoit
etc si grande, principalement dans les provinces de dela la Loire, que les peuples u'avoi-
tntvecu que de racines et d'herbes." Mezeray, Topi. II. p. 746.
1 It is expressly affirmed by the historians that many of the higher classes were
sleepless from the constant alarm and fear of Tristan's sword. How greatly muM
such a condition have predisposed the mind to receive this destructive fever!
- Jacques Cotier. He extorted from his patients 10,000 dollars a month, but, aftei
his master's death, was obliged to refund to CharlesXIU. 100,000 dollars. Comines,
L. VI. o. 12. p. 400. 3 Mezeray, loc. cit.
4 Spanr/enbcrg, Mansfeld. Chron. fol. 379. a. Festilentz, 14S3.
» Compare Webster, T. I. p. 147.
176 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
a powerful commotion in the mysterious mechanism of the human
body. This impulse was evidently given by the landing of
Richmond's army in the very year when great and portentous
evils were anticipated; for on the lGth of March, the same day
when Queen Ann, the unfortunate wife of Richard III., expired,
a total eclipse of the sun enveloped all Europe in darkness, and
gave rise to gloomy prognostications. 1 Even under ordinary
circumstances, wars begat pestilential disorders — how much more
inevitably must these have risen in the then existing state of affairs !
Richmond's army consisted not of brave men animated by zeal to
avenge their dishonoured country or to serve a good cause. It
was composed of wandering freebooters, "vile landskneckte," as
they were called in Germany, who assembled under his banner at
Havre, — sharpshooters formed under Louis XL, who recklessly
pillaged Normandy, and whom Charles VIII. gladly made over
to Henry, in order to free his own peaceful territories from so
great a scourge. 2 This army may not have been worse than
others of the same period ; 3 but cooped up as they were for a
whole week in dirty ships, they doubtless carried about with
them all the material for germinating the seeds of a pestilential
disorder, which broke out soon after on the banks of the Severn
and in the camp at Litchfield.
Sect. 6. — Nature of the Sweating Sickness.
PEBLIMINABY INVESTIGATION.
Before we proceed further, some account is here required of
the nature of this disease. It was inflammatory rheumatic fever,
with great disorder of the nervous system. This assumption is
supported by the manner of its origin and its especial character-
istic of being accompanied by a profuse and injurious perspiration.
1 Spangcnbcrg, 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.
2 — II y avoit seulement en Xormandie quelque troupes de franc- archers, de ceux,
que Louis XI. avoit lieenciez, qui couroit la campagne : et plusieurs faineants s'etant
joints avec eux, ils detruisoient tout le pais, et on devoit meme craindre, que ce mal
ne se communiquat aux provinces voisines. Mais il se presenta alors une belle occa-
sion de delivrer la France de ces pillards . . . et lui donna (Charles VIII.)
tout ces francs-archers et brigands do Normandie jusqu'au nombre de 3000. Mezcray,
T. II. p. 762.
3 " La milice cstoit plus cruellc et plus desordonnec que jamais." So says Jfczcraig
of the French soldiers in general. T. II. p. 7o0.
NATURE OF THE SWEATING SICKNESS. 177
From the judgment that we are now capable of forming of the
pernicious influences which prevailed in the year 1485, it may,
without hesitation, be admitted that the humidity of that and of
the preceding years affected the functions of the lungs and of the
skin, and disturbed the relation of this very important tissue to
the internal organs of life. This is the usual commencement of
rheumatic fevers, which bear the same relation to the sweating
sickness as slight symptoms bear to severe ones of the same kind.
The predominance of affections of the brain and of the nerves
however, gave to the English epidemic a peculiar character. The
functions of the eighth pair of nerves were violently disordered
in this disease, as was shown by oppressed respiration and extreme
anxiety with nausea and vomiting, symptoms to which the moderns
attach much importance. 1 The stupor and profound lethargy
show that there was injury of the brain, to which, in all pro-
bability, was added a stagnation of black blood in the torpid
veins. We must also take into the account a previous corruption
and decomposition of the blood, which, even if we should be
disinclined to infer their existence from the offensive perspiration
of the disease itself, were proved by striking phenomena of a simi-
lar nature that occurred in Central Europe about the same time ;
for the scurvy prevailed as an epidemic, more especially in
Germany, in the year I486, and with such severe and unusual
symptoms, that people were inclined to regard it as a totally new
malady. 2 Now such is the vital connexion of different functions
that every impediment to respiration, whether in consequence of
pressure from without, or through spasm and irritation of the
nerves from within, or even from a morbid condition of the cir-
culating fluid, infallibly calls forth the compensating activity of
the skin, and the body becomes suffused with an alleviating
perspiration.
Thus it plainly appears that the profuse perspiration in the
disease of which we are treating, notwithstanding its apparently
injurious tendency, was the result of a commotion excited on the
part of the lungs, which was critical with respect to the disease
itself; and this is in accordance with all the causes of which we
still have any knowledge. Noxious and even stinking fogs penc-
1 Schiller, Sect. II. c. 1. p. 131. b.
2 Aiifjelus, p. 253. Spavgenberg, M. Chr. Pol. 398. b. Tin Bcurvy affected society
far more in the 15th and 16th centuries than it docs at present, and made its appearance
on several occasions as an epidemic. Compare, in particular, Reutner, whose work on
the history of epidemics is one of general importance. Sennert, Wier, and others.
12
178 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
trated into the organs of respiration, and as the blood was thus
so much affected in its composition and in its vitality that its
corrupt state was only to be obviated by profuse perspiration,
the inevitable consequence was an interference with the extensive
functions of the eighth pair of nerves, which interference, as later
writers relate, extended in many cases to the spinal marrow, and
brought on violent convulsions. 1 We have here only one essen-
tial cause, out of many, for this gigantic disease, and one too which
accounts for its advance and spread. It is highly probable, for
the reasons stated, and as according with all human experience,
that it first broke out in the army of Henry the Yllth, and
beyond all doubt that it spread from west to east, and afterwards
in a retrograde course from east to west. With the perfectly
equable operation of the predisposing causes, from which the
diseases ought indubitably to have broken out all over England
at the same time, had the condition of the atmosphere been its
sole occasion, we must additionally presume a special cause for its
progress through towns and villages. This, according to all ap-
pearance, was to be found in the air, impregnated with foul
odours, which surrounded the sick, and abounded in the tents and
dwellings in which Henrj T the Vllth's soldiers, after various
privations and hard service, amid storms and rain, were closely
crowded together. Of both causes modern observation furnishes
analogous examples. Intermittent fevers spread more easily in
air which is contaminated by sick people, and bands of soldiers,
themselves in perfect health, have not unfrequently conveyed
camp fever to remote places. It signifies very little by what ex-
pressions of the schools these occurrences are designated ; it is
best perhaps to abstain from them altogether, for they are all in-
adequate and occasion misconceptions. Contemporaries, however,
were certainly justified in not admitting the notion of contagion
in the same sense as when the term is applied to the plague, with
which they were well acquainted. 2 For very frequently cases,
which were not to be explained on the principle of contagion
communicated by persons diseased, occurred among people of
rank, and manifestly arose independently of the usual causes. In
these cases the fear of death, which everywhere was the harbinger
of the disease, and threw the nerves of the chest into spasmodic
1 Schiller, loc. cit.
2 It was conceived not to bee an epidemicke disease, but to proceed from a malig-
nitic in tbe constitution of the aire, gathered by the predispositions of seasons : and
the speedie cessation declared as much. Bacon, p. 9.
MERCENARY TROOPS. 179
commotion, gave an impulse to the malady for which the quality
of the atmosphere and luxury had long made preparation. Had
this view of contempoi'aries been even less impartial than it really
was, it would have found the most striking confirmation in the
sudden cessation of the pestilence throughout the whole country.
For the destructive spirits of air, which would not have been
discerned even by the proud naturalists of the nineteenth cen-
tur3 r , dispersed and vanished for half an age in the fury of the
tempest which raged on the 1st of January, 1486.
CHAPTER II.
THE SECOND VISITATION OF THE DISEASE. — 1506.
" The times were rough and full of mutations and rare incidents."— Bacon.
Sect. 1. — Mercenary Troops.
At the commencement of the sixteenth century, society was very
differently constituted from what it was at the period when
Henry the Vllth unfurled his banner for victory. The darkness
of the micfaTe ages had receded, as at the approach of a sun still
hidden behind a cloud. The mind unconsciously expanded in the
unwonted light of day — the whole earth was on the eve of renova-
tion — new energies were to be called into action — events more
stupendous had never occurred, nor had more creative ideas ever
aroused the spirit of man. The invention of Guttenberg burst
through the bonds of mental darkness, and gave to freedom of
thought imperishable wings ; unsuspected powers successively de-
veloped themselves ; and, while in Western Europe an ardent
desire arose boldly to overstep the ancient limits of human activity,
the hopes of the more enlightened fell far short of the actual re-
sult of such unexpected events. The discovery of the New World,
and the circumnavigation of Africa, laid the foundation for great
improvements ; yet the events in Central Europe, though less
striking to contemporaries, were in their consequences infinitely
more important and beneficial. The establishment of civil order
among all the nations of the West took place at this period, which
forms so important a boundary between the middle ages and mod-
ern times. Regal power was fixed on a firm basis, and when the
castles had fallen before the artillery of the princes and imperial
cities, so that the petty feudal barons were compelled to swear
T2 »
180 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
obedience to the laws, an end was put to the incessant predatory
feuds which had so long desolated Europe, and the establish-
ment of internal peace was followed by the security of life and
property — the first essential of refinement in manners and of the
free development of human society.
This great result of a concatenation of circumstances was not,
however, brought about without violent struggles and innovations,
the effects of which were felt for centuries ; but it was probably
the establishment of standi//;/ armies which had the greatest in-
fluence on European civilization. They became indeed the pillars
of civil order, but having proceeded immediately from the per-
nicious mercenary system, they long nourished the seeds of unre-
strained depravity, and transmitted to later generations the
corruptions of the middle ages. The Lansquenets l (Landsknecte)
of the emneror, and the mercenaries of the kincrs of France and
England, who, during the war, had joined the smaller branches
of the standing army, were homeless adventurers from every
country in Europe, and were allured, not by military ambition,
but solely by the prospect of booty. 2 In whatever country the
drum beat to arms, thej^ flocked together like swarms of locusts —
no one knew from whence — and defying the feeble restraints
of military discipline, indulged, during the continuance of the
war, in all the unbridled licence of a predatory life.
Hence the unbounded barbarity of their mode of warfare, which
was restrained only by the individual exertions of more humane
commanders. There was, however, a decided contrariety between
this system and the moral condition of the people of Western Eu-
rope ; a contrariety which was never entirely removed by the sub-
sequent introduction of a more strict military discipline, and
which has been done away only in modern times, by the establish-
ment of regular armies on a system more congenial to the feelings
of the people. Hence the consequences were the more pernicious,
for when the armies were disbanded on the conclusion of peace,
the Landsknechts dispersed in all directions, not to follow the
plough again, or to resume their former occupations, but to pass
their time in idleness and dissipation, if enriched by booty, and if
1 The name passed into the French, English, and Italian languages — Lansquenet,
Lancichinecho.
2 "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. h.
NEW CIRCUMSTANCES. 181
reduced to poverty by intemperance and gambling, to infest the
country as mendicants or robbers, till a new war again summoned
them from their dishonourable mode of life. 1 Probably but very
few were ever able to rise from such deep degradation, and many
fell early victims to their vices, 2 while the infection of their ex-
ample brought fresh accessions from every town and village to the
mercenary legions.
Sect. 2. — New Circumstances.
It is evident that in such a condition of affairs, the effect which
the plague produced on civil society must have been different from
that of former times. Pernicious influences which, during the
middle ages, had endangered the health of the inhabitants of
towns, and had often rendered disorders, naturally slight, in the
highest degree malignant, were for ever removed. Under this
head may be mentioned more particular^ the ill-contrived con-
struction of the houses and streets, which even yet, in large cities,
destroys the comfort of the inhabitants of whole districts, and
those not of the poorest class only. As people acquired confidence
in the security of peace, it ceased to be necessary to protect every
country town by fortifications. The walls were thrown down,
the stagnant moats were filled up, and as people were no longer
limited to a narrow space, they built more convenient houses in
airy streets ; the dark alleys and damp dwellings under gi-ound
were gradually abandoned, and a more comfortable mode of
living superseded the former misery. By this means the mor-
tality was considerably diminished, and the power of epidemics
was checked ; nor can it be doubted, that the better administration
of the laws greatly obviated the dissolution of social ties in times
of plague, and the effects of superstition and religious animosity,
which had formerly been so frightful. These inestimable nation-
al improvements, however, took place but gradually, and were not
a little retarded for a time by the new evil of the employment of
mercenaries. For as the germs of vice were scattered in all di-
rections by the wandering Lansquenets, so also the infection of
noxious diseases found easier entrance into the towns and villages
through the medium of this dissolute and widely-spread class of
1 1518. "This year there was a great gathering of tin- Landsknects, who, a- ioon
as they had asscmhled, went forth from Friesland, committed great ravages, and made
an incursion into the country at Gellern, and were beaten by VernJow." Wtntzen-
berger, fol. 23. a.
2 "Not to mention too the curtailment of life, for one seldom meets with an old
Landskneelit ." Franc/c, loe. cit.
182 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
men. The Lansquenets of the sixteenth centurj 7 , as spreaders of
contagion, supplied the place of the former Romish pilgrims and
flagellants; they even proved a more permanent scourge than
those wanderers of the middle ages, who only made their appear-
ance on extraordinary occasions. We need here only call to mind
the malignant and beyond measure noisome lues which at the
end of the fifteenth century spread with the rapidity of lightning
over all Europe. It was not an importation from the innocent
inhabitants of the New World, nor was it bred by the ill-treated
Marrani, 1 the victims of the Spanish Inquisition. It was the
mercenary army of Charles the VII Ith in Naples (1495), whose
excesses gave to the already existing poison a malignity till then
unknown, and prepared for the deeply-rooted depravity a scourge
at which all the world shuddered with horror. It is, moreover,
in place here to observe that, in the larger armies which the new
military system now brought into the field, the ordinary camp dis-
eases, to which another very fatal one was added, 2 were of course
much more extensively propagated than in the less numerous
forces of preceding centuries, and consequently that the peaceful
inhabitants of the towns and of the country at large were thereby
exposed to much danger.
Sect. 3. — Sweating Sickness.
Meantime Europe was frequently and very severely visited by
the epidemics of the middle ages, the terrors of the constantly re-
curring plague being borne with gloomy resignation to the inevit-
able evil with which, as a merited chastisement, the anger of God,
according to the notion of the times, afflicted the human race.
Even the English were not exempt from this fearful visitation,
which, in the year 1499, carried off 30,000 people in London
alone, so that the king found it advisable to retire with all his
court to Calais. 3 Thus the recollection of the Sweating Sickness
of 1485 was gradually obliterated. No one thought of its possible
return, and all the world was occupied with other matters, when
the old enemy unexpectedly again raised his head in the summer
of 1506, and scared away this comfortable state of false security.
The renewed eruption of the epidemic was not, on this occasion,
connected with any important occurrence, so that contemporaries
1 Those Moors were so called who, in order to remain in Spain after the conquest of
Granada, embraced Christianity. — Transl. note.
2 The petechial fever, which will be spoken of further on.
3 Grafton, p. 220. Webster,, Vol. T. p. 149.
ACCOMPANYING PHENOMENA. 183
have not even mentioned the month in which it began to rage.
Towards the autumn it had again disappeared, and as no new
symptoms were added to the disease, the form of which was
identified by a reference to the old descriptions, it was immediate-
ly treated by the same means, the efficacy of which those who had
witnessed the epidemic of 1485 lauded with so much reason. 1
Every exposure to heat or cold was, as at that time, avoided, and
the malignant fever was left to the curative powers of nature,
the patient being kept moderately warm in bed ; and no powerful
medicines being administered. The result was beyond all ex-
pectation favourable, for in few houses did any fatal cases occur.
The victory over this dreaded enemy was now, by a pardonable
error, attributed more to human skill than to the mildness of the
malady on this occasion, which, even under a less judicious treat-
ment of the sick, would certainly not have been marked by any
considerable degree of severity.
The disease broke out in London, but whether it penetrated to
the west or not, contemporary writers, being soon convinced of
its slight character, have left us no intelligence. However widely
it may have spread, it certainly was confined to England, and no-
where occasioned any great mortality.
Sect. 4. — Accompanying Phenomena.
As the epidemic was on this occasion so very mild, it was not
accompanied by any remarkable phenomena in England, but the
case was otherwise in the rest of Europe, as will be proved by the
following details. After a wet summer, in the year 1505, a severe
winter set in. 2 Comets were seen in this as in the following year.
An eruption of Vesuvius also took place in 1506, 3 which may be
mentioned, although it is well established that volcanic commo-
tions are to be taken into account only in great pestilences, not in
less extensive epidemics. In England there blew a violent storm
from the south-west, from the 15th till the 26th of January, 1506,
which drove the king of Castille, Philip of Austria, with his con-
sort Johanna, from the Netherlands to Weymouth ; and as, some
days before, a golden eagle falling from St. Paul's church, in
London, had crushed a black eagle which ornamented some lower
building, evil predictions were promulgated among the people rc-
1 Stow, p. 809. Fabian, p. 689. Bali, p. 502. Grafton, p. 230. UolinshcJ,
p. 536. Bacon, p. 225.
- Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 403. a. Pestilenz, A. 1505.
s Webster, Vol. I. p. 151. Franck, fol. 210. a. Pingrt, T. I. p. 481.
184 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
specting the fate of this son of the emperor. 1 This event, how-
ever, could not be considered as at all connected with the pesti-
lence which broke out about half a year afterwards. More con-
sideration is due to the gloom and anxiety which at that time
depressed the spirit of the English nation. The reckless avarice
of Henry the Vllth, named the English Solomon, 2 gave just
ground for doubts regarding the security of property ; and the
pious foundations — those accustomed means of softening the
dreaded wrath of Heaven, which the king, who became gradually
more and more broken down by disease, established, could not
efface the recollection of the arbitrary violence and extortions of
his corrupt servants. 3 Although these extortions principally
affected the wealthy nobility, who were much in need of restraint,
vet dark mistrust was o-eneral, and all cheerfulness was banished
from the minds of the people. This state of feeling might have
been favourable to the propagation of the returning disease, but
the genius of the year 1506 would not suffer it to be more than a
slight and transient reminiscence of a mystically hidden danger,
the import of which was not apparent to any medical inquirer of
the 16th century.
Sect. 5. — Petechial Fever in Italy, 1505.
Thus, if we paid attention, as usual, only to the palpable oc-
currences which take place on the earth and beneath its surface,
the Sweating Sickness of the above-mentioned year might appear to
be unconnected with more considerable commotions of organic life.
The powers of nature, however, are in their operations too subtle
to be comprehended by our dull senses and by the coarse me-
chanism of our organs ; nay, precisely at a time when neither the
one nor the other indicate any alteration around us, those opera-
tions bring to light the most extraordinary phenomena in the
human frame — that most sensitive index of secret influences on
life. This observation was fully confirmed at the time of the first
return of the sweating fever. For whilst this disease remained
confined to England, there appeared in the southern and central
parts of Europe a new and fatal epidemic, which thenceforth
1 Bacon, p. 225. Stow, p. 809. Compare the other chroniclers, who most of them
notice this event in great detail.
2 Bacon, p. 231.
3 Empsoa and Dudley, ministers of Henry VII., who left hchind him treasure to the
amouut 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
tli" year 1509. Graf tun, p. 23G.
PETECHIAL FEVER IN ITALY, 1505. 185
visited these nations almost continually with intense malignity.
This was the petechial fever, a disease unknown to the older phy-
sicians, which was first observed in 1490, in Granada, where it
threatened to annihilate the army of Ferdinand the Catholic, and
made great havoc also among the Saracens. 1 The bubo plague had
immediately preceded it (1483, 1485, 1486, 1488, 1489, and 1490), 2
and it may with no small probability be assumed that the petechial
fever had resulted from this as a peculiar variety, since in other
countries also, fifteen years later, the bubo plague degenerated in
various ways, and examples are not wanting in which particular
forms or constituent parts of great epidemics thus branch off from
them, in the same manner as, under favourable circumstances,
these will combine together, and united into one destructive whole,
multiply the sources of danger.
Yet some contemporaries were of opinion that the petechial
fever had been brought over to Granada 3 by Venetian mercena-
ries from Cyprus, where they had fought against the Turks,
and where this disorder was said to have been indigenous. Not-
withstanding some good works 4 already existing, this matter has
need of a more thorough examination, which might bring to light
important and instructive results, respecting the rise and spread
of the petechial fever, and especially respecting its relation to
other plagues. Whatever may be held with regard to the true
origin of this fever, thus much is established, that it was at first
an independent European disease, and that, at the commencement,
having occupied the southern part of this quarter of the world, it
then became connected, in a manner as extraordinary as it was
worthy of observation, with the sweating sickness of the north ;
since the nearly simultaneous eruption of the sweating fever in
England, with the great epidemic petechial fever in the year
1505, may be justly attributed to an influence common to both,
although unquestionably of greater power in the latter.
The epidemic petechial fever, of which we are now treating,
prevailed principally in Italy, and is described by Fracastoro
as the first plague of this kind which ever appeared in that
' Villalba, T. T. 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 Tabar-
dillo, which name, however, Villalba has not quoted at so early a period as 1490.
a Villalba, loc. cit. p. 66.
3 Ibid. p. 69.— Fracastor. de raorbis contagios. L. II. C. 6. p. 1-3.5. — Schencke von
Grafenberg, 1,. VI. p. 553. T. II.
4 Besides those already named, the writings of Omodei and Pfeufer. Compare
Sehnurrer, Book II. p. 27.
186 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
country. Of this new disease, 1 which was placed by this great
physician midway between the bubo plague and the non-pestilen-
tial fever, the contagious quality showed itself from the beginning;
yet it was plainly perceived, that the contagion did not take
effect so quickly as in the bubo plague, that it was not conveyed
so easily by means of clothing and other articles, and that phy-
sicians and attendants on the sick were the only persons who in-
curred much danger of infection. The fever began insidiously,
and with very slight symptoms, so that the sick in general did
not so much as seek medical aid. Many persons, and even phy-
sicians among the number, suffered themselves to be deceived by
this circumstance, and thus, not being aware of the danger, they
hoped to effect an easy cure, and were not a little astonished at
the sudden development of malignant phenomena. The heat was
inconsiderable, in proportion to the fever, yet those affected felt a
certain inward indisposition, a general depression of all the vital
powers, and a weariness as if after great exertion. They lay upon
their backs with an oppressed brain, their senses were blunted,
and in most cases delirium and gloomy muttering, with bloodshot
eyes, commenced from the fourth to the seventh day. The urine
was usually clear and copious at the beginning, it then became red
and turbid, or resembling pomegranate wine (granatwein), the
pulse was slow and small, the evacuations putrid and offensive,
and either on the fourth or seventh day red or purple spots, like
flea-bites, or larger, or resembling lentils (lenticuloe), which also
gave a name to the disorder, broke out on the arms, the back, and
the breast. There was either no thirst at all, or very little ; the
tongue was loaded, and in many cases a lethargic state came on.
Others, on the contrary, suffered from sleeplessness, or from both
these symptoms alternately. The disease reached its height on the
seventh or on the fourteenth day, and in some cases still later. In
many there existed a retention of urine with very unfavourable
prognosis. Women seldom died of this fever, elderly people still
more rarely j and Jews scarcely ever. Young people, on the other
hand, and children died in great numbers, and especially from
among the higher ranks, while the plague, on the contrary, used
generally to commit its ravages only among the poorer classes. An
inordinate loss of power in the commencement betokened death, as
also a too violent effect from mild aperient means, and a failure in
alleviation after a complete crisis. Patients were seen to die who
1 It was called Puncticula or Peticulie, also Febris stigmatica, Testis petecbiosa.
Reusner, p. 11. For later synonimes, see Burseiius, Vol. II. p. 293.
PETECHIAL FEVER IN ITALY, 1505. 187
had lost to the extent of three pounds of blood from the nose. It
was also a very bad sign when the spots disappeared, or broke out
tardily, or were of a blackish-blue colour. Phenomena of an oppo-
site character, on the contrary, afforded hope of recovery.
The best physicians were agreed on the importance of the
petechiae as an indication of the nature of the crisis ; for those
cases in which they were abundant and of a good quality were
cured much more easily than those in which the eruption was
suppressed. An abundant perspiration also was particularly con-
ducive to recovery, whereas all other evacuations, especially a flux
from the bowels, proved to be injurious and even fatal.
If we keep these phenomena in view, and consider, moreover,
that in the widely extending lues venerea of those times cutane-
ous eruptions predominated over the other symptoms, the Eng-
lish sweating sickness in the north of Europe will appear, as in
connexion with this circumstance, of a very important character ;
and the supposition, that the morbid activity of the system during
the whole of this age maintained a decided determination to the
skin, may thence be fairly considered as something more than a
mere conjecture.
This fact speaks for itself, but the causes of this altered tem-
perament of the body it is not an easy matter to discover. Fra-
castoro, who knew much better than his modern followers how to
manage his sagacious doctrine of contagion, looked for these
causes in the quality of the air, which was manifest by much
more evident phenomena in the epidemic petechial fever of 1528
than in that of 1505, and he traced an active connexion between
this quality, which he called "infection of the atmosphere," ' and
the condition of the blood ; thus indicating unknown influences
by an obscure notion. He considered the altered quality of the
blood according to the established views of that period, which the
petechial spotted fever seemed clearly to confirm, as a putrefaction ;
and he even assumed that, in the non-epidemic petechial fevers,
which, from the year 1505 forward, frequently occurred, isolated
causes must have given rise to changes in the blood, as well as
that quality of the air, to which this great physician attributed
the general and continued alterations which take place in the
nature of diseases.
1 Consinrilem ergo infectionem in acre primum fuisse censeudum est, quae mox in
nos ingesta tale febrium genus attulerit, qua tametsi pestilentea rase mm sunt, in limine
tamen earum videntur esse. Analogia vero ejus coutagionis ad sanguinem prscipue
esse ci>n.
206 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
poor, people of every occupation and of all ages, were seized with
this disease in whole crowds simultaneously, and it passed easily
from a single case to a whole household. On this occasion death
rarely occurred, except in children who had not power to endure
the severity of the cough, and medicine was of little avail, either
in alleviating the disorder or arresting its destructive course. The
already established name of this disease was immediately called to
mind again in France. It was not, however, confined to that
kingdom, but prevailed as generally, with some considerable
varieties of form, in Italy, Germany, Holland, and doubtless over
a still wider range of country. 1 The same was the case with the
influenza of 1580, which spread over the whole of Europe, and
seems to have been less severe ; thus bearing a closer resemblance 2
to that of 1831 and 1833, which is still in the recollection of most
of our readers from their own experience. A more elaborate re-
search into this very important subject would far surpass the
limits of this treatise, for phenomena deeply affecting the whole
system of human collective life are here to be considered, which
can only become apparent when received as a connected whole,
yet we must at least point out the relation which the influenzas
bear to the greater epidemics. This is quite apparent ; for as
catarrhs are not unfrequently the forerunners, accompaniments, or
sequela} of important diseases in individual cases, 3 excitement of
the mucous membrane being often merely an outward sign of more
deeply-seated commotion, so also are influenzas usually only the
Jirst manifestations, but sometimes also the last remains of ex-
tensive epidemics. The most recent example is still fresh in our
memories. The influenza of 1831 was immediately followed by
1 Valleriola, Loc. med. Comm. Appepd. p. 45. Schenck a Grafenbcrg, Lib. VI. p.
552. Compare Short, T. I. p. 221.
2 Tleusner, p. 72. Some of the synonymes here adduced will show the medical views
of the period respecting these diseases : Catarrhus febrilis. Febris catarrhosa. Ardores
suffocantes. Febris suffocativa. Catarrhus epidemicus. Tussis popularis. CepJialcra
catarrhosa. Cephalalgia contagiosa. Gravedo anhelosa, Feme!. Dcr bohniischc Ziep
(the Bohemian pip). Der schafhusten (the sheep-cough). Die schafkrankheit (the
sheep disease). Die lungensucht (phthisis). Das Hiihnerweh (the poultry cough, or
chicken contracted to chin-cough), and many others. In the influenza of 1580, violent
perspiration was occasionally observed, so that some physicians thought that the English
sweating sickness was about to return, just as in the Groninger intermittent (1826), and
in the cholera of 1831, without any knowledge on the subject, they talked of the Black
Death.— Schneider, L. IV. e. 6. p. 203.
'■' That the physicians of the sixteenth century were familiar with this observation, is
proved by the following quotation from Haulier. " Nulla fere corporis humani a^ritudo
est, que non defluxione humoris alicuius e capite aut excitari aut incrcmentum accipcrc
it." Morb. int. L. I.fol. OS. b.
EPIDEMICS OF 1517. 207
the Indian cholera, and scarcely had this, after its revival in
Eastern and central Europe, vanished, when the influenza of 1833
appeared, as if to announce a general peace. After the influenza
of 1510, a plague followed in the north of Europe, which in Den-
mark carried off the son of King John ; ' 1551 was the year of the
fifth epidemic sweating sickness. In 1557, the influenza in Hol-
land was followed by a bubo plague, which lasted the following
year, and carried off 5000 of the inhabitants at Delft. 2 In 1564,
a very destructive plague raged in Spain, of which 10,000 people
died at Barcelona, and finally, in 1580, the last year of influenza
in that century, a plague of which 40,000 died in Paris, appeared
over the greater part of Europe and in Egypt. 3
m Sect. 7. — Epidemics of 1517.
We now revert to the year 1517, and shall consider the epi-
demics which accompanied the English sweating sickness. First
of all, the Haupikrankheit, that brain fever which so often re-
curred in the central parts of Europe, appeared extensively
throughout Germany. Many died of this dangerous disease, and
we are assured by contemporaries that other intercurrent inflam-
matory fevers were also very fatal. 4 Such was the case in Ger-
many, the heart of Europe. Another disease, however, much more
important, and till that time wholly unknown to medical men,
appeared in Holland, which broke out in January, 1517, and from
its dangerous and quite inexplicable symptoms, spread fear and
horror around. It was a malignant, and, according to the assur-
ance of a very respectable medical eye-witness, an infectious in-
flammation of the throat, so rapid in its course that, unless assist-
ance were procured within the first eight hours, the patient was
past all hope of recovery before the close of the day. Sudden
pains in the throat, and violent oppression of the chest, especially
in the region of the heart, threatened suffocation, and at length
actually produced it. During the paroxysms the muscles of the
throat and chest were seized with violent spasm, and there were
but short intervals of alleviation before a repetition of such seizures
terminated in death. Unattended by any premonitory symptoms,
the disease began with a severe catarrhal affection of the chest,
which speedily advanced to inflammation of the air passages, and
1 Uvitfeldt, Danmarka Rigcs Kronike. 2 Forest, Lib. Yl. Obu. IX. p. 1.3:'.
3 Webster, vol. T. p. 1.37. 165. Villulbo, T. I. p. 102. 11?., and Schnurrcr.
4 Spangenberg, M. Ohr, foL 408. b.
208 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
where death did not occur on the day of the attack, ran on to a
dangerous inflammation of the lungs, which followed the usual
course, but was accompanied by a very high fever. Occasionally
a less perilous transition into intermittent fever was observed, but
in no case did a sudden recovery take place ; for even when the
fever subsided, the patient continued to suffer, for at least a month,
from pain in the stomach and great debility, which symptoms
admit of easy explanation to a medical man of the present day,
from the fissures and small ulcers of the tongue, which appeared
when the fever was at its height, and obstinately resisted the
usual treatment.
The remedies employed show the circumspection and ability of
the Dutch physicians. They had recourse, as soon as possible, at
the latest within six hours, to venesection, and followed this up
immediately by purgatives, of which, however, some eminent men
disapproved, and this to the great detriment of their patients, for
without the combined effect of both these means, the sudden suffo-
cation could not be averted. Moreover, the employment of
detergent gargles, whereby the extension of the affection to the
lungs was prevented, as also of demulcent pectoral remedies, was
decidedly beneficial, and it is affirmed that all Avho were thus
treated were easily restored. 1
Extraordinary and peculiar as this disease, for which contem-
poraries found no name, was, its rapid onset and its sudden dis-
appearance were still more so. Most of those affected were taken
ill at the same time, and eleven days of suffering and misery had
scarcely elapsed when not another case occurred ; the numbers
who had fallen victims were buried ; and but for the journal of
the worthy Tyengius, 2 no distinct record would have existed of
this remarkable epidemic, which however, it is certain, sjDread
further than merely over the misty territory of Holland, and ap-
parently with still greater malignity ; for in the same year we
find it in Basle, where, within the space of eight months, it
destroyed about 2000 people, and its symptoms would seem to
have been still more strongly marked. Respecting the interme-
diate countries, which it is highly probable that the disease pass-
ed through from Holland before it reached Basle, we unfortunate-
ly have no information. The tongue and gullet were white as if
covered with mould, the patient had an aversion to food and
1 Ti/engius, in Forest: Lib. VI. Obs. II. Sebol. p. 152.
2 Forest availed himself of the imprinted and probably lost works of this distinguish'
cd physician, of whom, but for him, we should have known nothing.
EPIDEMICS OF 1517. 209
drink, and suffered from malignant fever, accompanied with
continued headache and delirium. Here also, in addition to an
internal method of cure which has not been particularly detailed,
the cleansing of the mouth was perceived to be an essential part
of the treatment : the viscous white coating was removed every
two hours, and the tongue and fauces were afterwards smeared
with honey of roses, 1 whereby patients were restored more easily
than when this precaution was omitted. 2
It appears, according to modern experience, to admit of no
doubt that this disease consisted of an inflammation of the mu-
cous membrane which, accompanied by a secretion of lymph,
spread from the oesophagus to the stomach, and likewise through
the air passages to the lungs, being thus identical with pharyngeal
croup, which was represented a few years ago as a new disease,
and has in consequence been designated by a special name. 3 Its
subsequent appearance in the memorable year 1557, respecting
which we have a still more complete account, gives additional
weight to this supposition. In that year it broke out in October,
and was observed by Forest, who was himself the subject of if,
at Alkmaar, where it attacked whole families, and in the course
of a few weeks destroyed more than 200 people. It was not,
however, so excessively rapid in its course as in 1517, but began
with a slight fever like a common catarrh, and showed its great
malignity only by degrees. Sudden fits of suffocation then came
on, and the pain of the chest was so dreadfully distressing that
the sufferers imagined they must die in the paroxysm. The com-
plaint was increased still more by a tight convulsive cough, and
until this was relieved by a secretion of mucus, proved dangerous,
especially to pregnant women, sixteen of whom died within the
space of eight days, whilst those who survived were all permature-
ly brought to bed. The fever which accompanied the inflamma-
tion was very various in its course. It was rarely observed to
continue without intermission, but where this was the case, was
1 The moderns, who prefer powerful remedies, employ for this purpose, without any
hettcr effect, the lunar caustic.
2 Wurstisen, p. 707. In this seventeenth year there arose an unknown epidemic.
The patients' tongues and gullets were white, as if coated with mould; they could
neither cat nor drink, but suffered from headache together with a pestilential fever
which rendered them delirious. By this disease 2000 persons perished in Basle with-
in the space of eight months. Besides other means, it was found very efficacious to
cleanse the mouth and gullet every two hours, even to the extent of making the surface
bleed, and then to soften them with honey of roses.
3 Bretonncau's Diphtheritis. Compare Naumanns treatise on the subject in the
author's Wissenscnaftlichen Annalcn der ges. Ilcilkundc, Vol. XXV. II. 3. p. 271.
14
210 THE SWEATING SICKNESS,
attended with the greatest peril. Yet death did not take place
on this visitation until the ninth or fourteenth day, whereas in
the year 1517 as many hours would have sufficed to produce a
fatal termination. After this period the danger diminished, and
those patients were most secure from suffocation, provided they
had good medical attendance, whose complaint had been accom-
panied throughout its course by fever of only an intermittent
character. So marked was the influence of the Dutch soil, that
until this intermittent passed into continued fever of different
gradations, it appeared of the purest and most unmixed type.
In these cases the inflammation was less completely formed, so
that even bleeding, a remedy otherwise indispensable, was some-
times unnecessary. Those affected all suffered most at night and
in the morning, the latter generally bringing with it the inflam-
mation of the larynx and trachea, which, however, they had not
at that time experience enough to recognise as such, perceiving
as they did only a slight redness in the fauces. The painful
affection of the stomach was also in this epidemic very distinctly
marked, so that a sense of pressure at the praecordia, accompanied
by continual acid eructations, continued to exist even after a suc-
cession of six or seven fits of fever ; and convalescents were
troubled for a long time with dyspepsia, debility, and hypochon-
driasis. The inflammation of the mucous membrane, no doubt,
affected the nervous plexuses of the abdomen, as is usualty the case,
and totally changed the secretion. This was proved by the treat-
ment, for, by administering the necessary purgative remedies, a
vast quantity of offensive mucus, mixed with bile, was evacuated.
Our excellent eye-witness assures us that the people sickened
as suddenly as if they had inhaled a poisonous blast, so that more
than a thousand people in Alkmaar betook themselves to their
beds in a single day, a thick stinking mist having previously for
several daj T s spread over the land. This pestilence did not ter-
minate so speedily as that of the year 1517 ; on the contrary, it
delayed until the winter, and seems to have formed the conclusion
of a whole series of morbid phenomena, particularly of the already-
mentioned influenza throughout Europe, and of the bubo plague
in Holland, which had occurred in the middle of the summer, —
phenomena that were accompanied by the usual attendants of
epidemics, namely, great scarcity, and unusual occurrences in the
atmosphere, such, for instance, as electric illuminations of promi-
nent objects, and so forth. 1
1 Forest. Lib. VI. obs. ix. p. 159.
EPIDEMICS OF 1517. 211
The close connexion between this inflammation of the air-
passages and gullet and the epidemic catarrh is quite apparent ;
for these are but gradations and gradual transitions in the affec-
tion of the mucous membrane, as also in the power of atmospheri-
cal causes, which especially influence the organs of respiration.
"We believe, therefore, that we are fully justified in classing the
epidemic described to have taken place in Holland and Germany
in 1517, with the influenzas ; and in declaring the morbid com-
motion in human collective life which thus manifested itself, to
have been a forerunner of the English pestilence, which was
simultaneously prepared by the altered condition of the atmo-
sphere, and broke out a few months later.
We ought not to omit here to mention that, in this same year,
1517, the small-pox, and with it, as field-poppies among corn, the
measles, was conveyed by Europeans to Hispaniola, and commit-
ted dreadful ravages at that time, as afterwards, among the un-
fortunate inhabitants. Whether the eruption of these infectious
diseases in the New World was favoured by an epidemic influence
or not, can no longer be ascertained ; yet the affirmative seems
probable from the fact, that the small-pox did not commit its
greatest ravages in Hispaniola 1 until the following year, and, ac-
cording to recent experience, those epidemic influences which ex-
tend from Europe westward, always require some time to reach
the eastern coasts of America.
But even without this phenomenon in the New World, which
is now for the first time placed within the pale of observations on
epidemics, we have facts at hand sufficiently numerous and
worthy of credit to prove — that the English Sweating Sickness of
1517 made its appearance, not alone, but surrounded by a whole
group of epidemics, and that these were called forth by general
morbific influences of an unknown nature.
1 Petr. Martyr. Dec. IV. cap. 10. p. 321. Compare Moore, p. 106.
14 *
212 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOURTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE. 1528, 1529.
" Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel war',
Und wollten una verschlingen ;
So fiirchten wir ana niclit so sehr,
Es soil uns doch gelingen ! "— Lctiier.
Sect. 1. — Destruction of the French Army before Naples, 1528.
The events to which we are now about to allude, demonstrate,
by their surprising course, that the fate of nations is at times far
more dependent on the laws of physical life than on the will of
potentates or the collective efforts of human action, and that these
prove utterly impotent when opposed to the unfettered powers of
nature. These powers, inscrutable in their dominion, destructive
in their effects, stay the course of events, baffle the grandest
plans, paralyse the boldest nights of the mind, and when victory
seemed within their grasp, have often annihilated embattled hosts
with the naming sword of the angel of death.
To obliterate the disgrace of Pavia, 1 Francis I., in league with
England, Switzerland, Rome, Genoa, and Venice against the too
powerful Emperor of Germany, sent a fine army into Italy. The
emperor's troops gave way wherever the French plumes appeared,
and victory seemed faithful only to the banners of France and to
the military experience of a tried leader. 2 Everything promised
a glorious issue ; Naples alone, weakly defended by German
lansquenets and Spaniards, 3 remained still to be vanquished. The
siege was opened on the 1st of May, 1528, and the general con-
fidently pledged his honour for the conquest of this strong city,
which had once been so destructive to the French. 4 It was easy
with an army of 30,000 veteran warriors 5 to overpower the im-
perialists ; and a small bod}' of English 6 seemed to have come
merely to partake in the festivals after the expected victory. The
city too suffered from a scarcity, for it was blockaded by Doria,
with his Genoese galleys ; and water, fit to drink, failed after
Lautrec had turned off the aqueducts of Foggio reale ; so that the
i 24th of Feb. 1525. 2 Lautrec.
3 At first under Hugo de Moncada ; afterwards under the Prince of Orange.
4 1495, the year of the epidemic Lues.
5 Amonsr them some regiments of Swiss.
6 Two hundred knights under Sir Robert Jerningham, and afterwards under Carew:
both died of the Camp Fever. Herbert of Cfierbury, p. 212. seq.
DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH ARMY, 1528. 213
plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans
since the sacking of Rome, 1 began to spread.
But amidst this confidence in the success of the French arms,
the means for ensuring it were gradually neglected. The valour
of the intrepid and prudent commander was doubtless equal to
the minor vicissitudes of war, but whilst the length of the delay
paralysed the activity, nature herself suddenly proved fatal to
this hitherto victorious army ; pestilences began to rage among
the troops, and human courage could no longer withstand the
" far-shooting arrows of the god of day." The consequence was,
that within the space of seven weeks, out of the whole host which
up to that period had been eager for combat, a mere handful
remained, consisting of a few thousands of cadaverous figures,
who were almost incapable of bearing arms or of following the
commands of their sick leaders. On the 29th of August the siege
was raised, fifteen days after the heroic Lautrec, bowed down by
chagrin and disease, had resigned his breath ; the wreck of the
army retreated amid thunder and heavy rain, 2 and were soon
captured by the imperialists, so that but few of them ever saw
their native land again.
This siege brought still greater misery upon France than even
the fatal battle of Pavia, for about 5000 of the French nobility,
some from the most distinguished families, had perished under
the walls of Naples ; its remoter consequences too were humiliat-
ing to the king and the people ; since owing to its failure all
those hitherto feasible schemes were blighted, which had for their
object the establishment of French dominion beyond the Alps.
It behoves us, therefore, to pay so much the more attention to
those essential causes of this event, which fall within the province
of medical research.
The mortality which occurred in the camp began probably as
early as June, after the usual calamities which surround an army
in an enemy's country. The French and Swiss were insatiable
in their indulgence in fruit, which the gardens and fields furnish-
ed them in abundance, whilst there was a scarcity of bread and of
other proper food. 3 Hence fevers soon broke out, which increased
in malignity the longer they existed, accompanied no doubt by
debilitating diarrhoeas, which never fail to make their appearance
under circumstances of this kind, and are in themselves among
the most pernicious of camp diseases, since they not only destroy
• The 6th of May, 1.527.
2 Jovius, L. XXVI. Tom. II. p. 129. 3 Ibid. p. 114.
211 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
in the individual case by the exhaustion which they occasion,
but likewise, by infecting the air, prepare the way for the worst
pestilences.
These diseases were, however, little noticed, and there was con-
sequently no attempt made to diminish their causes. It became
daily more and more apparent, that the cutting off of the sources
near Pocsrio reale, which Lautrec had commanded, in order to
compel the besieged to a more speed} 1 - surrender, was in the high-
est degree injurious to the besiegers themselves ; for the water,
having now no outlet, spread over the plain where the camp was
situated, which it converted into a swamp, whence it rose, morn-
ing and evening, in the form of thick fogs. From this cause, and
while a southerly wind continued to prevail, the sickness soon be-
came general. Those soldiers, who were not already confined to
bed in their tents, were seen with pallid visages, swelled legs, and
bloated bellies, scarcely able to crawl ; so that, weary of nightly
watching, they were often plundered by the marauding Neapo-
litans. The great mortality did not commence until about the
15th of July, but so dreadful was its ravages, that about three
weeks were sufficient to complete the almost entire destruction of
the army. 1 Around and within the tents vacated by the death of
their inmates, noxious weeds sprang up. Thousands perished
without help, either in a state of stupor, or in the raving delirium
of fever. 2 In the entrenchments, in the tents, and wherever
death had overtaken his victims, there unburied corpses lay, and
the dead that were interred, swollen with putridity, burst their
shallow graves, and spread a poisonous stench far and wide over
the camp. There was no longer any thought of order or military
discipline, and many of the commanders and captains were either
sick themselves, or had fled to the neighbouring towns, in order
to avoid the contagion. 3
The glory of the French arms was departed, and her proud
banners cowered beneath an unhallowed spectre. Meanwhile, the
pestilence broke out among the Venetian galleys under Pietro
Lando. Doria had already gone over to the Emperor, 4 and thus
! According to Mezeray, the pestilence was at its height at the end of July. This
is in accordance with Jovius, who fixes the termination of the great mortality, with
rather too much precision perhaps, on the 7th of August.
2 With reference to this seemingly inflammatory state of excitement, it is, perhaps,
worthy of notice, that the commander-in-chief himself is stated to have been twice hied.
Jovius, loc. cit. p. 125.
' Jovius, loc. cit. p. 116 — 118.
1 Mezeray, T. II. p. 963.
DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH ARMY, 1528. 215
was this expedition, begun under the most favourable auspices,
frustrated on every side by the malignant influence of the
season.
No medical contemporary has described the nature of this
violent disease, and historians have on this point preserved only
general outlines, which do not afford sufficient materials to ground
an investigation. Certain it is, that in the year 1528, a very ma-
lignant petechial fever extended throughout Italy, and in the pro-
per sense of the word prevailed so decidedly, that it even followed
the Italians abroad in the same way as the Sweating Sickness did
the English, as is proved by the case of the learned "Venetian
Naugerio, who, being despatched on an embassy to Francis the 1st,
died at Blois on the Loire, of this very disease, with which the
French had yet no acquaintance. 1 Contemporaries assure us, that
this epidemic committed great ravages in the country, already
distracted by wars and feuds, and it is therefore hardly to be
doubted, that, occurring as it did in those same years, it was the
disease of which we have been treating, the malignity of which
was increased on extraordinary occasions. A pestilence -which,
just before the siege of Naples, destroyed one-third of the inhabit-
ants of Cremona, was in all probability the petechial fever. 2 Yet,
here and there, the old bubo plague made its appearance. This
it was which in the year 1524 carried off 50,000 people in Milan, 3
and this appears likewise to have been the disease which, after the
sacking of Rome, broke out among the German lansquenets, and
in a short time annihilated two-thirds of these troops. Contem-
poraries saw therein God's just punishment of their desecration of
the Holy See, for in the succeeding years, all the remaining par-
ticipators in the storming of the eternal city also met with an
end worthy of their crimes. 4 They did not take into account,
however, the beastly intemperance and excesses of the soldiery,
whose eagerness after plunder led them to encounter the plague
poison in the most secret holes and corners ; nor did they reflect,
that the plague penetrated the Castle of St. Angelo itself, and
destroyed some of the courtiers almost under the eyes of the
Pope. 5 Of these lansquenets, many went to Naples in the fol-
lowing year under the Prince of Orange, and it may with good
1 Fracastor. Morb. Contag. L. II. c. 6. p. 155, 156.
2 It broke out in tbe beginning of February, and prevailed throughout the following
month. Campo, p. 151.
3 Guicciardini, p. 1054. * Mezcra;/, T. II. p. 957.
5 Guicciardini, p. 127<3.
216 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
ground be supposed, that they took with them to that city fresh
germs of plague ; to which may be added, the by no means incre-
dible story, that the besieged sent infected and sick soldiers to the
French, in order to cause poisonous pestilences to break out
among them. 1 This very circumstance tells in favour of bubo
plague, for the decided certainty of its contagious nature was
known, and seemed beyond all comparison greater than the more
conditional communicability of the new disease. 2 Moreover, the
same attempt at impestation had been already often made in
earlier times.
It is, however, also to be considered, on the other side, that the
French army was more exposed to the epidemic influence of the
air, the water, and the general powers of nature, than any other
assemblage of men, and, that this influence was probably more
powerful in the year 1529, than at any other time during the
sixteenth century. The formation of fog in the heat of summer
is at all times an extraordinary phenomenon, 3 which decidedly
indicates a disproportion in the mutual action of the components
and powers of the lower strata of the atmosphere. This was
not dependent merely on the local peculiarities of Naples, for
during the summer of 1528, grey fogs were observed through-
out Italy, which rendered the unwholesome quality of the air
visible to the eye. 4 This was increased by the prevalence of
southerly winds, which are always, in Italy, prejudicial to health,
as also by the thousand privations of a camp, so that a disease
which was already prevalent all over Italy — we allude to the
petechial fever — might well break out on the damp soil of Poggio
reale. In the history of national diseases, we find a moral proof
of the predominance of epidemic influence, which plainly and
intelligibly manifests itself under the greatest variety of circum-
stances. This is a belief, that the water and even the air is
poisoned. 5 Nor is this proof wanting in the deplorable history of
the French army before Naples, for it was generally believed,
that some Spaniards of Moorish descent, to whom w T as attributed
an especial degree of skill in the management of poison, and
some Jews from Germany, who, for the sake of gain, had follow-
ed the lansquenets to truckle for their booty, had stolen out of the
1 Guicciardini, p. 1315.
2 See above, p. 186.
3 It was also observed, as is well known, in tbe summer of 1831, before tbe breaking
out of tbe cholera.
4 Gratiol, p. 129, 130. '•> See above, p. 189.
DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH ARMY, 1528. 217
city under cover of the night, in order to poison the water in the
neighbourhood of the camp. 1 It was also surmised, that an
Italian apothecary had administered to the French knights poi-
son in their medicine. 2 We will not anticipate on this occasion
the researches of naturalists, whose experiments on air and water,
during important epidemics, have not yet led to any results ; it
is, however, not improbable that pond and spring water, under
such circumstances as are here described to have occurred, might
become impregnated with a noxious quality, not inherent in it,
which would very naturally give rise to the belief that a poison
had been thrown into it. On the whole, this accusation may
certainly be judged acccording to the same views which have
been stated in our treatise on the Black Death.
From all these circumstances, the notion is highly probable
that it was the petechial fever which raged in the French camp ;
and if we may attach any importance to the incidental accounts
of historians, it may perhaps be to the purpose to state that Pru-
dencio de Sandoval, who has written from authentic materials, calls
the disease " las bubas." 3 This name, it is true, presupposes a
rather strange confusion of petechial fever with lues ; and, indeed,
the diseases among the French troops from 1495 to 1528, have
been oddly jumbled together by Sandoval. It shows, however,
that there still existed a recollection of the prevalent eruptions
which occurred in the pestilence of 1528 ; and, therefore, this
whole account might perhaps be the more justly applied to
petechial fever, as this same historian states, that the French
called the disease after the village of Poggio reale "les Poches," 4
by which name the well-known bubo plague would hardly have
been designated. If, however, we choose to suppose that at one
and the same time different diseases prevailed in the French
army, this notion is not only supported by the express testimony
of a contemporary, 5 but also by many observations ancient and
modern, that have been made in cases where the circumstances
1 Jovitis, loc. cit. p. 115. 2 Mezeray, p. 963.
3 The Spanish name for the lues venerea, which it obtained in consequence of the
prevailing eruptions. It corresponds with the French " la verole," and with the Ger-
man " franziJsische Pocken." We must not, therefore, think that it means " buboes."
Sandoval, Part II. pp. 12. 14. Compare Astruc, T. I. p. 4.
4 In the Madrid edition of the same work, 1675. fol. L. XVII. p. 232. b.
5 " Auster namque ventus per eos dies perflare et mortiferum missions nebulae va-
porem ex palustri ortum uligine, per castra dissipare et circumferre Lta cceperat, ut aliis
ex causis conceptce febres in contagiosum morbum vertcrentur." Jovius, L. XXVI. p.
127.
6 InTorgau, where, in 1813 and 1814, 30,000 Frenchmen found their graves, there
218 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
have been similar to those which then prevailed. It is ever to be
regretted that there was no intelligent Machaon to be found in
the camp before Naples ; such a one would undoubtedly have
left us some pithy observations on the combination and affinity
of petechial fever and bubo plague.
Sect. 2. — Trousse-Galant in France. — 1528, and the
following years.
Deeply as the irreparable loss of such an army was felt by the
French, yet were they destined to suffer still greater misfortunes
at home. The dark power which threatened all Europe regarded
neither distance nor limits. It seized on the French nation in
their own country, whilst their military youth were destroyed
before Naples. The cold spring and wet summer of 1528 destroy-
ed the growing corn, 1 and a famine was thus produced through-
out France, even more grievous, on account of its duration, than
the period of scarcity in the time of Louis the Xlth, 2 for the
failure of the harvest continued for five years in succession,
during which all order of the seasons seemed to have ceased. A
damp summer heat prevailed in autumn and winter, a frost of a
single day only occasionally intervening. The summer, on the
other hand, was cloudy, damp, and ungenial. The length of the
days alone distinguished one month from another. It appears
plainly from detached accounts how much the usual course of
vegetation was disturbed. Scarcely had the fruit trees shed their
leaves in the autumn when they began to bud again, and to bear
fruitless blossoms. No returns rewarded the toil of the husband-
man, and the longed-for harvest again and again deceived the
hopes of the people. Thus, even during the first of these calami-
tous years, the distress became general, and the increasing indi-
gence was no longer to be checked by human aid. Bands of
beggars wandered over the country in lamentable procession.
The bonds of civil order became more and more relaxed, and
people soon had to fear not only robbery and plunder on the
part of these unfortunate beings, but the contagion of a pestilence,
the offspring of their distress, which followed in their train.
This disease was a new production of the French soil, and
when it spread generally throughout the country, was the more
prevailed two diseases, typhus and diarrhoea, altogether distinct from one another. See
Richter.
1 Schirelin, p. 143. 2 Seepage 174.
TROUSSE-GALANT IN FRANCE. 219
sensibly felt, as it especially carried off young and robust men ;
on which account it was designated by the very significant name
of Trousse-Galant. 1 It consisted of a highly inflammatory fever,
which destroyed its victims in a very short time, even within the
space of a few hours ; or if they escaped with their lives, de-
prived them, of their hair and nails, and from a long-continued
disinclination for all animal food, left behind it, as sequelae, a
protracted debility and diseases which endangered the recovery
of the sick, whose constitutions were already so much shaken.
Hence it appears that this fever was combined with a great decom-
position of the fluids, and a very morbid condition of the functions
of the bowels, not to mention the effects produced by continued
hunger, which contemporaries paint in the most dreadful colours.
The stock of provisions was already so far consumed in the
first year that people made bread of acorns, and sought with
avidity all kinds of harmless roots, merely to appease hunger.
These miserable sufferers wandered about, houseless and more
like corpses than living beings, and finally, failing even to excite
commiseration, perished on dunghills or in out-houses. The
larger towns shut their gates against them, and the various char-
itable institutions proved, of necessity, insufficient to afford relief
in this frightful extremity ! It was the lot of very few to obtain
the tender care and attendance of the Sisters of Charity. In
most of those affected their livid swollen countenances, and the
dropsical swelling of their limbs, betrayed the sickly condition in
which they dragged on their languishing existence. Every one
fled from these pestiferous spectres, for they were saturated with
the poison of this deadly disease, and the remark was no doubt
made a thousand times over, that this poison might be conveyed
to persons in health without affecting the carrier, since want and
ill health occasionally afford a miserable protection against dis-
ease of this kind. 2
The necessary data for furnishing a complete account of the
Trousse-galant of 1528 do not exist, for physicians passed over
this epidemic with the same coolness and indifference which un-
fortunately they may be justly accused of having shown with
respect to other important phenomena. But it returned once
again in 1545-46, appearing in Savoy and over a great part of
France ; and we possess from Pare, 3 and from Sander, a Flemish
1 Trousser, in an obsolete sense, signifies to cause speedy death.
2 Mezeray, T. II. p. 965, where the best notices of it are to be found.
3 His account applies to the town of Puy in the Auvergne, where he seems himself
to have seen the disease. Livr. XXII. c. 5. p. 823.
220 THE .SWEATING SICKNESS.
physician, 1 though still a defective, yet a more satisfactory, de-
scription of its symptoms on this occasion. Its course was, as
before, very rapid, so that it destroyed the patient in two or three
days ; again it attacked the strong rather than the weak, as if in
justification of its old name, and those who recovered remained
for a long time distinguishable by the loss of their hair and their
wretched appearance. Patients felt at the commencement an
insufferable weight in the body, with extremely violent headache,
which soon deprived them of all consciousness, and passed into a
profound stupor, even the sphincter muscles losing their power.
In other cases a continued state of sleeplessness was followed by
feverish delirium, so violent that it was necessary to have recourse
to means of restraint. Such ojuposite states are usual in all ty-
phous fevers. Sander expressly mentions that in most of those
affected, eruptions made their appearance. He does not, however,
state their nature or describe the course and crisis of the disease,
otherwise than that it terminated about the fourth or the eleventh
day. Even the eruptions that did appear, which were probably
petechia), and perhaps also (rother friesel) red miliary vesicles,
came at an indefinite period ; either at the commencement, when
they afforded an unfavourable prognosis, or later, when they be-
tokened a favourable crisis. Thread-worms, in great numbers,
were evacuated alive under great torment, and generally increas-
ed the sufferings of the patient. The disease was scarcely less
contagious than plague, and with respect to its treatment, bleed-
ing, copious and even ad deliquium, was decidedly successful,
which, coupled with the attacks on the head just described, 2 leads
to the conclusion that there existed a fulness of blood and an in-
flammatory state of circulation, together, perhaps, with inflam-
mation of the brain. We must not omit to observe that, during
the pestilence of 1546, the bubo plague made its 'appearance here
and there, especially in the Netherlands; 3 and in the following
year, broke out and spread to. a greater extent in France, 4 whence
it seems to follow, with respect to the malady of which we are now
treating, that its nature resembled the petechial fever, since that
disease usually precedes the occurrence of pestilences. 5
1 Forest. L. YI. obs. 7. p. 156. Sander writes from numerous observations which
he made in and about Cambray.
2 Sauvages, T. I. p. 487, hence calls the Trousse-galant " Ccpbalitis verminosa,"
although neither inflammation of the brain nor worms existed in all cases, and takes
his description from Sander, as again Ozanam has taken it from Sauvages, T. III. p. 27.
3 Forest, p. 157. Schol. * Pare, loc. cit.
5 So small-pox and measles, it is well known, are the forerunners of plague.
SWEATING SICKNESS IN ENGLAND, 152S. 221
The assertion of historians, that in 1528, and the following
years, France lost a fourth part of her inhabitants by famine and
pestilence, seems, according to our representation, not to be by
any means exaggerated. The consequences, as regarded the future
destinies of that country, were likewise very important. For
Francis the 1st saw that no new sacrifices could be borne by his
people, who were already so sorely afflicted ; and therefore aban-
doned his schemes of greatness and foreign power, consenting, on
the 5th of August, 1529, to the disadvantageous treaty of
Cambray.
Sect. 3. — Sweating Sickness in England, 1528.
"Whoever, following the above facts, will represent to himself
the state of Europe in 1528, will readily believe that a poisonous
atmosphere enveloped this quarter of the globe, and continually
brought destruction and death over its nations. Ruin broke in
upon them in a thousand forms, destroying their bodies and be-
nio-htino; their minds, and if to this we add the discord and the
deadly party hatred which at that time prevailed in the world, it
seems as if every circumstance that could affect mankind was im-
plicated in this gigantic conflict, which threatened in its fatal
result to annihilate all traces of the times that were past.
A heavier affliction than has yet been described was in store for
England : for in the latter end of May, the Sweating Fever broke
out there in the midst of the most populous part of the capital,
spreading rapidly over the whole kingdom ; and fourteen months
later, brought a scene of horror upon all the nations of northern
Europe, scarcely equalled during any other epidemic. It appeared
at once with the same intensity as it had shown eleven years be-
fore, was ushered in by no previous indications, and between health
and death there lay but a brief term of five or six hours. Public
business was postponed : the courts were closed, and four weeks
after the pestilence broke out, the festival of St. John ' was stopped,
to the great sorrow of the people, who certainly would not have
dispensed with its celebration had they recovered from the con-
sternation arising from the great mortality. The king's court was
again deserted, and to the various passions and mental emotions
which had been clashing there since the year 1517, as, for instance,
those arising from the theological zeal which had been excited
by Henry VHIth's defence of the faith, was added once more the
1 Fabian, p. G09.
222 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
old alarm and distress, which seemed to be justified by the death
of some favoured courtiers ; particularly of two chamberlains, 1 and
of Sir Francis Poynes, who had just returned from an embassy to
Spain. The king left London immediately, and endeavoured to
avoid the epidemic by continually travelling-, until at last he grew
tired of so unsettled a life, and determined to await his destiny at
Tytynhangar. Here, with his first wife and a few confidants, he
resided quietly, apart from the world, surrounded by fires for the
purification of the air, and guarded b} r the precautions of his
physician, who had the satisfaction to find that the pestilence kept
aloof from this lonely residence. 2
How many lives were lost in this, which some historians have
called the great mortality, can be estimated only by the facts which
have been stated, and which betoken an uncommonly violent de-
gree of agitation in men's minds. Accurate data are altogether
wanting, yet it is quite evident that the whole English nation,
from the monarch to the meanest peasant, was impressed with a
feeling of alarm at the uncertainty of life, to which neither the
rude state of society, nor a constant familiarity with the effects
of laws written in blood, 3 had blunted their sensibility. Such a
state does not exist without very numerous cases of mortality
which bring the danger home to every individual, so that it is to
be presumed that the churchyards were everywhere abundantly
filled. Nor did this destructive epidemic come alone. Provisions
were scarce and dear, and whilst hundreds of thousands lay
stretched upon the bed of death, many perished with hunger/ and
the same scenes would have been experienced as in France, had
not the corn trade afforded some relief. 5
As soon as the occurrences of this unfortunate year could be
more closely surveyed, a conviction was at once felt, that it was one
and the same general cause of disease which called forth the poison-
ous pestilence in the French camp before Nap>les, the putrid fever
among the youth in France, and the sweating sichiess in England,
and that the varying nature of these diseases depended only on the
conditions of the soil and the qualities of the atmosphere in the
1 Sir William Compfon and William Carcw, besides man)' other distinguished per-
sons who are not named.
2 Grafton, p. 412, the principal passage. Compare Holinslicd, p. 735. Baker, p.
203. Hall, p. 750. Herbert of Chcrbury, p. 215.
a During Henry the Eighth's reign (1500 to 1547) 72,000 malefactors were, accord-
ing t" Harrison, executed for theft and robbery, making nearly 2000 for each year.
Hume, T. IV. p. 275.
< Stow, p. 885. 5 Fabian, loc cit.
NATUEAL OCCUEEENCES. — PEOGNOSTICS. 223
countries which were visited. 1 If, in opposition to these notions, a
narrow view of human life in the aggregate should raise a doubt,
this would be strikingly refuted by the wonderful coincidence, in
point of time, of all these phenomena, occurring in such various
parts of Europe ; for while the French army, after an exposure
of four weeks to the miseries and poisonous vapours of its camp
before Naples, perceived the first forebodings of its destruction,
the great famine with the Trousse-galant in its train was in full
advance on the other side the Alps, and almost on the same day
the Sweating Sickness broke out upon the Thames.
Sect. 4. — Natural Occurrences. — Prognostics.
The chronicles of all the nations of Europe are full of remark-
able notices respecting the commotions of nature in these parti-
cular 3 7 ears, which were so utterly hostile to the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. In England the period of distress was al-
ready approaching ; towards the end of the year 1527. Through-
out the whole winter (November and December, 1527, and January,
1528) , heavy rains deluged the country, the rivers overflowed their
banks, and the winter seed was thus rotted. The weather then
remained dry until April ; but scarcely was the summer seed
sown, when the rain again set in, and continued day and night for
full eight weeks, so that the last hope of a harvest was now de-
stroyed, 2 and the soaked earth, in the thick mists that arose from
its surface, hatched the well-known demon of the Sweating Dis-
ease. It was now of no avail that the torrents of rain ceased, for the
softened soil gave the pestilence constant nourishment, and the
damp warmth which, alternating with unseasonable cold, remained
prevalent during the following years all over Europe, rendered
men's bodies more and more susceptible to severe diseases.
The historians of that time were too much occupied with the
intricate affairs of the court and of the church to devote anv at-
tention to nature, and on this account they have left us no satis-
factory information of the state of the weather and the course of
the seasons of those years in England, yet there is no reason to
suppose that they were essentially different from those of the rest
of Europe. This may be proved by the following collection of
important natural occurrences, when taken in conjunction with
the circumstances already stated respecting France and Italy.
1 " it seeming to be but the same contagion of the aire, varied according (<> the
clime." Herbert of Cherbury; loc. cit. - stow, loe. cit.
224 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
In Upper Italy such considerable floods occurred in all the
river districts, in the year 1527, that the astrologers announced a
new Deluge. There was a repetition of them to an equal extent,
and with equal damage, in the following year, so that it may have
been concluded, not without some ground, that there was an ac-
cumulation of snow on the highest mountain ranges of Europe.
On the third of July, 1529, there followed a violent earthquake in
Upper Italy, and immediatel} r afterwards a blood-rain, as it was
called, in Cremona. 1
In October, 1530, the Tiber rose so much above its banks that
in Rome and its neighbourhood about 12,000 people were drowned.
A month later, in the Netherlands, the sea broke through the
dykes, and Holland, Zealand, and Brabant suffered very consider-
ably from the overflow of the waters, which again took place two
} r ears afterwards. 2
In 1528 there appeared in the March of Brandenburg, during
the prevalence of a south-east wind and a great drought 3 (the rains
did not commence in Germany before 1529), swarms of locusts? as
if this prognostic too of great epidemics was not to be wanting.
Of fiery meteors, which also frequently appeared in the following
years, and in the aggregate plainly indicated an unusual condition
of the atmosphere, much notice, after the manner of the times, is
occasionally taken. 5 Particular attention was excited by a long
fiery train which was seen on the 7th of January, 1529, at seven
o'clock in the morning, throughout Mecklenburg and Pomerania. 6
Another fiery sign (chasma) was seen in the March on the 9th of
January, at ten o'clock at night, 7 as likewise similar atmospherical
phenomena in other localities.
Comets appeared in the course of this year in unusual number. 8
The first on the 11th of August, 1527, before daybreak; it was
seen throughout Europe, and it has often been confounded by more
recent writers with an atmospherical phenomenon resembling a
comet which appeared on the 11th of October. 9 The second was
seen in July and August, 1529, in Germany, France, and Italy.
1 Campo, pp. 1.50, 1-31. 2 Grafton, p. 431. Wagenaar, Vol. II. p. 516.
3 Ilaftitz, p. 130. 4 Annales Berolino-.Marchici (no numbers (<> the pages).
5 Magnus Hundt, fol. 4. b., and many others.
fi Bonn, p. 143. A girl in Liibeck died of fright at this meteor.
7 Ilaftitz, p. 131. Anrjelus, p. 317.
3 It must not be thought that the author, because he has brought forward these no-
tices, has any pre-formed opinions whatever respecting the import of these heavenly
bodies. The historian cannot pass over contemporaneous occurrences, whatever may be
the conclusion which the limited extent of our knowledge enables us to draw from them.
9 rt'ngre, T. I. p. 485. Spangcnberg, M. Chr. fol. 410. a.
NATURAL OCCURRENCES. — PROGNOSTICS. 225
Four other comets are also said to have made their appearance this
year at the same time ; but it is probable that these were only
fiery meteors of an unknown kind. 1 The third was in 1531, and
was visible in Europe from the 1st of August till the 3rd of Sep-
tember. This was the great comet of Halley, which returned in
the year 1835. 2 The fourth was in 1532, visible from the 2nd of
October to the 8th of November ; it appeared again in 1661. 3
Lastly, the fifth, in 1533, seen from the middle of June till
August. 4
Contemporaries agree remarkably in their accounts of the in-
sufferable state of the weather in the eventful year 1529. The
winter was particularly mild, and the vegetation was far too early,
so that all the world was rejoicing at the mildness and beauty of
the spring. The people wore violets, at Erfurt, on St. Matthew's
day (the 24th of February), little expecting that this friendly
omen was to precede so severe a calamity. 5 Throughout the
spring and summer wet weather continued to prevail. Constant
torrents of rain overflowed the fields, the rivers passed their
banks ; all hopes of the cultivation were entirely frustrated, 6 and
misery and famine spread in all directions. A heavy rain of four
days' continuance, which took place in the south of Germany in
the middle of June, and was called the St. Vitus's Torrent, is still
remembered in modern times as an unheard-of event. Whole dis-
tricts of country were completely laid under water, and many
persons perished who had not time to save their lives. 7 A similar,
very widely-extended, and perhaps universal, storm again occur-
red on the 10th of August, and occasioned great floods, especially
in Thuringia and Saxony. 8 Upon the whole, the sun rarely
broke through the heavy dark clouds. The latter part of the
summer and the whole of the autumn, with the exception of a
series of hot days which commenced the 24th of August, 9 remain-
1 Pingre, p. 486. Angelas, p. 318. Crasius, Vol. II. p. 223.
2 Pingre, p. 487. Campo, p. 154. Angelus, p. 320, and numerous other accounts. It
performs its revolution in 76 years, and was observed in 1456, 1531, 1607, 16S2, and
1759.
3 Pingre, p. 491. Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 433. b.
4 Pingre, p. 496. Angelas, p. 322. Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 435. a.
5 Erfurt Chronicle. Spangenberg, who has availed himself frequently of this
chronicle, makes use of the same words, M. Chr. fol. 431. b.
6 They called the sour wine of this year den Wiedertiiufer-Wein ; the Anabaptist
wine. Schicelin, p. 144.
i Crusius, Vol. II. p. 323. St. Titus's day is on the 15th of June. On the river
Neckar, at Heidelberg, they took out a child which had floated down the stream in its
cradle unharmed for a distance of six (German) miles. Franck, fol. 252. b.
K Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 432. a. 9 Klemzen, p. 254.
15
226 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
ed gloomy, cold, and wet. People fancied they were breathing
the foggy air of Britain. 1
We ought not to omit here to notice that in the north of Ger-
many, and especially in the March of Brandenburg, eating fish,
which were caught in great abundance, was generally esteemed
detrimental. Malignant and contagious diseases were said to
have been traced to this cause, and it was a matter of surprise
that the only food which nature bounteously bestowed was so de-
cidedly injurious. 2 It might be difficult now to discover the cause
of this phenomenon, of which we possess only isolated notices,
yet, passing over all other conjectures, it is quite credible either
that an actual fish poison was developed, 3 or, if this notion be re-
jected, that a disordered condition of life, such as must be sup-
posed to have existed in a great famine, rendered fish prejudicial
to health, in the same way as sometimes occurs after protracted
intermittent fevers, when the functions of the bowels are disturb-
ed in a manner peculiar to this disease.
But it was not the inhabitants of the water alone which were
affected by hidden causes of excitement in collective organic life ;
the fowls of the air likewise sickened, who, in their delicate and
irritable organs of respiration, feel the injurious influence of the
atmosphere much earlier and more sensitively than any of the
unfeathered tribes, and have often been the harbingers of great
danger, ere man was aware of its approach. In the neighbour-
hood of Freyburg in the Breisgau, dead birds were found scatter-
ed under the trees, with boils as large as peas under their wings,
which indicated among them a disease, that in all probability
extended far beyond the southern districts of the Rhine. 4
The famine in Germany, during this year, is described by re-
spectable authorities in a tone of deep sympathy. S wabia, Lorraine,
Alsace, and the other southern countries bordering on the Rhine,
were especially visited, so that misery there reached the same
frightful height as in France. The poor emigrated and roved
over the country, solely to prolong their wretched existence.
Above a thousand of these half-starved mendicants came to Stras-
burg out of Swabia. They obtained shelter in a monastery, and
1 Schwelin, p. 144. Xewenar, fol. 69. a. "fecit tanien huius anni, ac fortasse ctiuni
praecedentium intemperies, fluminum exundationes, frigora cum humiditatc perpetuo
coniuncta, ut jam in Germania Britannicus quidam air suscitatus videri 2)ossit."
Similar accounts arc met with in almost all the chronicles.
2 Leuthinger, p. 90. see " Scriptorum," etc.
3 Compare Autenrieth's excellent work on this subject.
1 Si-killer, sect. I. cap. 2. fol. 3. b.
NATURAL OCCURRENCES. — PROGNOSTICS. 227
attempts were made to revive them, yet many were unable to
bear the food that was placed before them. Attention and
nourishment did but hasten their death. Another body of more
than eight hundred came in the autumn from Lorraine. These
unfortunate people were kept in the city, and fed during the
whole winter, 1 yet it is easy to conceive that this benevolence,
which was no doubt likewise exercised in other cities, 2 — for when
was humanity ever found wanting in Germany ? — could only oc-
casionally alleviate this deeply-rooted calamity. In the Venetian
territories, many hundreds are said to have perished with hunger,
and a like distress probably prevailed all over Tipper Italy.
In the north of Germany, including the extensive sandy plains,
on which wet weather is not so injurious in its effect as on a heavy
clayey soil, the state of the country was upon the whole more
tolerable ; 3 yet, independently of the innumerable evils to which
a scarcity gives rise, suicide was more frequent? which was cer-
tainly a rarity in the sixteenth century, and only explicable by
supposing that the powers of the mind became exhausted by the
many and various passions, which in every individual locality
excited a spirit of hatred and party feeling. The consequence of
such a state of turmoil is a cold disgust of life, which finds, in
the first adverse event that may occur, a pretext for self-destruc-
tion, that want alone would seldom if ever occasion : for man, if
his spirit be unbroken, runs the chance of starvation in times of
famine, and trusts to the faintest gleam of hope, rather than, of
his own accord, abandon the enjoyment of life.
It is no less in point here to notice a kind of faint lassitude,
which, to the great astonishment of the people, was felt, especial-
ly in Pomerania, in June and July, 5 up to the very period when
the Sweating Sickness broke out. In the midst of their work, and
without any conceivable cause, people became palsied in their
hands and feet, so that even if their lives had depended upon it,
they were incapable .of the slightest exertion. The treatment
which was found successful, was to cover the patients warmly, and
to supply them with nourishing food, of which they ate plenti-
1 Franck, f'ol. 243. b.
2 Basle among others was particularly distinguished. Stealer, part II. p. 34.
3 Spangenberg, loc. cit. 4 Leuthinger, p. 89.
5 From Whitsuntide till towards St. James's day, the 25th of July. Klemzen,
p. 2.54.
6 Two masters of vessels, who had quitted the helm from a sudden attack of this
kind, were in danger of grounding upon the Mole. Their situation was, however,
noticed, and they were saved. Klemzen.
15*
228 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
fully, and thus recovered again in three or four days. Pheno-
mena of this kind, which in the present instance evidently
depended on atmospherical influence, are but the extreme grada-
tions of a generally morbid dulness of vital feeling, which might
easily pass into an actual disgust of life, such as would lead to
suicide.
The following years were by no means all marked by a com-
plete failure in produce. The year 1530 was, on the contrary,
plentiful, there being only some partial failures, as, for example,
that which arose from a great flood in the district of the Saal,
which occurred in the midst of the harvest time. 1 A very cold
spring and a wet cold summer followed in 1531, with only oc-
casional fine days ; yet the ground was not altogether unpro-
ductive, and the great distress which would otherwise have been
felt in Thuringia and Saxony, was checked by the establishment
of granaries, so that the people were not obliged, as they often
were in Swabia, to mow the green corn that they might dry the
ears in ovens, and support life upon the yet unripe grain.
The years 1532 and 1533 were again very sterile, as also
1534, in consequence of the great heat and dryness of the summer.
Finally, in the year 1535, the regular change of the seasons, and
with it a prosperous state of cultivation, seemed to be restored,
and the scarcity ceased. 2 The reports from different localities in
Germany vary much, but the scarcity prevailed for full seven
years 3 (from 1528 to 1534), and since its causes were not dis-
coverable, because it was only seen by each observer in his own
narrow circle, the old German adage was often called to mind :
" If there is to be a scarcity, it is of no avail even should all the
mountains be made of flour." 4
Sect. 5. — Sweating Sickness in Germany, 1529.
These facts are sufficient for a preliminary sketch of the back-
ground on which moved the spectre of England, to which we
now return. How long the sweating sickness may have raged
there after Henry the Vlllth quitted his secluded place of refuge
in order to return to his capital, no one has left an}^ written ac-
count to show. That it spread very rapidly over the whole king-
1 Spangcnberg, M. Chr. fol. 432. a.
- Ibid. fol. 433. a. 435. b. Schioelin, pp. 149. 150.
3 A Cbroniclcr of the Marches even assures us that it lasted until 1546. Annates
Bcrol. Marchic : but the other contemporary writers contradict this.
1 Spangenberg, fol. 432. a.
SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY. 229
dom is decidedly to be presumed, and might probably still be
easily ascertainable from the written records of different places.
The notion that it did not rage violently in any town more than
a few weeks, is justified by corresponding phenomena of more re-
cent occurrence, yet no doubt it continued to exist among the
people, though in a mitigated degree, till the mild winter season.
But there are not even the slightest data by which it can be made
out that it was still in England during the summer of 1529. As
an epidemic it certainly existed no longer, yet on a consideration
of the state of the air in that year, it is not to be denied that
isolated cases of Sweating Fever may have appeared ; for in pesti-
lences of this kind, provided their original causes continue, there
always occur some straggling cases. 1 The Sweating Sickness did
not advance westward to Ireland, nor did it pass the Scottish
border ; the historians, who would certainly have recorded so
calamitous an event, are entirely silent respecting such an occur-
rence. The tragedy was, however, destined to be enacted else-
where ; other nations were to play their part in it.
Hamburgh was the first place on the continent in which the
Sweating Sickness broke out. Men's minds were still in great
excitement there in consequence of the events of the few preced-
ing months. The Protestants had, after long and stormy contests,
at length vanquished the Papists. Under the wise direction of
Bugenhagen the great work of Reformation was just completed.
The monasteries were abolished, the monks dismissed, schools
were established, and peace again returned with the enjoyment of
ecclesiastical freedom. Just at this moment 2 the dreaded pesti-
lence, of which wonderful accounts had been so long and so often
heard, unexpectedly made its appearance. It immediately ex-
cited, as it had ever done in England, general dismay, and before
any instructions as to its treatment could be obtained, either from
the English or from Germans who had been in England, it de-
stroyed daily from forty to sixty, and altogether, within the space
of twenty-two days, 3 about 1100 inhabitants, for such was the
number of coffins which were at this time manufactured by the
undertakers. The duration of the great mortality, for thus we
1 Neicenar indeed maintains that the Sweating Fever used to break out in England
every year, fol. 68. b., but such general and unsupported assertions coming from
foreigners (the Graf Hermann von Neicenar was provost of Cologne) are wholly un-
worthy of credence.
2 About the 25th of July.
s From St. James's day, the 25th of July, until the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary mi the loth of August. Staphorst.
230 Tin: sweating sickness.
would designate the more violent raging of this pestilence, was,
however, much shorter, and may be roughly estimated at about
nine days, for from the fragment of a letter received from Ham-
burgh, which was dispatched to Wittenberg on the 8th of August,
by a person who was at that time burgomaster, it appears that,
for some days past, no one had died of the Sweating Fever, ex-
cepting one or two drunkards, and that the citizens were then be-
ginning to take breath again. We may thus judge, from the
unauthenticated account here mentioned, that the disease lasted
about a fortnight longer, and that the loss of lives amounted to 2000.
At all events, however, the pestilence manifested itself on the
continent with the same malignity which was peculiar to it from
the first, and if the assertion made at a distance respecting the
mortality in Hamburgh were overcharged, 1 yet tliere certainly
existed sufficient foundation for exaggerations of this sort, which
are never wanting in times of such great danger. The historians
of this, even at that time, powerful and civilized commercial town,
have on the whole said but little regarding this important event
— a circumstance easily explicable from the constant occupation
of men's minds in religious affairs, and from the well-known short
visitation of the epidemic, which, like a transient meteor, needed
quick and cautious observation if any valuable information re-
specting the occurrence was to be transmitted to posterity. Some
particulars of its first origin have, however, been preserved amid
a mass of general assertions which convey no information. Thus
it appears that the Sweating Sickness did not show itself in the
town until a Captain Hermann Evers, just about the time men-
tioned (the 25th of July), returned from England, bringing on
board with him a number of young people (probably travellers as
well as sailors), of whom at least twelve died of this disease with-
in two days. 2 According to another account, those who died
1 It appears, for instance, somewhere in the second volume of Leibnitz, Scriptores
rerum Brunsvicensium, that 8000 people had died of the Sweating Fever in Hamburgh.
An unknown Chronicler in Staphorst, Part II. vol. I. p. 85, states 2000.
2 " Moreover in the year 1529, about St. James's day, Almighty God sent a terrible
disease upon the city of Hamburgh; it was the Sweating Sickness, which showed itself
in a different manner, and began when Captain Hermann Evers came from England on
St. James's day with many young companions, of whom, in the course of two days,
twelve died of this disease, which was unknown as well in Hamburgh as in other
countries, so that the oldest person did not recollect to have seen a similar disease."
An unknown eye-witness, quoted in Staphorst, Part IT. Vol. I. p. 83. Another person
expresses himself to the same effect, p. 85. " The disease had its origin in England,
for the people were there attacked in the street when they came on shore, and those
who oame in contact with them, many of whom were of the lower class, took it."
SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY. 231
were not taken ill in England, but on the voyage, and the pesti-
lence broke out after the rest of the crew had disembarked. On
this point we have further a most respectable testimony to the
fact, that in the night after the landing of Hermann Evers, four
men died in Hamburgh of the Sweating Sickness. 1
If we examine a little more closely these very valuable accounts,
the credibility of which there is no reason to doubt, it must espe-
cially be taken into account, that at this time the Sweating Sick-
ness had ceased to exist as an epidemic in England for at least
half a year, that its appearance in single cases, although not con-
tradictory to general views, is nevertheless by no means borne
out by proof from historical evidence, and that thus it is a gratui-
tous and unsupported assumption that the return of Hermann
Evers' crew was connected with any Sweating Sickness at all in
England. If we consider, on the other hand, that the North Sea,
even in ordinary years, is very foggy, so that, owing to the pre-
valence of north-west winds, it pi'ecipitates very heavy rain clouds
over Germany ; and if we bear in mind, that in the year 1529 it
produced far heavier fogs than usual, we shall perceive in its waters
the principal cause why the English Sweating Sickness was then
developed in its greatest violence, and we may thence assume,
with a greater degree of probability, that this pestilence broke
out among the crew of Hermann Evers spontaneously, and with-
out any connexion with England, in the same way, perhaps, as
it did formerly on board Henry the VHth's fleet. This supposi-
tion is strengthened by the circumstance that the ships of those
times were excessively filthy, and the kind of life spent on board
them was, independently of the wretched provision, uncomfortable
in the highest degree, nay, almost insupportable, so that even in
short voyages, the scurvy, which was the dread of sailors in those
days, was of very common occurrence. Finally, we still possess
the most distinct accounts, that unusual occurrences took place in
the North Seas. Thus during Lent it was observed with astonish-
ment at Stettin, that porpoises came in numbers up the frische
Haff as far as the bridge, and that the Baltic cast on its shores
many dead animals of this kind, 2 so that we are fully justified in
Notices of uncertain date to be found in Adelung, at p. 77. Steltzncr, Part II. p. 219.
In the abbrev. Ilamb. Chron. p. 45, and elsewhere.
1 "As soon as the ship arrived in Hamburgh people began to die throughout the city,
and in the morning it was rumoured that four persons had (bed of it." From Itcimar
Kock's MS. Chron. of Liibeck. For the extract from it the author is indebted to (he
kindness of Professor Ackermann of Liibeck.
2 Klemzen, p. 251. It was thought that the waters of the Baltic were poisoned.
232 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
concluding that there existed at that time a more intense develop-
ment than usual of morbific influences in the marine atmosphere.
"With respect, however, to the influence which the companions
of Hermann Evers, impregnated as they were with the odour of
the Sweating Sickness, had on the inhabitants of Hamburgh, it
cannot be denied, that their intercourse with those inhabitants, in
the filthy and narrow lanes of that commercial city, may have
given an impulse to the eruption of the pestilence, so far as to
make the already existing fuel more inflammable, or to furnish
the first sparks for its ignition : yet it is equally undeniable that,
under the existing circumstances, the epidemic Sweating Sick-
ness would have broken out in Germany even without the pre-
sence of Captain Evers, although it might, perhaps, have been
some weeks later, and not have made its first appearance in
Hamburgh, whose inhabitants, owing to the constant prevalence
of the North Sea fog, were, to all appearance, already prepared
for the first reception of this fatal disease.
To determine to a day when epidemics which have been long
in preparation have broken out, is, even for an observer who is
present, exceedingly difficult, nay, sometimes, under the most
favourable circumstances, impossible ; for there occur in these
visitations, certain transitions into the epidemic form of dis-
eases which are allied to it, as well as a gradual conversion into
it of morbid phenomena, which have usually begun some time
before. Unless we are greatly mistaken, such was the case in
the pestilence of which we are now treating ; although it must be
confessed, that we can obtain no precise information on this
point from the physicians of those times. The following state-
ments, for the absolute precision of which we cannot pledge our-
selves after a lapse of 300 years, must therefore be judged ac-
cording to this general experience ; and though singly they may
prove little, yet taken all together, they are capable of demonstrat-
ing the peculiar and almost wonderful manner in which the
Sweating Fever spread over Germany.
In Lubeck, the next city in the Baltic, the Sweating Sickness
appeared about the same time ; for so early as the Friday before
St. Peter in vinculis (30th of July), it was known, that on the
preceding night a woman had died of it. 1 On the following days
cases of death fearfully increased, and the disorder soon raged so
violently, that people were again reminded of the Black Death
1 Iieimar Koch's Chronicle of Lubeck.
SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY. 233
of 1349. The inhabitants died without number, as well in the
city as in the environs, and the consternation was equal to that
felt in Hamburgh. 1 In general, as was everywhere the case,
robust young people of the better classes were affected, while on
the other hand, children and poor people living in cellars and
garrets almost all of them escaped. 2
Now one might, either on the supposition of a progressive
alteration in the atmosphere, such as occurs in the influenza, or
on that of a communication of the disease from man to man,
which, however, cannot be considered as a principal cause of this
epidemic, have expected a gradual extension of the Sweating
Sickness from Hamburgh and Lubeck to the surrounding country.
This did not, however, in fact take place ; for the disease next
broke out at Twickau, at the foot of the Erzgebirge, distant
from Hamburgh fifty German miles, and without having pre-
viously visited the rich commercial city of Leipzig. By the 14th
of August, nineteen persons who had died of it were buried at
Twickau ; and on one of the following nights above a hundred 3
sickened, whence it is to be deduced that the pestilence was
severe at that place.
Possibly the great storm on the 10th of August may have
given an impulse to the development of this very remarkable
epidemic ; for a highly electrical state of the atmosphere in-
creases the susceptibility for diseases. It is likewise not to be
overlooked, that on the 24th of August, while the sky was over-
cast there came on an insufferable heat/ which must have de-
bilitated the body after such long-continued cold wet weather.
At all events, in the beginning of September, we find that the
Sweating Fever broke out at the same time at Stettin, Dantzig,
and other Prussian cities ; at Augsburg ', far to the south on the
other side of the Danube, at Cologne on the Rhine, at Strasbourg,
at Frankfort on the Maine, at Marburg, 5 at Gotiingcn, and at
Hanover? The position of these cities gives an impressive
notion of the extent of country of which the English Sweating
Sickness took possession, as it were by a magic stroke. It was
like a violent conflagration, which spread in all directions ; the
flames, however, did not issue from one focus, but rose up every -
'- "In the year 1529, this violent disease passed in a very short time all over Ger-
many, and in Lubeck many of its most distinguished citizens died on the vigil of St.
Peter in Vinculis." Rvykman, p. 13.5. Compare Kirchring, p. 143. Bonn, p. 144.
2 Reimar Kock. 3 Schmidt, p. 307.
4 See above, p. 225 ; and Klemzen, p. 254.
5 Euric. Cordus. 6 Grtmer, Tt. p. 23.
234 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
where, as if self-ignited ; and whilst all this occurred in Germany
and Prussia, the inhabitants of the other northern countries,
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, perhaps also Lithuania, Poland,
and Russia, were likewise visited by this violent disease.
The malady appeared in Stettin on the 31st of August, among
the servants of the Duke. 1 On the 1st of September, the
Duchess herself sickened, in common with many people about
the court, and burgesses in the city. A few days afterwards
several thousands were affected by the disease, so that there was
not a street from which some corpses were not daily carried out.
This dreadful period of terror, however, did not last much longer
than a week, for about the 8th of September the pestilence abated
in its violence, so as no longer to be regarded with terror ; and
after this time only a few isolated cases occurred. 2
On the same day, namely, the 1st of September, the disease
appeared in Dantzig, fifty German miles further to the eastward,
and was here also so destructive that it carried off in a short
time 3000 inhabitants, 3 some say even 6000 — but this seems
certainly too high an estimate for Dantzig, and probably includes
the greater part of Prussia. If we were to give credence to an
anonymous reporter, 4 this plague abated in Jive days, and reliev-
ed the inhabitants from the mortal anxiety which, until they re-
covered their senses, led them everywhere to commit acts of in-
justice and injury to avert the danger.
In Augsburg we find the Sweating Sickness on the 6th of
September. It lasted there also only six days, affected about
1500 of the inhabitants, and destroyed more than half that
number, or, as it is said, about 80 0. 5
At Cologne it appeared precisely at the same time, as we learn
from the expressions of the Count von Newenar, a prelate of that
place, who finished his account of this disorder on the 7th of Sep-
tember. At Strasburg it broke out some ten or twelve days
earlier, namely, on the 24th of August. In this place about
3000 people sickened in one week, but very few of them died. 7
At Frankfort on the Maine they were holding the autumn fair
(which began on the 7th of September) just at the time when
1 Namely, on the Tuesday after the Beheading of John the Baptist (29th Aug.), which
fell on a Sunday, for S. iEgidius was on the "Wednesday. The dates are given through-
out according to Pilgrim's Calendarium chronologicum.
2 Klemzen, p. 255. 3 Curicke, p. 271.
4 Kronica der Preussen, fol. 191. h.
5 SteMer, II. p. 33. 6 In Gratorol. fol. 74. h.
7 G rioter, It. p. 25, according to MS. Chronicles.
SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY. 235
the Sweating Sickness prevailed, 1 whence arose the opinion,
which has been broached again in more modern times, 2 that the
traders on their return carried the disease thence throughout the
whole of Germany, and that in the intercourse by means of this
fair, the main cause of the spread of the epidemic was to be found.
After the facts which have been brought forward, such a narrow
view needs no refutation. The Sweating Sickness was fleeter
than the conveyances of goods and people, which at that time
made their way along the pathless and unbeaten roads ; for "no
sooner did a rumour of the approach of the disease reach any
place than the disease itself accompanied it." 3
Between the boundaries which have been indicated, only a few
isolated towns and villages escaped, and there are probably
few of the chronicles of that age, so proline of great events, in
which the dreadful scourge of the year 1529 is not expressly
mentioned ; yet the sweating fever, like other great epidemics,
spread, doubtless, very unequally, and it is ascertained that the
further south it extended, the milder it was upon the whole ;
and also that all those places where it broke out late suffered be-
yond comparison less than those which were visited early in Sep-
tember and in the latter part of August ; for not to lay much
stress on the sultry heat from the 24th of August, which proba-
bly did not last long, the chief cause of its great malignity at
first was the violent method resorted to in the treatment of the
sick, the inapplicability of which was fortunately soon perceived.
Only one citizen was affected with the Sweating Sickness in Mar-
burg, and even he recovered, 4 whilst at Leipzig the pestilence
either never broke out at all or very much later, perhaps in Octo-
ber or November ; for the physicians of that place gave it clearly
to be understood in their pamphlets, that they knew nothing of
the disease from their own observations, 5 and no sooner did the
report get abroad that the dreaded enemy had not penetrated
within the walls of this commercial city, than crowds of fugitives
came thither from far and near in order to seek protection and
security, although the place in itself was by no means fitted for a
place of refuge, for the swampy atmosphere which rose from the
• Franck, fol. 253. a.
* By Joseph Franck, in the latest edition of his Traxeos Medicrc Universe Tnrcepta.
Compare Gruner, It. p. 28.
3 Klemzen, p. 254.
4 This appears from a letter of Euricius Cordus to the Hessian private secretary,
Jo/i. Ban von Nordeck, at the end of the 2nd edition of his Regimen.
5 Mar/mis Ilnndt closed his on the 7th Octoher.
236 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and dark
streets, many lingering diseases. 1
Sect. 6. — In the Netherlands.
It is remarkable that the Netherlands were visited by the
Sweating Fever 2 full four weeks later, although the commercial
intercourse with England, if we were to attach any especial im-
portance to this circumstance, was far more considerable than that
of the German cities in the North Sea. It appeared for the first
time in Amsterdam on the 27th of September in the forenoon,
whilst the city was enveloped in a thick fog, 3 and just at the same
time, perhaps a day earlier, in Antwerp, where, on the 29th of
September, they made a solemn procession in order by prayer to
avert greater harm from the city ; for in the last days of Sep-
tember 400 to 500 people died of the English Sweating Sickness
at that place. 4 It might have been supposed that the damp soil
of Holland, and its impenetrable fogs, would invite the pestilence
much earlier than the high and serene country between the Alps
and the Danube, or the far distant land of Prussia, but the de-
velopment of epidemics follows no human calculation or medical
views ! In the towns around Amsterdam the Sweating Fever ap-
pears not to have broken out until the mortality had ceased in
that city, that is to say, five days after the 27th of September,
so that we cannot be far wrong in assuming that in the latter
end of that month, and the commencement of October, it had
spread over the whole territory of the Netherlands, including
Belgium. 5 Alkmaar and Waterland remained free, 6 as doubtless
had been the case with particular places both in England and
Germany.
The exceedingly short time that the Sweating Sickness lasted in
the different places that it visited, was as astonishing as its
original appearance. For since it raged in Amsterdam for only
1 Bayer von Elbogen, cap. 7.
2 It was called there the Ingelsche Sweetsieckte, or the Sweating Sickness.
* Forest. L. VI. Obs. VII. Schol. p. 157. Obs. VIII. c. Schol. p. 158. Wagenaar,
T. II. p. 508.
4 Pontan. p. 762. Haraeus, T. I. p. 581. Antwerpsch Chronykje, p. 31. Ditmar,
p. 473.
5 "Laquelle (sa suette) s'estendit par le pays d'Oostlande, de Hollandc, Zeelandc,
et autres des pays bas, on en etoit endedens vingt et quatre heures mort ou guarry, elle
ne dura in Zeelande pour le plus que 15 jours, dont plusieurs en moururent." Le Petit,
T. T. Livr. VII. p. 81.
Forest, loc. tit.
DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY. 237
five days, and not much longer, as we have shown, in Antwerp
and many German towns, it could hardly have continued more
than fifteen days in any other places ; thus displaying the same
peculiarity on this occasion by which it had already been marked
in its former visitations. This short period, however, must not
be understood to include the sporadic occurrence of the disease,
otherwise, as a contemporary of credit assures us, that the sweat-
ing fever attacked some persons twice and others three or even
four times, 1 we might thence conclude, that, although perhaps in
some places the pestilence did, after raging for a certain number
of days, suddenly cease, so that no isolated cases afterwards
occurred, yet that the general duration of its prevalence was long-
er than has been stated.
Sect. 7. — Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
The eruption of the Sweating Fever in Denmark 2 took place
at the latter end of September, for on the 29th of that month, four
hundred of the inhabitants died of it at Copenhagen. 3 Elsinore
was likewise severely visited, 4 and probably, about the same time,
most of the towns and villages in that kingdom. But the ac-
counts on this subject in the Danish Chronicles are extremely
defective, 5 as owing to the extraordinaiy rapidity of this mortal
malady, contemporary writers neglected to record, for the in-
formation of posterity, the details of a phenomenon, which there,
as in other countries, must certainly have been striking from
its general prevalence. Even from the imperfect notices that
were given respecting it, thus much, however, is clearly percept-
ible, that it was the same well-known disease as elsewhere, which
was now observed to pass through Denmark. In proof of this,
it was principally young and strong people, as had been origin-
ally the case in England, who sickened, the old and infirm being
less affected, and in the course of four and twenty hours, or
at most within two days (?), the life or death of the patient was
decided.
1 Erasm. Epist. Lib. XXVI. ep. 58. col. 1477- b. At Zerbst the Sweating Fever
lasted, in like manner, only five days. Gruner, It. p. 29.
2 It was called there "den engelske Svcd."
3 Frederick 1. Histor. p. 181. The same words in Huitfeld, T. II. p. 1315.
4 Boesens Bcskrivelse over Helsingoer. For this statement the author has to thank
Dr. Mansa, regimental physician at Copenhagen.
5 Dr. Baden, D.C.L., took much pains, at the request of Gruner, in making re-
searches, but has elicited nothing more than Unit/eld has given. A copy of his Latin
letter to Gruner on this subject has likewise reached the author through Dr. Mansa.
238 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
At the same period as in Denmark, the Sweating Sickness
spread over the Scandinavian Peninsula, and was productive of
the same violent symptoms in the sick, the same terror, and the
same mortal anguish in those who were affected by it, not only
in the capital of Sweden, where Magnus Erikson, brother of king
Gustavus Wasa, died of it, but also over the whole kingdom, and
in Norway. The northern historians gave graphic accounts of it,
which, on a careful examination of manuscript documents, might
perhaps gain still more in colouring and spirit. 1 That the Sweat-
ing Sickness likewise penetrated into Lithuania, Poland, and
Livonia, if not into a part of Russia, we know only in a general
way, 2 but doubtless there are written documents still in existence
in these countries, which only need some careful inquirer to
bring them to light. In the mean time, however, it is to be pre-
sumed, 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 dis-
eases. 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 gener-
ation which it visited.
1 Dalin, D. III. p. 221. Engelske Svetten. In Tegel's History of King Gustavus I.
Part I. p. 267, general notices only arc to be found respecting the English Sweating
Sickness in Sweden, without any exact date (autumn of 1529) or description of the
disease, such as are met witli without number in the German Chronicles. Sven Hedin
clearly estimates the mortality in the epidemic sweating fever too highly, when he
compares it, p. 27, with the depopulation caused by the Black Death. He gives (p.
47) a striking passage on the Sweating Sickness from Linneus's pathological preelections.
The great naturalist has, however, allowed free scope to his imagination, and, like all
the physicians of modern times who have delivered their sentiments on the English
Sweating Sickness, knows far too little of the facts to be able to form a right judgment
on the subject. (Supplement till Handboken for Praktiska Lakarevetcnskapon, riJrande
cpidemiska och smittosamrna sjukdomar i allmauhct, och siirdeles de Pcstilentialiska.
1 sta St. Stockholm, 1805. 8vo.)
3 From Reimar Koch's MS. Chronicle of Liibeck, and Forest, loc. cit. Compare
Gruner's Itinerarium, which is prepared throughout with laudable and even tedious
diligence, but which met with so little acknowledgment in the Brunonian age, that it
has already become a rare work.
TERROR. 239
Sect. 8. — Terror.
The alarm which prevailed in Germany surpasses all descrip-
tion, and bordered upon maniacal despair. As soon as the pesti-
lence 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 dis-
course 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 2)erspire for twenty-four hours without inter-
mission} So they put the patients, whether they had the Sweat-
ing Sickness or not (for who had calmness enough to distinguish
it ?), instantly to bed, covered them with feather-beds and furs,
and whilst the stove was heated to the utmost, closed the doors
and windows with the greatest care to prevent all access of cool
air. In order, moreover, to prevent the sufferer, should he be
somewhat impatient, from throwing off his hot load, some persons
in health likewise lay upon him, and thus oppressed him to such
a degree, that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and finally, in
this rehearsal of hell, being bathed in an agonizing sweat, gave
up the ghost, when, perhaps, if his too officious relatives had
manifested a little discretion, he might have been saved without
difficulty. 2
There dwelt a physician in Zwickau — we no longer know the
name of this estimable man — who, full of zeal for the good of
mankind, opposed this destructive folly. He went from house to
1 "According to which it was given out by some, that a sweat must be kept up for
twenty-four hours in succession, and in the mean time, that no air should be admitted
to the patient. This treatment sent many to their graves." — Erfurt Chronicle.
2 Erfurt Chronicle, and in the same strain Spangenberg, M. Chr. fol. 402. b.
Pomarius, p. 617, and Schmidt, p. 305. Gemma writes of the Netherlands, L. I.
c. 8. p. 189, having received his account from his father, who was himself the subject
of the Sweating Sickness : " Cousuti (sewn up) et violenter opcrti clamitabant
misere, obtestabantur Deuni atque hominum fidem, sesc dimitterent, se suffocari
inicctis molibus, sesc vitam in summit angustiis exhalare, sed assistentes has querelas
ex rabie proficisci, med'icorum opinione ;je/suasj, urgebant continue usque ad 24
horas," etc.
240 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
house, and wherever he found a patient buried in a hot bed, dragged
him out with his own hands, everywhere forbad that the sick should
thus be tortured with heat, and saved by his decisive conduct
many, who but for him, must have been smothered like the rest. 1
It often happened, at this time, that amidst a circle of friends, if
the Sweating Sickness was only brought to mind by a single word,
first one, and then another, was seized with a tormenting anguish,
their blood curdled, and, certain of their destruction, they quietly
slunk away home, and there actually became a prey to death. 2
This mortal fear is a heavy addition to the scourge of rapidly fatal
epidemics, and is, properly speaking, an inflammatory disease of
the mind, which, in its proximate effects upon the spirits, bears
some resemblance to the nightmare. It confuses the understand-
ing, so as to render it incapable of estimating external circum-
stances according to their true relations to each other ; it magni-
fies a gnat into a monster, a distant improbable danger into a
horrible spectre which takes a firm hold of the imagination ; all
actions are perverted, and if, during this state of distraction, any
other disease break out, the patient conceives that he is the devoted
victim of the much-dreaded epidemic, like those unfortunate per-
sons, who, having been bitten by a harmless animal, nevertheless
become the subjects of an imaginary hydrophobia. Thus, during
the calamitous autumn of 1529, many may have been seized with
only an imaginary Sweating Sickness, and under the towering
heap of clothing on their loaded beds have met with their graves. 3
( )thers among these brain-sick people who had the good fortune
to remain exempt from bodily ailments, many of them even boast-
ing of their firmness, fell, through the violent commotions in their
nerves, into a state of chronic hypochondriasis, which, under cir-
cumstances of this sort, is marked by shuddering, and a feeling of
uneasiness and dread at the bare mention of the original cause of
terror, even when there is no longer any trace of its existence. 4
A person thus disordered in his mind, was recently seen to destroy
himself 5 on receiving false intelligence of the return of the late
1 Schmidt, loc. cit.
2 " Animos omnium terrore pcrculit adeo tit myitis met its ct imaginatio mar-
bum conciliarit." Erasm. Epist. L. XXVI. cp. 56. c. 1476. a. Spangetiberg, loc. cit.
3 " Many an one sweats for fear and thinks he has the English sweat, and when he
afterwards hath slept it off, acknowledges that it was all nonsense." Bayer v. Elbogen,
cap. 8.
4 The author could adduce some extraordinary instances of this kind which have oc •
curred in his own practice.
5 It was a greengrocer in Paris. Berliner Vossische Zcituiig, Sept, 2, 1833.
TERROR. 241
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 pre-
pared for this state, we have but to think on the monstrous events
which took place in Germany. Twelve years earlier the gigantic
work of the Reformation had been begun by the greatest German
of that age, and, with the Divine power of the gospel, triumphantly
carried through up to that period. The excitement was beyond
all bounds. The new doctrine took root in towns and villages,
but nevertheless, the most mortal party hatred raged on all sides,
and, as usually happens in times of such impassioned commotion,
selfishness was the animating spirit which ruled on both sides, and
seized the torch of faith, in order, for her unholy purposes, to en-
velope the world in fire and flames.
So early as the year 1521, during Luther's concealment within
the walls of Wartburg, false prophets 1 arose, and desired, without
the aid of their great master, who was the soul of that age, to
complete a work with the spirit of which they were not imbued.
They brought the wildest passions into action, but, destitute of in-
nate 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 answer-
able ; not perceiving that it was the excitement of the times and
of the false proph.ts 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 in-
sane part without opposition, the melancholy result was, that
hundreds of thousands of once peaceful, and for the most part mis-
led, 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 Miinzcr's
subsequent execution, closed this bloody scene. The consequences
of such intestine commotions continued however to be felt long
after, and considered apart from their highly prejudicial influence
1 Carlstadt, Nic. Storc/i, Marcus T/ionui, Marits Stubner, Martin CeHarius, ami
Thomas Miinzer.
16
242 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
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. 1
Sect. 9. — Moral Consequences.
The dejection was increased by the universally active spirit of
persecution with which it was still hoped to eradicate the new
doctrine. Even whilst the English pestilence was raging, two
Protestants were burnt at Cologne. 2 In the same year faggots
blazed at Mecklin, Verden, and Paris, by the flames of which the
ancient faith was to be protected against the pestilence of freedom
of thought. Sentences of death were also quite commonly pro-
nounced against the Anabaptists in Protestant countries. The
University of Leipzig pronounced a condemnation of this sort in
the year 1529, and in Freistadt eleven women were drowned after
a nominal trial and sentence, because they acknowledged that they
were of this sect. 3 Amidst these dissensions, and when the empire
was in this helpless condition, came the fear of the barbarians of
the south, who had already conquered Hungary under their Sultan
Soliman, and, whilst the English Sweat was raging in the coun-
tries of the Danube, threatened to overwhelm Germany. It was
a time of distress and lamentations, in which even the most un-
daunted could scarcely sustain their courage ; 4 but to the everlast-
ing honour of the Germans it must be acknowledged that they
withstood this purifying fire with unsullied honour, and in a man-
ner 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.
1 " For all love hath grown cold in all nations ; the axe lieth at the root of the tree,
the rope is already applied, no one ohserveth it. For the world is stricken with thick
blindness, faith is extinguished. All singleness and Godly fear hath withdrawn from
the land for ever, and nothing hut false hypocritical make-believe work is to be found
among the Baptists, and at most a false, fictitious, fruitless, dead, tottering faith in the
other sects, and yet the world thinks, notwithstanding, that she sees and sits in light.
In short, for the one devil of the Baptists whom she has driven out, she is beset with
seven more subtle and wickeder spirits, though she think that she be freed, and that
they be all gone forth." Franck, fol. 248, a. This same Chronicle contains a very
lively description of the Peasant-war.
3 Ad. Clarenbach and Peter Flistedt. 3 Schmidt, p. 308.
* Nusquam pax, nullum iter tutum est, rerum charitate, penuria, fame, pcstilcntia
laboratur ubique, sectis dissecta sunt omnia : ad tantam malorum lernam accessit letalis
sudor, multos intra horas octo tollens e medio, etc. Erasm. Epist. L. XXVI. ep. 5S. c.
1477. b.
MORAL CONSEQUENCES. 243
The siege of Vienna began on the 22nd of September, after the
English pestilence had broken out in this capital of Austria, yet
nobody regarded this internal danger.. The repeated attempts
made by the Turks to storm the town were repulsed with great
courage, and, on the 15th of October, Soliman raised the siege,
after the Sweating Sickness had raged with as much violence
among his troops as among the besieged. 1 There is no accu-
rate intelligence extant upon this subject, because the pestilence
was less regarded here than elsewhere, in consequence of the
great distress of the country from other causes, yet the mortality
in Austria, under such unfavourable circumstances, was doubtless
more considerable than in the neighbouring states. 2
In the north of Germany another struggle was to be decided.
The evangelical party wished to declare their faith before the em-
pire 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 anxietj r
which at that time agitated the people. In the midst of a country
whose inhabitants trembled at the new disease, and were perhaps
already severely afflicted with it, did Luther, whilst at Marburg, 3
sketch the first outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled
up by Melancthon, has become the foundation-stone of the evan-
gelical church ; and in the following spring, during his stay at
Coburg, he composed his sublime hymn, " Eine feste burg ist
unser Gott," a strong fortress is our God.
It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which
took place in these years, especial importance would be attributed
to the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in
the narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God ; and, indeed,
this representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in
all religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of
humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind
and body, of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived
by a superior insight into things ; and the mean selfishness of
mankind and their delusions respecting their own qualities induce
them to adopt the more easily the partial view, that the Supreme
Being allows pestilences to exist only to destroy their enemies of
another faith. On this account, not only do most contemporary
1 Fuhrmann, Part II. p. 74o.
2 Chronicon Monastcrii Mellicensis. In Pez, T. I. col. 2S5.
3 The Assembly of the Reformers began there on the 2nd of October.
16 *
244 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
writers speak of the just wrath of God, and of the chastisement
thus prepared for the sins of the world, 1 but the papal party took
every possible pains to represent the English pestilence as a
punishment for heresy and an evident warning against the tri-
umphant 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 occurience of circumstances, for
1529 was a year when great and important questions were decid-
ed. At Liibeck, the monks in general preached that the Eng-
lish sweating fever was but a punishment which heaven inflicted
on the Martincans, for so they called the followers of Luther,
and the people were not undeceived until they saw with astonish-
ment that Catholics also fell sick and died. 2 They went, how-
ever, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood
and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that
the meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2nd of October,
had led to no union among them, because a panic at the new dis-
ease had seized the heretics. 3 Never did a dastardly fear of death
enter the heart of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at
Wittenberg in 1527, cheerfully and courageously remained at
his post whilst all around him fled, and the high school was
removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have seen, the Sweating
Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union of the
two evcngelical churches failed on totally different grounds.
In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to en-
deavour 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 Claren-
bach. 4 To the completion of this picture of the times, many
other minor touches might be added, of which the following may
1 The pamphlet written by Magnus Hundt is ornamented with a wood-cut, where,
under the throne of God and seated on lions who are spitting forth fire, a great host of
angels, armed with swords, are hovering round men, whom they treat worse than
Herod's soldiers treated the children of Bethlehem.
2 Reimar Kock's Chronicle of Liibeck.
3 Kersenbroick in Sprengel, II. p. 687. Compare Sleidan, L. VI. Tom. I. p. 380,
who plainly and simply states the fact.
4 Culpam eius rci pleriquc confercbant in theologos concionatores, qui supplieiis im-
piorum placandam esse clamabant iram Dei, novo morbi " generc nos verberantis-
Sleidan, loc. cit. p. 380.
THE PHYSICIANS. 245
be taken as an example. In the March of Brandenburg the
evangelical faith, notwithstanding great obstacles, spread every
day more and more, and the Catholic priests soon found them-
selves 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, accord-
ing to ancient usage and orthodox prescription, was to be held
on the following day, and thus the congregation was to be led
back into the bosom of the only true church. But behold, in
the course of the night, the zealous curate died of some sudden
disease ; and as mankind are ever ready to interpret even the
thunders of the Eternal according to their own wishes and narrow
notions, the Protestants, it seems, did not fail in their turn to
represent this event as a miracle. 1
Sect. 10. — The Physicians.
Under these circumstances, the faculty had a very difficult
problem before them, for the very imperfect solution of which
they cannot justly be reproached. A learned and active phy-
sician 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 inconsider-
ate representations, lauded the infallibility of their remedies, and
were the promulgators of injurious prejudices. In the Nether-
lands, as we are assured by Tyengius, a physician whom we
reckon among the learned and benevolent, a vast number of
patients died of the effects produced by the distribution of per-
nicious pamphlets, with which the Sweating Sickness was to be
combated by those ignorant interlopers, who many of them gave
1 Haftitz, p. 131. Amjchts, p. 319. Cramer, Book III. p. 76, and many others.
246 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
it out that they had been in England, boasting to the inhabitants of
their experience and skill, and with their pills and their " hellish
electuaries," flitting about from place to place, 1 especially where
rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should they be re-
stored, they obtained the promise of mines of gold. 2 The like
occurred in Germany, where, at the commencement, the sound
sense of the people was overcome by this officiousness, and violent
remedies were recommended as certain means of 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 3 perspiration for twenty-four hours, which, in the
districts of the Rhine, was called the Netherlands regimen ; 4 and
it is unpardonable, that the physicians, either with blind pride
disregarded, or were totally unacquainted with the prior expe-
rience of the English, which advocated discretion and the most
appropriate line of treatment. This neglect, which was not com-
pensated until thousands had already fallen, may possibly have
arisen from the blamcable 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.
33etween England and Germany there existed, nevertheless, a
constant intercourse ; and it is incredible that that mode of pro-
cedure, which did not originate from a formal medical school, but
from the sound sense of the people, should not have become ear-
lier 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 pre-
judice with regard to heat, for which we would not altogether
make the physicians responsible. Housewives, even at that time,
1 "Yerum quamplurimi, tarn nobiles quam populares viri ac mulieres, hoc morbo
misere suffocati sunt, ob libellos erroneos, ab indoctissimis hominibus in vulgus emissos,
qui in eiusmodi lue curanda peritiam et experientiam jactabant, multosque in Anglia
aliisque rcgionibus sese curasse dicebant, cum omnia falsa cssent. Tales inquam mi-
nima pietate fulti erga cegrotos, illorum loculos tantum expilabant, ac in sui commodum
convertebant, nullam de aliorum damnis ncc mortc ipsa coram gerentes, sed quae sua
sunt tantum curantes, nulla arte instructi miseros agros, passim sua ignorantia truci-
dabant." Forest. L. VI. obs. 8. p. 158. a.
2 "Ditissimi negociatores, lectis adfixi medicos ad se vocabant, montes auri promit-
tentes, si curarentur." Ditmar, p. 473.
3 Nam occlusis rimis omnibus, et excitato igne copioso, opertisque stragulis, quo
magis tutiusque suderent, restu praefocati sunt." Forest, loc. cit. p. 157. b.
4 Wild, in Balding er, p. 278.
THE PHYSICIANS* 247
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 al-
ways 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 sub-
ject, 1 died in Zwickau on the 5th of September, the victim of his
own imprudence. A few days after him died an apothecary, like-
wise treated with the heated bed. Upon this the physicians im-
mediately 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 ; -
for the English plan of treatment wa3 presently known, and in-
telligent philanthropists, who saw its curative powers, made it
public 3 in all quarters, through the medium of their correspond-
ence. In Liibeck there lived at the time of the Sweating Fever a
learned Protestant Englishman, Dr. Anthony Barns, who, with
great kindness, made known everywhere the English treatment of
the disease. He was, however, after the cessation of the pestilence,
banished the city, because he had petitioned the bigoted Catholic
senate to tolerate his Protestant brethren. Many were saved by
him ; for it was the practice in this city also, to stew to death '
1 The printer Frantz. Schmidt, p. 307. 2 Stelmer, Part II. p. 219.
3 This appears from the Wittenberg regimen.
4 Reimar Kock's Chronicle of Liibeck.
248 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
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 sick-
ness had been treated with success. They had seen cases them-
selves, and could therefore distinguish by their odour those who
were suffering from the true sweating epidemic, from those who
were seized with fever arising from panic. They were constantly
besieged by persons asking questions and seeking assistance ; and
when the disease was at its greatest height, the streets were quite
illuminated at night by the lights of the relatives of the patients, 1
who were running in all directions in a state of distraction. The
abhorrence of feather-beds, and the hot plan, now followed so quickly
the blind recommendation of the twenty-four hours' sweat, that
by the middle of September, and in many places still earlier, more
correct views were generally adopted, and some intelligent men,
after the sad experience which had been gained, seized the oppor-
tunity of doing more good to the public than their noisy predecess-
ors, who had by this time so abundantly supplied the churchyards
with bodies. Among these literally and truly beneficent physi-
cians may be reckoned Peter Wild, at Worms, 2 who warned his
countrymen against the Netherlands practice ; 3 as also an anonjr-
mous person (the names of the best often remain unknown in
times of confusion), who, in popular language, strenuously dis-
suaded the people against the use of feather-beds. 4 It also soon
1 Klcmzen, p. 255.
2 In Gratoroli : Petrus, proto medicus, fol. 90. 3 See his pamphlet.
4 I here give the whole pamphlet, which only occupies five pages. It is entitled,
" The Remedy, Advice, Succour, and Consolation against the dreadful, and as yet by us
Germans unheard-of, speedy, and mortal Disease, called the English Sweating Sickness,
from which may Almighty God mercifully protect us."
"When the disease and sweating sets in, ask what o'clock it is, and note it.
" If any one he afflicted with this pestilence (may God protect us from it !) it attacks
him cither with heat or with cold, and he will sweat violently ; and this will take place
all over his body. Some take the disease w r ith sudden eructations, and do not sweat ;
and to those who do not sweat, a flower of mace with warm beer is given, and then they
sweat.
" But if the pestilence and disease, from which may God preserve us ! attack any one
after he has lain down in bed, he must be left there ; but if he has a feather-bed, though
a thin one, over him, cut it open and take the feathers out, that it may consist only of
the ticking or covering. If it be too thin, add a cool coverlet, and let the patient lie
under that, covered up to the neck, and take care that the air do not touch or strike upon
his breast, or under his arms, and the soles of his feet, and let him not toss about.
" Item. Two men should attend the patient, to prevent him from uncovering him-
self, and from going to sleep.
THE PHYSICIANS. 249
became a common saying, " The Sweating Sickness will bear no
medicine." !
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 Linacrehad already died in the year 1524.
John Chambre, 2 Edward Wotton, 3 and George Owen/ were the
King's body physicians about the time of the fourth epidemic
visitation of the Sweating Sickness. "William Butts, 3 of whom
" Item. The same two men must watch the patient, and guard him against sleeping :
if they neglect this, and do not so prevent him, and the patient sleep, he will lose his
senses, and go raving mad.
" In order, however, that he may be prevented from sleeping, take a little rose-water,
and by means of a sponge or clean napkin, bathe his temples with it between the eyes
and the ears, and by means of a sponge or napkin, apply pungent wine or beer vinegar
to his nose, and talk constantly to him so that he fall not asleep.
" If he would drink, give him a thin beverage, which should be a little warm ; aud
he ought not to be given more than two spoonfuls at a time.
" Item. On the patient's head should be placed a linen night-cap, and a woollen one
over it.
" Item. A warm towel should be taken, and with it the sweat wiped from the face.
" Item. Whoever is attacked in the day-time must be put to bed ; if ifbe a man, in
his stockings and breeches ; if a woman, in her clothes ; and let them be covered over
with not more than two thin coverings ; and above all things, no feather-bed ; and then
treat them as above written.
" Item. The disease attacks most people from great dread and from irregular living,
from which a man should guard himself with great pains.
" Once for all, the patient must not have his own way ; what he would have you do
for him, that must not be done.
" Item. With respect to those whom it attacks in the night, and who lie naked, if
they will not lie still, let them be sewn" up in the sheets, and let the sheets be sewn to
the bed, so that no air can come from beneath ; and then cover them as before.
" Summa. Whoever can thus endure for twenty-four hours, by the blessing of God,
will be cured of the sickness, and get well.
" If a man has held out for twenty-four hours, let him be taken up, and wrapped in
a warm sheet lest he become cold, and throw something over his feet, and bring him to
the fire ; and, above all things, let him not go into the air for four days, and let him
avoid much and cold drink.
" If he Avould sleep, provided twenty-four hours have been passed, let him sleep freely ;
and may God preserve him !
" The Lord is Almighty over us ! Amen."
The place of publication is wanting. It was probably either Leipzig or Wittenberg.
1 Magnus Hundt, fol. 27. a. "Xullis vero aliis medicamentis utuntur advereus
ipsam, quam expectatione sudoris, nam quibus advenit, omnes fere evadunt, quibus
autem retinetur, maxima pars perit." Forest, loc. cit. p. 159. a. Schol.
8 Born about 1483 ; died 1549. 3 Born 1492 ; died 1555. 4 Died 155S.
5 Died 1545. " Vir gravis ; eximia litterarum cognitione, singulari judicio, sumiua
experientia, et prudenti consilio Doctor." Aikin, p. 47.
250 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Shakespeare ' has made honourable mention, in all probability like-
wise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and
worthy men, 2 but posterity has gained nothing from them on the
subject of the English Sweating Sickness. All these physicians
were well informed, zealous, and doubtless also cautious followers
of the ancient Greek school of medicine, but their merits were of
no advantage to the people, who, when they departed from the
dictates of their own understanding, and did not content them-
selves 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. 3
1 In Henry VIII. 2 See their biography, in Aikin.
3 Thomas Gale's description of this class of medical practitioners gives the best no-
tion of their abilities. " I remember," says he, " when I was in the wars at Montreuil
(1544), in the time of that most famous Prince, Henry VIII., there was a great rabble-
ment there, that took upon them to be surgeons. Some were sow gelders, and some
horse gelders, with tinkers and cobblers. This noble sect did such great cures, that they
got themselves a perpetual name ; for like as Thessalus' sect were called Thcssalions, so
was this noble rabblement, for their notorious cures, called dog-leeches ; for in two
dressings they did commonly make their cures whole and sound for ever, so that they
neither felt heat nor cold, nor no manner of pain after. But when the Duke of Nor-
folk, who was then general, understood how the people did die, and that of small wounds,
he sent for me and certain other surgeons, commanding us to make search how these
men came to their death, whether it were by the grievousness of their wounds, or by the
lack of knowledge of the surgeons, and we, according to our commandment, made search
through all the camp, and found many of the same good fellows which took upon them
the names of surgeons, not only the names, but the wages also. We asking of them
whether they were surgeons or no, they said they were ; we demanded with whom they
were brought up, and they, with shameless faces, would answer, either with one cunning
man, or another, which was dead. Then we demanded of them what chirurgery stuff
they had to cure men withal ; and they would show us a pot or a box, which they had
in a budget, wherein was such trumpery as they did use to grease horses' heels withal,
and laid upon scabbed horses' backs, with verval and such like. And others that were
cobblers and tinkers, they used shoemakers' wax, with the rust of old pans, and made
therewithal a noble salve, as they did term it. But in the end this worthy rabblement
was committed to the Marshalsea, and threatened by the Duke's Grace to be han Klemzen, p. 255.
io (i Ungues potissimum excruciat, alas ita comprimit, ut etiam si vclis, non posses at-
tollere." Forest. -p. 157. Schol. " In extremitatibus puncturis retorquentur chloro-
sis — extrcmitatcs obstupefiunt, dolct orificium ventriculi, nervorum contractiones nas-
cuntur, plantarum pedumque dolores." — Damian. fol. 116. a.
II Damian. loc. cit. I3 Klemzen, loc. cit.
13 "Nee quenquam vidimus ita dclirantcm restitutum incolumitati." — Damian. fol.
11C. a.
17 *
260 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
All complained of obscure pain in the head ; l and it was not
long 1 before an alarming lethargy supervened, 2 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. 3 In
many the countenance was bloated and livid, or at least the lips and
cavities of the eyes were of a leaden tint ; whence it evidently
appears, that the passage of the blood through the lungs was
obstructed in the same way as in violent asthma ; * hence they
breathed tvith great difficulty, as if their lungs were seized with a
violent spasm or incipient paralysis ; at the same time, the heart
trembled and palpitated constantly under the oppressive feeling
of inward burning, which, in the most malignant cases, flew to
the head, and excited fatal delirium. 5 In the course of a short
time, and in many cases at the very commencement, the stinking
sweat broke out in streams over the whole body, either proving
salutary when life was able to obtain the mastery over the dis-
ease, or j>rejudicial 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 ap-
peared according to the constitution of the patient ; for some
perspired very easily, others, on the contrary, with great difficulty,
especially the phlegmatic, who, in consequence, were threatened
with the greatest danger. 6
In this severe struggle the spinal marrow was sometimes, at a
later stage, so much affected, that even convulsions came on ; and
it happened not unfrequently, that, in consequence of the con-
striction of the chest, the stomach indicated its excited condition
by nausea and vomiting? These symptoms, however, manifested
1 Schiller, Stettler.
2 Somnolentia et inevitabilis sopor, Schiller ; a deep sleep, in almost all the
chroniclers.
3 Schiller.
4 " Aliis mox tument manus et pedes, aliis facies, quae ct in pluribus livet ; nonnul-
lis sola labia ct supcrciliorum loca : mulieribus etiam iuguina inflantur." — Damian.
fol. 116. a.
5 " Maximus denique calor baud procul a corde sentitur, qui ad cerebrum devolans
delirium adducit, internecionis nuncium." — Damian. loc. cit.
6 Damian. loc. cit.
7 Schiller, loc. cit.
FORM OF THE DISEASE. 261
themselves principally in those who were attacked with the dis-
ease 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-wit-
ness of the epidemic Sweating Sickness of 1551. The observa-
tions of this perfectly trustworthy physician, so far as they relate
to the form of the disorder, may be here annexed, since no essen-
tial differences between the diseases on these two occasions can be
discovered. At the first onset the diseases in some attacked the
neck or shoulders, and in others one leg or one arm, with drag-
ging pains ; l 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 ex-
tending towards the surface. The patients suffered from a very
quick and irritable pulse - and great thirst, and threw themselves
about in the utmost restlessness. Under the violent headache
which they suffered, they frequently fell into a talkative state of
wandering, yet this did not generally happen before the ninth
hour, and in very various gradations of mental aberration, 3 after
which the drowsiness commenced. In others the sweating was
longer delayed, while, in the mean time, a slight rigor of the limbs
existed : it then broke out profusely, but did not always trickle
down the skin in equal abundance, but alternately, sometimes
more, sometimes less. It was thick and of various colours, but
in all cases of a very disagreeable odour, 4 which, when it broke
out again, after any interruption to its flow, was still more pene-
trating. 5
Kaye adds to what we already know of the oppression of the
chest, the very important statement that those affected were ob-
served to have a whining, sighing voice, whence we have every
reason to conclude that there was a serious affection of the
eighth pair of nerves. He, moreover, describes a very mild form
1 " Primo insultu aliis cervices aut scapulas, aliis crus aut brachium occupavit," p. 15.
Kaye docs not state what he precisely means by this "ocenpare." From an analo-
gous more modern observation, it appears, however, that by it are meant tearing
rheumatic paius. " Add to this, that the patients complained one and all, some more
some less, of a tearing pain in the neck." Sinner, p. 10.
2 Pulsus concitatior, frcquentior. The only remark upon the pulse which is to be
found in all the writers. Cains, p. 1G. Probably most of the physicians were afraid
of contagion, and on this account omitted to examine the pulse.
3 Page 252.
4 Odoris teterrimi. Tyengius in Forest, p. 158.
5 Neicenar, fol. 72. b.
2G2 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
of the disease, sucli as was prevalent in the south of Germany
in 1529. It passed off under proper care, without any danger,
in the very short period of fifteen hours, and was brought to a
termination by moderate heat through the medium of a very
gentle perspiration. 1
It is remarkable that during this violent disorder neither the
activity of the kidneys nor the evacuation by stool teas entirely
interrupted, for there passed continually turbid and dark urine,
although, as may be conceived, in small quantity and with great
uncertainty as to the prognosis ; whereupon those physicians who
judged by the urine were not a little perplexed. 2 It was observed,
too, sometimes in the more easily curable cases, that patients at the
moment when the perspiration broke out upon them passed urine
in great quantity, 3 on which account a French physician proposed
to draw off the water in those who suffered from this disease ; 4 yet
this practice has no higher therapeutical worth than the excite-
ment of perspiration in diabetes or in cholera, and is, moreover,
much less practicable. That occasionally diarrhoea supervened,
and even to a degree which was not to be restrained, may be
gathered from the frequent medical directions as to how it ought
to be arrested, which Kaye also repeats. 5 In some patients, like-
wise, 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 re-
spectable Dutch physician, that after the perspiration teas over
there appeared on the limbs small vesicles, 6 which were not con-
fluent, but rendered the skin uneven, and these were not noticed
by any other medical observer, but are spoken of by the author
of an old Hamburgh chronicle, and, with this addition, that they
have been seen on the dead. 7 By these it is Very likely that a
1 Page 190. 2 Schiller, Kaye, loc. cit.
3 " cum alvi solutione ac lotii baud modica eiectione, in ea morbi specie, quai
curatum itura est." Damian. fol. 116. a.
4 liondelet, de dignosc. morbis, loc. cit.
5 To avoid exposure to cold, tbey preferred allowing tbe patient to pass bis eva-
cuations in bed. Bed-pans were unknown. Kaye, p. 110, and most of the otber
writers.
6 Tyengius in Forest, p. 158. b. " Febrem sudor fmiebat, post se relinquens in
extremitatibus corporis, pustulas jiarvas, admodum exasperantes diversas ct malignas
secundum bumorum malignitatem."
7 Vvlien care was not taken that tbe bands and feet were kept under tbe clotbes tbey
died, and their bodies became as black as a coal all over, and were covered with
vesicles, and stunk so, that it was necessary to bury them deep in the earth by reason
of the stench. Staphorst, Part II. Vol. I. p. 83.
FORM OF THE DISEASE. 263
miliary eruption, and perhaps spots also, are to be understood ;
yet everything militates against the supposition that this pheno-
menon was constant, or that the Sweating Fever was an eruptive
disorder. 1 For in that case, some mention would have been
made of it in the numerous accounts of historians, many of whom,
doubtless, had themselves seen the disease, and the eruptions
would have been more evidently and decidedly formed in the
numerous relapses of those who recovered. They certainly in-
dicate a relationship with the miliary fever, but only in so far as
that both diseases are of rheumatic origin, and this slight par-
ticipation in the nature of an eruptive disease would seem to have
been observed in the English Sweating Sickness only in perfect-
ly 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 dis-
eases 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 circum-
stances 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 Sweat-
ing 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 perspira-
tion had passed off, the patient was taken carefully from his bed,
cautiously dried in a warm chamber, placed by the fireside, and, as
a first restorative, usually fed with egg soup, yet the generality
could not entirely get over the effects of the fever for a long time.
Those who had recovered could seldom go out so early as the
second or third day. 2
1 Spots (macula? quas ronchas (?) vocant), which were on other occasions considered
as signs of approaching death, or which did not come out until death had occurred,
hroke out, after a return of sweating which had hcen repressed, all over the body of
the learned Margaretha Roper, the eldest daughter of Thomas More, who was the
subject of sweating fever in 1517 or 1528, and recovered. Th. Stapleton, Vita et
obitus Thoma? Mori, c. 6. p. 26. See Mori Opera.
2 And certainly only after very appropriate and careful treatment. See the "Witten-
berg Regimen, Kaye, loc. cit. Schmidt, p. 307, and Klcmzen, p. 256.
2G4 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Those patients were placed in still greater danger in icliom the
perspiration icas in any way suppressed: most of them were con-
signed to inevitable death (the popular voice ever since the year
1485 confirms this). Over those, however, in whom the powers
of life were roused to a renewed effort, there broke out, after a
short period, a new perspiration far more offensive than the first ;
so that the body dripped as it were with a foul fluid, and it seemed
as if the inward parts wanted to disburthen themselves at once of
their putridity by an immoderate effort. 1 It is clear that this re-
petition of the attack must have been destructive to many who,
had it not been for an obstruction of the crisis, would have been
saved ; for nothing is more dangerous in inflammatory diseases
than when those secretions are interrupted which Nature has
ordained as the only means of relief.
Relapses were frequent, because convalescents, after the disease
was subdued, remained for a long time very excitable. These
were seen for the third and fourth time seized with the Sweating
Sickness, 2 nay, later writers notice a repetition of the disease even to
the twelfth time, 3 whereby at least the health was completely shat-
tered, for dropsy or some other destructive sequelae supervened,
until death put a period to incurable sufferings, and it is important
to observe that even the bowels participated in the great excitabi-
lity of the system, for too early an exposure to the air easily brought
on diarrhoea}
How great the decomposition of the organic matter was is con-
vincingly 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 ; 5 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 insti-
tuted, they would, from the manner of conducting researches in
those times, scarcely have thrown any important light on the dis-
ease. 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 dis-
1 Neiccnar, fol. 72. b.
2 Erasm. Epist. L. XXVI. Ep. 58. p. 1477. b. " Et crebroquos reliquit brevi inter-
vallo repetens, nee id semel, sed bis, ter, quater, donee in bydropem aut aliud morbi
genus versus, tandem extinguat miseris excarnificatum modis."
3 Kaye, p. 110. 4 Idem. p. 113.
5 Staphorst, Part II. Vol. I. p. 83.
FORM OF THE DISEASE. 265
tinguished between healthy and diseased parts ? Moreover, the
Sweating Sickness could not in so short a period cause such a pal-
pable 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 de-
sirable to obtain ; but these likewise are wanting altogether, and
after the lapse of so long a period there only remains room for con-
jectures.
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 ex-
ceptions to a general rule, 1 and this, as it would appear, only
during the height of the epidemic ; as for example at Zwickau,
where a woman of 112 years of age was carried off by it. 2 We
have alreadj r 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
ICth century, we find among them the same immoderate luxury
as among the English, the same drunkenness, the same intemper-
ance 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 circum-
stances, 3 and our bold forefathers, with respect to these matters,
were not in the best repute with their southern neighbours.
But we have, moreover, to survey the disease in another point
of view, namely, in relation to its peculiar character. In the out-
set we designated the Sweating Sickness as a rheumatic fever, and
if we take the notion of a rheumatic affection, as in propriety we
ought, in its widest acceptation, weighty and convincing grounds
1 " Immunes erant pueri et senes ab hoc male-." Ditmar, p. 473. " Tucri infra
decern annos rarissime hac febre corripiuntur." Newenar, fol. 72. a. " Senibus solis
quaiuloque pepercit, — praHernavigavit etiam magna ex parte atrabilarios et emaciates
corpore, quoniam etborum corpora putris succi expertia erant." Schiller, fol. 4. a.
2 Schmidt, p. 307.
3 As for instance, Schiller, to name but one among thousands. " Juvit etiam aux-
itque milium frequens multaque crapula, et in potationibus otiosa vita nostra," fol. 3. b.
266 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
have been adduced in the course of our whole inquiry in confirma-
tion of this view. When we observe that those very nations were
visited by the Sweating Fever, which are characterised by a fair
skin, blue eyes, and light hair — the marks of the German race, it
may with justice be assumed, that even this peculiarity in the
structure of the body rendered it susceptible of this extraordinary
disease. It is this which causes the proneness to fluxes of all
kinds, and which makes these diseases endemic in the north of
Europe, whilst the dark-haired southern nations and the blacks in
the tropical climates remain, under similar circumstances, 1 more
free from them. If it be remembered further how overcharged
with water were the lower strata of the atmosphere in which the
pestilent Sweating Fevers existed, what thick and even offensive
mists prepared the way for the disease and indicated its approach,
what rapid alternations of freezing cold and excessive heat took
place in the summer of 1529 ; and, moreover, how frequent all
kinds of fluxes were in this very year, the complete form of the
rheumatic constitution will be recognised in every individual
feature.
Did we possess in the showy systems of modern times a maturer
knowledge of the electricity of living bodies, much light would of
necessity hence be thrown on the great object of our research.
We should not then be compelled to rest satisfied with the fact
that a cloudy atmosphere abstracts electricity from the body, robs
the skin and lungs of their electrical atmosphere, disturbs their
mutual electrical relation with the external world, and by this
disturbance prepares the body for rheumatic indisposition, with all
that peculiar decomposition of the fluids, irritable tension of the
nerves, fever, and painful affection of particular parts, with which
it is accompanied. If this disturbance be represented according
to certain new and inviting hypotheses, supported by some im-
portant facts, 2 as being perhaps an accumulation of electricity in
1 Let it be observed under similar circumstances. It ougbt not to be affirmed that
they are free from rheumatic diseases, but only that they are less disposed to be affected
by them.
2 That a rheumatic state makes the body an isolator, A. von. Humboldt discovered
as early as 1793, and he found that the observation was confirmed by subsequent expe-
riments. " I have observed in myself that, when labouring under a severe attack of
catarrhal fever, I was unable, by the most powerful metals, to excite the galvanic flash
before my eyes ; that I interrupted every connecting link between the muscular and
nervous apparatus. As the rheumatic malady lessens the irritability of organs, so also
it seems to diminish their conducting power. How is this ? As yet nothing is known
about it. I have every now and then met with isolating persons who were in perfect
health, but can we not yet, amidst such an ocean of uncertainty, discover a condition
FORM OF THE DISEASE. 267
the interior of the body, owing to a morbid, isolating activity of
the skin, we may expect a more perfect knowledge of the nature
of rheumatism through the medium of future diligent researches ;
and until these be made, some evident signs of connexion between
rheumatic affections and the English Sweating Sickness will per-
haps be sufficient to demonstrate the rheumatic nature of this
latter disease.
In the first place, the very great susceptibility of those affected
with the Sweating Fever to every change of temperature — the de-
cidedly great danger of chill. In no known disease does this irri-
tability of the skin show itself in so prominent a degree as in
rheumatic fevers and in those non-febrile fluxes in which there
even exists a very evident sensitiveness to metallic action.
Secondly, The tendency of the rheumatic diathesis to come to a
crisis through the medium of a profuse, sour, and offensive perspira-
tion without any assistance from art. 1 The English Sweating
Sickness manifests this commotion of the organism in the most
exquisite form hitherto known ; for it admits of no kind of doubt
that the sweat in this disease was of itself, and in itself, critical,
in the fullest acceptation of the term.
Thirdly, The peculiar alteration in the fundamental composition
of organic matter in rheumatic diseases, in consequence of which
volatile acids of a strange odour are prevalent in the sweat, and
urine, and animal excretions. The English Sweating Sickness
exhibits also this result of morbid activity in a greater and more
striking manner than any other disease. Nor can we regard the
tendency to putridit}^, which has been observed, as anything but
an increased degree of this condition.
Fourthly, The shooting pains in the limbs, the most decided sign
of rheumatism, were not wanting in the English Sweating Sick-
ness ; nay, they became developed even to the extent of an in-
cipient paralysis, and even the convulsions of those affected with
this disease may not unjustly be attributed to the same source.
Fifthly, The tendency of rheumatism xohen it takes an unfavour-
able course to jmss into regular dropsy, which is a consequence of
the peculiar decomposition, manifested itself in the Sweating Fever
in so marked a manner that the dropsy itself gradually destroyed
the patient.
by which we may determine every case?" fersuche in Vol. I. p. 159. Pfa/F}»-
lieves that, during the existence of rheumatic diseases, the proper electricity of the body
sinks down to nothing. See his Essay on the peculiar Electricity of the Human Body
in Meckel's Archiv. Vol. III. No. '2. p. 161.
1 The author has at times made extraordinary experiments of this kind upon himself.
2G8 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Should the sceptical still need another link in the comparison,
we may adduce the miliary fever, a disease of decidedly rheumatic
character. We must not, however, take as our standard the de-
generate forms of miliary fever existing in modern times, but
those grand and fully developed forms of the disease which oc-
curred in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in which we find a
similar odour in the perspiration, the same oppression, and the
same inexpressible anguish, with palpitation and restlessness.
The arms became enfeebled as if seized with paralysis, violent
pains of the limbs set in, and unpleasant pricking sensations in the
fingers and toes, resembling in all these particulars the Sweating
Sickness, only pursuing a more lengthened and irregular course,
and becoming developed altogether in a different manner.
According to this representation, the English Sweating Sickness
appears as a rheumatic fever in the most exquisite form that has
ever yet been seen in the world, violently affecting the vitality of
the brain and spinal marrow with their nerves, without, however,
at all molesting the plexuses of the abdomen. The immoderate
excretion of watery fluid, which in the mild cases alone took place,
through a spontaneous curative power, while in the malignant
forms it betokened paralysis of the vessels and an actual colliqua-
tion, directs our attention further to the consequent state of inani-
tion, which very probably passed into a stagnation of the circula-
tion, in the same manner as takes place after every other sudden
loss of the fluids, whether from sanguineous effusion or evacuations
by vomit and stool. Hence the uncommonly rapid course of the
disease, and partly, too, the fatal stupor ; l hence, likewise, the
very pardonable misconception with respect to the nature of the
Sweating Fever existing even in more modern times. The sequela
was more important and more fatal than the original rheumatic
affection itself, which in its minor forms was mild and easily
managed.
And thus is explained the wonderfully fortunate result of the
old English treatment, which prevented this sequela, and avoided
increasing the already too powerful efforts of nature to effect a
cure. We have, therefore, nothing further to add to this judicious
and truly scientific practice but our unqualified approbation ; for
it is the part of the physician, in diseases which have a spontaneous
power of curing themselves, to leave this power free scope to act,
1 This phenomenon may justly be compared with the very similar but more enduring
morbid sequela? of cholera. Paralysis and a repletion of the returning vessels must be
regarded in the same light in both.
IERUPTION. 2(39
and merely by fostering care to remove all obstacles to its exercise.
Should it be the destiny of mankind to be again visited by the
disease of the sixteenth century (and it is by no means impossible
that at some time or other similar events may recur), we would
recommend our posterity to bear in mind this eternal truth, and
to treasure up the golden words of the Wittenberg pamphlet,
namely, to guard the healing art from strange and unnatural
farragos, for it is only when it is subordinate to nature that it bears
the stamp of reason — the mistress of all earthly things.
CHAPTER Y.
FIFTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.
"Ubiquc lugubris erat lanientatio, fletus macrons, acerbus luctus."— Kaye.
Sect. 1. — Irruption.
Full three and twenty years had now elapsed ; no trace of the
Sweating Sickness had shown itself anywhere in this long in-
terval, and England had by its rapid advancement assumed quite
another aspect, 1 when the old enemy of that people again, and for
the last time, burst forth in Shrewsbury, the capital of Shrop-
shire. 2 Here, during the spring, there arose impenetrable fogs
from the banks of the Severn, which, from their unusually bad
odour, led to a fear of their injurious consequences. 3 It was not
long before the Sweating Sickness suddenly broke out on the loth
of April. To many it was entirely unknown or but obscurely
recollected ; for, amidst the commotions of Henry's reign, the old
malady had long since been forgotten.
The visitation was so very general in Shrewsbury and the
places in its neighbourhood, that every one must have believed
that the atmosphere was poisoned, for no caution availed, no
closing of the doors and windows, every individual dwelling be-
came an hospital, and the aged and the young, who could con-
tribute nothing towards the care of their relatives, alone re-
mained unaffected by the pestilence. 4 The disease came as
unexpectedly and as completely without all warning as it had ever
1 After Henry Vlllth's death in 1547, Edward VI., who was only nine years old,
came to the throne. He died in 15-53.
* Caiiis, p. 2. 3 Ibid. p. 28.
i Godwyn, p. 1 12. Stoic, p. 1023.
270 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
done on former occasions ; at table, during sleep, on journeys,
in the midst of amusement, and at all times of the day ; and so
little had it lost of its old malignity, that in a few hours it sum-
moned some of its victims from the ranks of the living, and even
destroyed others in less than one. 1 Four and twenty hours,
neither more nor less, were decisive as to the event ; the disease
had thus undergone no change.
In proportion as the pestilence increased in its baneful violence,
the condition of the people became more and more miserable and
forlorn ; the townspeople fled to the country, the peasants to the
towns ; some sought lonely places of refuge, others shut them-
selves up in their houses. Ireland and Scotland received crowds
of the fugitives. Others embarked for France or the Nether-
lands ; but security was nowhere to be found ; so that people at
last resigned themselves to that fate which had so long and
heavily oppressed the country. Women ran about negligently clad,
as if they had lost their senses, and filled the streets with lament-
ations and loud prayers ; all business was at a stand ; no one
thought of his daily occupations, and the funeral bells tolled day
and night, as if all the living ought to be reminded of their near
and inevitable end. 2 There died, within a few days, nine hun-
dred and sixty of the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, the greater part
of them robust men and heads of families ; from which circum-
stance we may judge of the profound sorrow that was felt in this
city.
Sect. 2. — Extension and Duration.
The epidemic spread itself rapidly over all England, as far as
the Scottish borders, and on all sides to the sea-coasts, under more
extraordinary and memorable phenomena than had been observed
in almost any other epidemic. In fact, it seemed that the banks
of the Severn were the focus of the malady, and that from hence,
a true impestation of the atmosphere was diffused in every direc-
tion. Whithersoever the winds wafted the stinking mist, the in-
habitants became infected with the Sweating Sickness, and, more
or less, the same scenes of horror and of affliction which had oc-
curred in Shrewsbury were repeated. These poisonous clouds of
mist were observed moving from place to place, with the disease
in their train, affecting one town after another, and morning and
evening spreading their nauseating insufferable stench. 3 At
1 Cams, p. 3. - Ibid. p. 7.
3 " Which miste in the couutrie wher it began, was senc flic from tounc to tounc,
EXTENSION AND DUEATION. 271
greater distances, these clouds, being dispersed by the wind, be-
came gradually attenuated, yet their dispersion set no bounds to
the pestilence, and it was as if they had imparted to the lower
strata of the atmosphere a kind of ferment which went on en-
gendering itself, even without the presence of the thick misty
vapour, and being received into men's lungs, produced the fright-
ful disease everywhere. 1 Noxious exhalations from dung-pits,
stagnant waters, swamps, impure canals, and the odour of foul
rushes, which were in general use in the dwellings in England,
together with all kinds of offensive rubbish, seemed not a little to
contribute to it; and it was remarked universally, that wherever
such offensive odours prevailed, the Sweating Sickness appeared
more malignant. 2 It is a known fact, that in a certain state of
the atmosphere, which is perhaps principally dependent on elec-
trical conditions and the degree of heat, mephitic odours exhale
more easily and powerfully. To the quality of the air at that
time prevalent in England, this peculiarity may certainly be at-
tributed, although it must be confessed, that upon this point there
are no accurate data to be discovered.
The disease lasted upon the whole almost half a year, namely,
from the \bth of April to the 30th of September ; 3 it thus passed
but gradually from place to place, and we do not observe here,
that it spread with that rapidity which, in the autumn of 1529,
had excited such great wonder in Germany. It is much to be
regretted, that contemporary writers either gave no intelligence
respecting the irruption or course of the epidemic Sweating Sick-
ness in individual towns, or, if they did so, that this has not been
made use of by subsequent writers. Doubtless, a very con-
siderable diversity of circumstances would here present them-
selves, and the very peculiar manner in which the corruption of
the atmosphere spread on this occasion, might perhaps have been
estimated from certain facts, and not from mere suppositions.
Thus the only fact that has been handed down is very remark-
able ; namely, that the Sweating Sickness required a whole
quarter of a year to traverse the short distance from Shrewsbury
with suche a stincke inmorninges and evenings, that men could scarcely abide it." —
Kaye. Sec Appendix, also Lat. edit. pp. 28, 29. It is to be remarked here, that in
the year 1529, Damianus observed in Ghent, that more people sickened in the morning
at sun-rise than at any other time. p. 115. b.
1 llosack admits in cases of this kind, a "fermentative or assimilating process" in
the atmosphere. T. 1. p. 312. Laws of Contagion. Lucretius had already expressed
the same thought in poetry. L. VI. v. 1118. to 1123.
3 Caius, p. 29. 3 Ibid. pp. 2—8.
272 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
to London ; for it did not break out there until the 9th of July,
and in a few days, according to its former mode, reached its
height, so that the rapid increase of deaths excited terror through-
out the whole city. 1 Yet the mortality was considerably less than
at Shrewsbuiy, for there died in the whole of the first week only
eight hundred inhabitants, 2 and we may consider it decided, al-
though all the contemporaries are silent on this very essential
question, that the pestilence nowhere lasted longer than fifteen
daj^s, and perhaps in most places, as formerly, only five or six.
The deaths throughout the kingdom were very numerous, so that
one historian actually calls it a depopulation. 3 No rank of life
remained exempt, but the Sweating Sickness raged with equal
violence in the foul huts of the poor and in the palaces of the no-
bility. 4 The piety which, in the general dejection, was displayed
by the whole nation, giving birth to innumerable works of Chris-
tian benevolence and philanthropy, whereby undoubtedly many
tears were dried up — many orphans and widows protected from
distress and want, is hence explained : for this phenomenon, high-
ly delightful as it is in itself, occurs only under great afflictions
and a general fear of death, as we are taught by the universal his-
tory of epidemics. We are willing to believe, to the honour of
the English, that the religious impulse which they derived from
their ecclesiastical reformation, may have had no small share in
its production ; yet, unfortunately, such is the nature of human
society, that no sooner is the calamity over, than virtue relaxes.
Scarcely were the funeral obsequies performed, when everything
returned to the usual routine; 5 in like manner, the Byzantines
once, during a great earthquake, were seized with a fear of God,
such as they had never before felt ; day and night they flocked to
the churches ; nothing was to be seen but Christian virtue, self-
denial, and works of benevolence, but these only lasted until the
earth again became firm. 6
The very remarkable observation was made in this year, that
the Sweating Sickness uniformly spared foreigners in England, and,
on the other hand, followed the English into foreign countries, so
that those who were in the Netherlands and France, and even in
1 Ilolinshed, p. 1031, and others. 2 Stow, p. 1023. Baker, p. 332.
3 Godwyn, p. 142.
4 Among others, the Duke of Suffolk and his brother. Godwyn, loc. cit.
5 "And the same being whote and terrible, inforced the people greatly to call upon
God and to do many deedes of charity : but as the disease ceased, so the devotion quickly
decayed." Grafton, p. 525.
6 History of Medicine, Vol. II. p. 136.
CAUSES. NATURAL PHENOMENA. 273
Spain, were carried off in no inconsiderable numbers by their in-
digenous pestilence, which was nowhere caught by the natives.
Not a single French inhabitant ' of the neighbouring town of
Calais was affected, and neither the Scotch inhabitants of the
same island, nor the Irish, were visited by the Sweating Sickness,
so that we cannot get rid of the notion, that there was some
peculiarity in the whole constitution of the English which render-
ed them exclusively susceptible of this disease. To make this out
accurately would be so much the more difficult, because, in the
original } r ear of the Sweating Sickness, foreigners were the very
persons among whom the English disease first broke out ; and
again, because English persons who had lived a year in France,
on their return home in the summer of 1551, became the subjects
of Sweating Sickness. 2 Contemporaries, indeed, find a cause in
the gluttony and rude mode of life of the English. In short, in
all those remote causes with which we have already become ac-
quainted, and which, doubtless, also had their part in preparing
the same scourge for the Germans and Flemings in 1529. Kaye,
the most efficient eye-witness, even brings in proof of this view,
that the temperate in England remained exempt from the Sweat-
ing Sickness, and on the contrary, that some Frenchmen at Calais,
who were too much devoted to English manners, were seized with
it. 3 To this alone, however, this susceptibility cannot be at-
tributed, unless we would be content with the antiquated -system
of giving too much weight to remote causes, opposed to which we
are met by the striking fact, that the Germans and Netherlands,
who had scarcely much improved in their manners since 1529,
were not again visited by their old enemy.
Sect. 3. — Causes. — Natural Phenomena.
It is easy to perceive, or rather we have no alternative but to
suppose, an unknown something in the English atmosphere, which
imparted to the inhabitants the rheumatic diathesis, or, if we will,
1 Cuius, p. 30, and at other places quoted. "And it so folowcd the Englishmen,
that such marchants of England, as were in Flounders and Spaine, and other countrii s
beyond the sea, were visited thcrewithall, and none other nation infected therewith."
Grafton, loc. cit. Compare, Baker, p. 332. Holinshed, p. 1031.
* Cuius, p. 48.
3 See Appendix, " these thre contryes (England, the Netherlands, and Germany)
whiche destroy more meates and drynckes without al order, convenient time, reason, or
necessitie then either Scotlande, or all other countries under the sunnc, to the great
annoiance of their owne bodies and wittes," &c. Compare p. 46 of the Lot. edit.
18
274 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
so penetrated their bodies, overcharged as they were with crude
juices, 1 that their constitutions had the so-called opportunity, that
is, were changed in such a manner as to fit them for the reception
of the Sweating Sickness. Under such a condition, the common
and more peculiar causes of this disease were not absolutely
necessary, in order to induce its attack in a constitution thus long
prepared for it, but the general causes of disease were sufficient of
themselves to give it its last stimulus, although this should be in
an entirely different climate, as in the present instance was the
case with the English who were living in Spain, and with the
Venetian ambassador Naugerio, who, in the year 1528, fell ill of
the petechial fever, when far from Italy, and living in France. 2
It has, no doubt, struck the reader that each of the five erup-
tions in England lasted much longer than the single one which
occurred in Germany and the north of Europe. This, too, might
well depend upon peculiarities in the English soil. But let us
now endeavour to render manifest, by means of phenomena ac-
tually observed, that unknown something in the atmosphere of
1551, the delov of the great Hippocrates, which announces its pre-
sence by the sickening of the people ; for beyond this it is not
granted that human researches should penetrate. The winter of
1550-51 was dry and warm in England ; the spring dry and cold;
the summer and autumn hot and moist. 3 The weather of the
whole year was uncommon in many particulars, without, however,
influencing the lives of plants and animals so much or through so
great a range as at the time of the fourth epidemic Sweating
Sickness. It was even in some places praised as fruitful. 4 On the
10th of January a violent tempest occurred, which in Germany
left no small traces 5 of its effects on houses and towers. The same
day brought considerable floods in the river district of the Lahn,
which must be noticed on account of the very unusual season of the
year. On the 13th of January, again at an unusual season, there
followed a great storm with heavy rains, 7 which spread over the
north of Germany ; and on the 28th of January there occurred a
considerable earthquake in Lisbon, whereby about two hundred
houses were overthrown, and nearly a thousand people were de-
1 Godwyn, loc. cit., expressly assures us, that gluttons who were taken with the
disease when their stomachs were full, fell victims to it ; and Kaye states that besides
aged persons and children, the poor, who from necessity lived frugally, and endured
hardships, either remained free, or bore the disease more easily, p. 51.
* See above, p. 215. 3 Cains. See Appendix.
i Schioeliti, p. 177. 5 Spangcnberg, fol. 463. a.
6 Chron. Chron. p. 401. '• Ibid, and Sjmngenberg, loc. cit.
CAUSES. — NATURAL PHENOMENA. 275
stroyed ; whilst a fiery meteor appeared, which, according to the
unsatisfactory descriptions of the time, resembled most a northern
light, and therefore was, in all probability, of electrical origin. 1
This was succeeded in Germany by a great frost in February. 2
On the 21st of March, at seven o'clock in the morning, two mock
suns, with three rainbows, were seen at Magdeburg and in its
vicinity, and in the evening two mock moons. 3 The same mock
suns were also observed at Wittenberg, but without the rainbows.
A similar phenomenon with two rainbows was again seen on the
27th of March ; 4 and mock suns had been observed at Antwerp
as early as the 28th of February. 5 About the same time (21st of
March) the Oder overflowed its banks, 6 and floods followed after
continued rains during the month of May in Thuringia and Fran-
conia. 7 Great tempests were not wanting, 8 and, after consider-
able heat, there occurred, on the 26th of June, a thick summer
fog in the districts of the Elbe, which deprived the besiegers of
Magdeburg of the sight of that city. It may, therefore, be sup-
posed that this phenomenon took place throughout a greater ex-
tent of country. 9 On the 22nd of September a meteor, like a
northern light, was again seen, and on the 29th of that month,
after some clear weather, a heavy fall of snow was followed by
continued cold. 10
These facts are sufficient plainly to prove that the course of the
year 1551 was unusual, that the atmosphere was overcharged
with water, and that the electrical conditions of it were consider-
ably disturbed : nor must we omit to notice that, for the first time
since 1547, mould spots again appeared in Germany on clothes,
and red discolorations of water, as likewise an exuberance of the
lowest cryptogamic species of vegetation."
I Chron. Cliron. loc. cit. 2 Spangenberg, fol. 463. b.
3 Angelus, p. 344. Spangenberg, fol. 464. a. Cliron. Chron. p. 401.
* Spangenberg, Fol. 464. a. 5 Chron. Chron. p. 402.
« Haftitz, p. 167. Angelus, p. 344.
7 Chron. Chron. p. 403. Leuthinger, p. 248. 8 Angelus, loc. cit.
9 Spangenberg, fol. 46-5. a. Magdeburg was besieged at this time for having refused
to accept the "Interim."
io Wurstisen, p. 624. Spangenberg, fol. 466. a.
II In the March of Brandenburg, crosses, as they were called, were seen upon clothes
in the year 1547 {Leuthinger, p. 216) ; red water was seen at Zorbig, in the year 1549
(Ibid. p. 231), and frequently likewise in the year 1551. (Chron. Chron. p. 402.)
Agricola seems to point to these connected phenomena in the passage already quoted;
see p. 191, note 4 .
18*
276 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Sect. 4. — Diseases.
During the years of scarcity, from 1528 to 1534, it excited
general surprise that malignant fevers, more especially the plague,
petechial fever, and encephalitis, which in the individual accounts
we can seldom sufficiently distinguish from each other, were con-
stantly recurring, and, creeping slowly as they did from place to
place, had no sooner finished their wandering visitations of whole
districts of country, than they again made their appearance where
they had broken out in former years. 1 It was a century of putrid
malignant affections, in which typhous diseases were continually
prevailing — a century replete with grand phenomena affecting
human life in general, and continuing so, long after the period to
which our researches refer.
There existed also an epidemic flux, which, during a cold sum-
mer 2 in 1538, spread over a great part of Europe, and especially
over France, so that, according to the assurance of an eminent
physician, there was scarcely any town exempt from it. 3 Of this
flux we have unfortunately but very defective reports, among
which we find a statement, not without importance, that there
were no extraordinary forerunners, such as are observed in phe-
nomena of this kind, to account for this epidemic. 4 Two years
earlier, however, (12th of July 1536,) Erasmus died of the flux. 5
This disease seldom occurs sporadically, but usually as an epi-
demic, and thus, perhaps, slighter visitations of this rheumatic
malady may be assumed to have preceded that greater one which
took place in 1538.
A period remarkable for plague followed in the year 1540, and
ended about 1543. The summer of the first-named year is espe-
cially mentioned in the chronicles as having been hot, and
throughout the whole century it continued to be in great repute
on account of the excellent wine it produced. 6 A spontaneous
1 " Festis insupcr in eertis sseviebat Germanise provinciis (1533), prsesertim Nuren-
bergie et Babenbergie, et villis oppidisque per giruin. Et est stupenda res, quod hajc
plaga nunquam totaliter cessat, sed omni anno regnat, jam hie, nunc alibi, de loco in
locum, de provincia in provinciam migrando, et si recedit aliquamdiu, tamen post paucos
annos et circuitum revertitur, et juventutem interim natam in ipso flore pro parte
majore amputat." — Jo. Lanye, Chron. Nuremburgcns. eccles., in Mencken, T. II.
col. 88.
2 Spangenberg, fol. 369. b. 3 Ferncl, de abditis reruni causis, L. II. p. 107.
* See Fernel. Wurstisen (p. 613), however, states that the preceding winter had
been very warm. Thus Aph. 12. sect. III. would hold good.
i Wurstisen, loc. cit.
fi L'annee des vins rostis, of the French. Stettler, p. 119.
DISEASES. 277
conflagration of the woods was frequent, and an earthquake was
felt in Germany on the 14th of December. 1 Thereupon, in 1541,
there followed in Constantinople a great plague, 2 which, in the
year 1542, spread by means of a Turkish invasion into Hungary,
its superior importance being indicated by the presence of ac-
companying phenomena, among which the swarms of locusts that
appeared this year are especially worthy of note. They came from
the interior of Asia, and travelled in dense masses over Europe,
passing northward over the Elbe, 3 and southward as far as Spain. 4
Kaye saw a cloud of locusts of this description in Padua ; their
passage lasted full two hours, and they extended further than the
eye could reach. 5 The plague quickly spread in Hungary, and
caused a similar destruction to the imperial army, which was
fio-htinff against the Turks under Joachim the Second, Elector of
Brandenburg, as it had formerly caused the French before Naples. 6
Whether this pestilence may have been the original oriental
glandular plague, or whether we may assume that it had already
degenerated into the Hungarian Petechial Fever, such as likewise
broke out in the year 1566, in the camp near Komorn, during the
campaign of Maximilian the Second, and thence, by means of the
disbanded lansquenets, spread in all directions, 7 cannot now well
be determined for want of ascertained facts. In the following
year, 1543, however, this plague broke out in Germany, namely,
in the Harz districts in the provinces of the Saale, 8 and still more
malignantly at Metz, 9 yet upon the whole it did not cause any
considerable loss of life.
In the years 1545 and 1546 we again find the Trousse-galant
in France. 10 It proved fatal to the Duke of Orleans, second son
of Francis the First, in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, and, ac-
cording to the testimony of French historians, to ten thousand
English in that fort, so that the garrison was obliged to pitch a
camp outside the town, and the reluctant reinforcements felt that
they were encountering certain death. 11 The disease spread itself
1 Spangenberg, fol. 439. a. Chron. Chron. p. 375.
2 Kircher,?. 147. 3 Spangenberg, fol. 439. b.
« Villalba, T. I. p. 93. They committed great ravages in Spain.
5 See Appendix, and p. 25 of the Latin edition. —Compare Haftitz, p. 149, and
others. 6 Spangenberg, fol. 439. b.
i Jordan, Tr. I. c. 19. p. 220. 8 Spangenberg, fol. 440. b.
9 Villalba, T. I. p. 94. The author has not been able to obtain the Work of Si.rtus
Kepser, an observer of this disease. (Consultatio saluberrima de causis ct remediis
epidemice sive pestiferi morbi Bambergensium civitatem turn infestantis.) Bambergse,
1544. 4to. ,0 See p. 219. Il Mezeray, p. 1036.
278 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
also among the French troops, and we have seen that it extended
its dominion beyond the Alps of Savoy. 1
It thus appears that, up to the period of which we have been
speaking, the year 1544 alone was free from great visitations of
disease, but it would be difficult from thenceforth satisfactorily to
define the individual groups of epidemics, if the connexion of the
epidemic Sweating Sickness of the year 1551 with them is to be
made out ; for there was, to use an expression of the schools, a
continued typhous constitution, which extended throughout this
whole period, manifesting itself on the slightest causes by malig-
nant diseases ; so that the visitations of sickness which we have
hitherto been describing do but appear as exacerbations of them,
with a predominance sometimes of one and sometimes of another
set of symptoms.
The camp fever, which prevailed in the spring of 1547 among
the imperial troops, there is good ground for considering to have
been petechial. A great many soldiers fell sick of it, and it was
so much the more malignant because the imperial army was com-
posed of a variety of soldiery, Spaniards, Germans, Hungarians,
and Bohemians. Those who were seized complained, as in en-
cephalitis, of insufferable heat of the head, their eyes were swollen
and started glistening from their sockets, their offensive breath
poisoned the atmosphere around them, their tongues were covered
with a brown crust, they vomited bile, their skin was of a leaden
hue, and a deep purple eruption broke forth upon it. The disease,
the fresh seeds of which the imperial hussars had brought with
them out of Hungary, proved fatal as early as the second or third
day, and it may be taken for granted, that both before and after the
battle of Muhlberg (24th of April) it made no small ravages in
Saxony ; 2 yet it did not become general.
After a short interval the unusual phenomena of 1549 again in-
creased ; the chronicles of central Germany record blights and
murrains in that year. They speak likewise of a northern light
seen on the 21st of September, and of a malignant disease which,
till the winter set in, carried off young people in no small numbers. 3
According to all appearance this disease was a petechial fever,
which in the following year, 1550, likewise visited the March of
Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony. 4 The mortality was par-
ticularly great at Eisleben, where, in less than four weeks from
the 14th of September, 257 fell a sacrifice to it, and after this
1 See p. 219. 2 Thuan. L. IV. p. 73.
3 Spatigenberg, fol. 458. a. b., 459. a. 4 Lenthinger, p. 241.
JOHN KAYE. 279
period it happened often that from twenty to twenty-four bodies
were buried in one day; so that the loss in this little town may
be reckoned at least at 500. 1 From this slight example the great
malignity of the plagues of the sixteenth century will be perceived,
and it would be still more evident if the physicians of those times
had made more careful observations, and historians had more ac-
curately recorded facts of this kind.
In 1551 there prevailed in Swabia a disease of the nature of
plague, which determined the Duke Christoph, of Wurtemburg,
to withdraw himself from Stuttgard. It did not spread, and
seems to have remained unknown to the rest of Germany. 2 In
Spain, too, the plague 3 showed itself, and if to this be added the
influenza of the same year, 4 as well as the numerous cases of ma-
lignant fevers in Germany and Switzerland, which were spoken of
as still existing in the two following years, 5 it will again be seen
quite evidently that the fifth epidemic Sweating Sickness appeared
accompanied by a group of various epidemic diseases, which might
be considered as resulting from general influences. The disease
which is the subject of our research thus took its departure from
Europe similarly accompanied as when it originally sprang up
there, while in the interval it thrice repeated its deadly attacks.
Sect. 5. — John Kaye.
Let us dedicate a few moments to the observer of the fifth
sweating pestilence, whose life presents a lively image of the
peculiarities and tendencies of his age. He was born at Norwich
on the 6th of October, 1510, and received his education at Gon-
ville Hall, Cambridge. He had early evinced by some produc-
tions his great knowledge of the Greek language, and his zeal
for theological investigations. At a maturer age he went to
Italy, at that time the seat of scientific learning, where Baptista
Montanus and Vesalius, at Padua, initiated him in the healing
art. He took his Doctor's degree at Bologna, and in 1542 he lec-
tured on Aristotle in conjunction with Realdus Columbus, witli
great approbation. The following year he travelled throughout
Italy, and with much diligence collated manuscripts for the emen-
dation of Galen and Celsus, attended the projections of Mat-
1 Spangcnberg, fol. 460. a.
2 Crusius, p. 280. 3 Villalba, T. I. p. 95.
4 See above, p. 205.
5 IVurstisen (1552, pestilential epidemic in Basle), p. 627.— Spangenberg, fol. 4C7,
b., 468. a. (Pestilence and Pbrenitis.)
280 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
thoeus Curtius at Pisa, and then returned through France and
Germany to his own country.
After being admitted as a doctor of medicine at Cambridge, he
practised with great distinction at Shrewsbury and Norwich, but
was soon summoned by Henry the Eighth to deliver anatomical
lectures to the surgeons in London. He was much honoured at
the court of Edward the Sixth, and the appointment of body
physician, which this monarch bestowed on him, he retained also
under Queen Mary and Elizabeth. In 1547, he became a Fellow
of the College of Physicians, over which, at a later period, he
presided for seven years. He constantly supported the honour of
this body with great zeal, compiled its Annals from the period of
its foundation by Linacre to the end of his own presidentship,
and originated an establishment, the first of the kind in Eng-
land, 1 for annually performing two public dissections of human
bodies.
That he was thus established in London before the year 1551
is certain, yet he was present in Shrewsbury during the Sweating
Sickness. His pamphlet 2 upon this disease, the first and last
published in England, did not, however, appear before 1552,
after all was over. It is written in strong language and a
popular style, and with a laudable frankness ; for Kaye blames
in it, without any reserve, the gross mode of living of his country-
men, and does not fatigue his reader with too much book learn-
ing, which neither he nor his contemporaries could refrain from
displaying on other occasions. He reserved this for the Latin
version of his pamphlet, which was published four years later, 3
and although, judged according to a modern standard, it is far
from being satisfactory, yet it contains an abundance of valuable
matter, and proves its author to be a good observer ; and in this
we can nowhere mistake that he is an Englishman of the six-
teenth century, however numerous the terms he may borrow
from Celsus. His doctrines are of the old Greek school through -
out, of which the physicians of those times were staunch sup-
porters ; hence the term ephemera i pestilens, his comparison of
the disease with the similar fevers of the ancients, 5 and his ac-
1 Aikin, p. 103, et seq. s See Appendix.
3 1.556. — This edition is very rare, and is probably not to be found in Germany.
The edition brought out by the author (1833) is taken from a very good London
reprint of 1721.
4 In the German, sometimes called "eines Tags pestilentziches Fieber."
5 P. 15. Lat. edit. — II. t\u>l$r)s, Tv(p(odr}£, vSotodi]Q.
JOHN KAYE. 281
curate appreciation of the important doctrine of aethereal spirits, to
which he refers its chief causes, and, according to which, the cor-
rupted atmosphere (spiritus corrupti) becomes mixed in the lungs
with the spirits of blood (spiritus sanguinis), whence it at once
appears explicable to him, why many persons may be attacked
with the Sweating Sickness at the same time, and even in dif-
ferent places, and why the parts of the body in which, according
to the ancient Greek notion, the aothereal spirits developed them-
selves, were most violently affected with this disease. 1 From the
relationship of the infected air to the aethereal spirits in the body,
polluted by intemperance, it also appears explicable to him, why
foreigners in England, in whom this pollution took place in a less
degree, were, only in cases of individual exception, attacked by
the Sweating Sickness, 2 not to mention other theoretical notions.
On malaria in general, as he was an observant naturalist, he
was enabled to turn to good account his experience in Italy and
his knowledge of the ancients, and his estimation of the subordin-
ate causes, with regard to which he takes up the same position
as Agricola, who was also a good naturalist, is likewise on the
whole worthy of approbation. 3 The immoderate use of beer,
amongst the English, was considered by many as the principal
reason why the Sweating Sickness was confined to this nation.
On this subject he enlarges even to prolixity, with evident Eng-
lish predilection for this beverage which manifestly contributed
to the morbid repletion of the people ; and he himself acknow-
ledged this as a principal cause of the Sweating Sickness. The
injurious quality of salt-fish, as alleged by Erasmus and the Ger-
man physician Hellwetter, 4 he would not altogether have ventured
to reject, 5 for it caused constant and abundant fetid perspira-
tions, and might thus have contributed to pave the way for the
Sweating Sickness. A similar source was to be found in the dirty
rush floors in the English houses, 6 and other subordinate causes
of the diseases of which mention has been made in the course of
this treatise.
As a zealous advocate of temperance, it were to be wished that
he had met with more attention ; but the words of a good physi-
cian are given to the winds, when they are directed against vices
and habits of sensual indulgence; people require from him an
infallible preservative, and not a lecture on morality. His pre-
cepts on food and beverage are circumstantial, after the manner
1 P. 17. seq. Lat. edit. 2 Ibid. p. 49. 3 Ibid. p. 31. 4 See above, p. 253.
5 P. 43. Lat. edit. 6 Ibid. p. 44. See above, p. 198.
282 THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
of the ancients, and he recommends such a variety, that it is
difficult to make a choice ; while nothing but the greatest sim-
plicity can be of any avail. Purifying Jives, which were kindled
everywhere in times of plague, are also much lauded by him,
and we here learn incidentally, that the smiths and cooks remain-
ed free ' from the Sweating Sickness. Fumigations with odor-
iferous substances of all kinds, even the most costly Indian spices,
were everywhere employed in the houses of the rich, and no one
stirred out without having with him some one of the thousand
scents recommended from time immemorial during the plague.
The medicines which he recommends are those that were then in
vogue ; among which Theriaca, Armenian Bole, and Pearls, occur
in various combinations, yet most of the prophylactics which he
advises for obviating any defect in the constitution are not very
violent.
Kaye's treatment of the Sweating Sickness is according to the
mild old English plan, which is very judiciously and perspicuously
laid down. He kept himself, on the whole, free from the influence
of the schools in this instance, and the only remedy which he
approved in case of necessity, was a harmless and very favourite
preparation of pearls and odoriferous substances, which were call-
ed Manus Christi, 2 or, in Germany, sugar of pearls. It had its
origin in the fifteenth century, and was the invention of Guaine-
rus, 3 and there were various receipts for compounding it. 4 He
also sometimes prescribed, at the commencement of the attack, 5
bole or terra sigillata, for how could a physician of the sixteenth
century doubt the antipoisonous effect of this overrated remedy ?
Restlessness in the patient, debility, a too thick skin, and thick
blood, are set forth by him as the chief impediments to the criti-
cal sweat, and in order to remove them, he sets to work with
great and laudable caution, ordering, according to circumstances,
even mulled wine and greater warmth. Sometimes, too, he could
not refrain from employing Theriac and Mithridate, but he did
not use these remedies to any great extent. For dropsical and
rheumatic patients who became the subjects of the Sweating Sick-
ness, he prescribed a beverage of Guaiacum ; he also recommend-
ed as a sudorific, the China root, which was at that time much
in use. When the perspiration broke out, he positively prohibit-
ed the urging it beyond the proper point; all medicines were
1 P. 74. Lat. edit. 2 Ibid. p. 94. » Practica, fed. 43. a. 263. a.
* Fallop. de compos, medic, cap. 41. p. 208. 5 p iQ2. Lat. edit.
JOHN KAYE. 283
thence laid aside, and he trusted to aromatic vinegar and p-entle
succussion alone for keeping off the lethargy, without considering
with Damianus, that more severe measures were essential. 1
As a learned patron of the sciences, Kaye ranks amongst the
most distinguished men of his country. Through his interest,
Gonville Hall was, in the reign of Queen Mary, elevated to the
rank of a college, better established, and more richly endowed.
To .the end of his life he continued to preside 2 over this his
favourite institution, and passed his old age 3 there, not in Monk-
ish contemplation, like Linacre, but zealously devoted to study,
as the great number of his writings testifies. He was accused of
having changed his faith according to circumstances. This pli-
ability served, it is true, to retain him in favour with sovereigns
of very opposite modes of thinking : it is not, however, a sign of
elevation of mind, and can only be explained in part by the spirit
of the English Reformation. Kaye was a reformer in fact, in-
asmuch as he was a promoter of instruction, and, perhaps, laid
no stress on outward profession. His versatility as a scholar is
extraordinary, and would be worthy of the highest admiration,
had he entirely avoided the reproach of credulity, had he not been
too prolix in subordinate matters, and had he shown more decid-
ed signs of genius. At one time he translated and illustrated
the writings of Galen ; at another, he wrote on philology or the
medical art — it must be confessed, without much originality, for
he took Galen and Montanus as his patterns. 4 But where could
physicians be found at that time who did not follow established
doctrines ? Some essays on history and English Archaeology are
found among his writings ; 5 and his works on Natural History,
dedicated to Conrad Gesner, are among the best of his age,
because he imparted his observations in them quite plainly and
naturally, free from the trammels of any school. He died at
Cambridge on the 29th of July, 1573, and ordered for himself
the following epitaph — " Fui Caius."
1 P. 106, 7. Lat. edit.
2 Shortly before his death he resigned the Mastership, but continued to reside in the
College as a fellow-commoner. See Aikin, p. 109. — Transl. note.
3 He gave for anew building to this establishment, more than 1800/., a very con-
siderable sum for those times.
4 De medendi mcthodo, ex CI. Galeni Pergameni, ct Job. Bapt. Montani, Veronensis,
pn'neipum medicorum, sententia, Libri duo. Basil. 1544. 8. He dedicated this
frivolous book to the court-physician in ordinary, Butts. See Baleens, fol. 232. b.
5 Compare his own work, " De Libris Propriis," in Jebb, which is a similar imitation
of Galen, and is written in nearly the same spirit.
G De canibus Britannicis et de rariorum animalium et stirpium historia, in Jebb.
284: SWEATING SICKNESSES.
CH AFTER VI.
SWEATING SICKNESSES.
"E they were sleepless,
despaired of their recovery, and were usually covered suddenly
1 "Est autem cor pncstans atquc salutaris corpori particula, prffiministrans omnibus
sanguinera membris, atque spiritum." Ccel. Aurel. Acut. L. II. c. 34. p. 154. Com-
pare the Author's " Doctrine of the Circulation, befim Harvey" Berlin, 1831. 8.
s Ctrl. Aurel. cap. 30. p. 146. 3 Ibid. cap. 34. p. 156.
i The whole 34th chapter, loc. cit. Aurelian gives, from the 30th to the 10th cap ,
the fullest information respecting the Morbus cardiacus.
5 Torpor frigidus, C. 35. p. 157. 6 Hallucinatio.
286 SWEATING SICKNESSES.
with an ill-savoured perspiration over the whole body, whence
the disorder was likewise called Diaphoresis. Sometimes, how-
ever, a washy sweat broke out, first on the face and neck. This
then spread itself over the whole body ; assumed a very dis-
agreeable odour, became clammy and like water in which flesh
had been macerated, and ran through the bed-clothes in streams,
so that the patient seemed to be melting away. 1 The breath was
short and panting, almost to annihilation (insustentabilis). Those
affected were in continual fear of suffocation ; 2 tossed to and fro
in the greatest anguish, and with a very thin and trembling voice
uttered forth only broken words. They constantly felt an insuffer-
able oppression in the left side, or even over the whole chest ; 3
and in the paroxysms which were ushered in with a fainting Jit,
or were followed by one, the heart teas tumultuous and palpi-
tated, without any alteration in the smallness of the pulse. 4 The
countenance was pale as death, the eyes sunk in their sockets,
and when the disease took a fatal turn, all was darkness around
them. The hands and feet turned blue ; and whilst the heart,
notwithstanding the universal coldness of the body, still beat
violently, they for the most part retained possession of their
senses. A few only wandered a short time before death, while
others were even seized with convulsions and endowed with the
power of prophecy. 5 Finally, the nails became curved on their cold
hands, the skin was wrinkled, and thus the sufferers resigned
their spirit without any mitigation of their miserable condition/'
A striking resemblance is plainly perceived, from this descrip-
tion, between the ancient cardiac disease and the English Sweat-
ing Sickness in the most exquisite cases of each. In both the
same palpitation of the heart, the same alteration of the voice,
the same anxiety, the same impediment to respiration, and
thence the same affection of the nerves of the chest, the same
ill-scented sweat, and by means of this sweat, the same fatal
evacuation ; in short, all the essential symptoms arising from the
same circle of functions. For in the sweating pestilences of the
ancients 7 as well as the moderns, the nerves of the abdomen
remained unaffected ; the liver, intestines, and kidneys, took no
part in the primary affection ; the diaphragm, as in the English
Sweating Sickness, formed the partition. Hence the acute Arc-
tazus did not hesitate to call the cardiac disease fainting (syncope),
1 Ceel. Aurel. ■p. 157. 2 Spiratio prsefocabilis.
3 C. 34. p. 154. Thoracis gravedo. i C. 35. p. 156.
5 Arctaus, L. II. c. 3. p. 30. « Cal. Aurel. loc. cit. '• Diaphorutici, cardiaci.
THE CARDIAC DISEASE OF THE ANCIENTS. 287
with certainly an unusual extension of the notion implied by
this term, which in its common acceptation excludes the turbu-
lent commotion of the heart. In the affection of the brain some
difference occurs, for though the hallucination afforded an un-
favourable prognostic in both diseases, yet the fatal stupor was
peculiar to the English Sweating Sickness, no observer having
made mention of it in the cardiac disease.
Greater and altogether essential differences between this affec-
tion and the English Sweating Sickness appear in another respect.
There is every reason to suppose that the cardiac disease first
appeared in the time of Alexander the Great, that is to say, at
the end of the fourth century before Christ ; for the Hippocratic
physicians were unacquainted with it, Erasistratus, who was
body physician to Seleucus Nicator, and was a universally cele-
brated professor at Alexandria under the first Ptolemy, being the
first to mention it. If that age be compared even superficially
with that of Henry the Vllth and Henry the VHIth ; and
Africa, Asia Minor, and the South of Europe with England, we
shall easily be convinced that the two diseases, notwithstanding
the agreement in their main symptoms, could not be the same ;
moreover, much was comprehended by the ancients under the
name of morbus cardiacus, which, on a nearer examination,
proves not to be one and the same definite form of morbid action :
for sometimes this affection is spoken of as an independent dis-
ease ; sometimes it is mentioned only as a symptom superadded
to others — as a kind of transition from other very various dis-
eases, such as has occurred in modern times. Soranm mentions,
as such diseases, continued fevers, accompanied by much heat; 1
and reckons among them the " Causus," that is, an inflammatory
bilious fever, to which Aretceus also saw the cardiac disease super-
added. These fevers passed, on the fifth or sixth day, into the
cardiac disease, and such a transition occurred chiefly on the criti-
cal days. 2 In a similar sense Cclsus speaks even of Phrenitis,
under which name we are here to understand all inflammatory
fevers accompanied by violent delirium, with the exception of
actual inflammation of the brain. Thus we see that the cardiac
disease arose and increased on a very different soil from other dis-
eases, and was, to furnish an ancient example, as far from be-
ing independent under these circumstances as lethargy was in
similar cases.
1 Febres coruinuse flaiiimata;. Cal. Aurel. c. 31. p. 147.
2 Cretans, Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 188.
288 SWEATING SICKNESSES.
But there was doubtless an independent idiopathic form of the
cardiac disease. Whether this was febrile or not, the most cele-
brated physicians of ancient times were not agreed. Now, how
could they ever have differed upon the subject, if the cardiac dis-
ease had always appeared only as a sequela on the fifth or sixth
day of inflammatory fevers ? Apollophanes , a disciple of Erasis-
tratus, and physician to Antiochiis the First, considered it, with
his master, as constantly febrile, and his opinion prevailed for a
long time : perhaps he was in the right, for it is probable that in
the first half of the third century, the disorder was much more
violent than at a subsequent period. His celebrated contem-
porary, Demetrius of Apamea, disciple of Herophilus, affirmed,
that he had recognised fever only in the beginning of the disease,
and that it disappeared in its further progress. Very soon, most
physicians decided that it was not febrile, but Asclepiades distin-
guished a febrile and a non-febrile form of the cardiac disease,
and it is certain that this physician was a very accurate observer.
Thomson and Thessalus also agreed with him. Aretceus de-
scribed, in a cursory manner, the febrile form only, and pei'haps
was not acquainted with any other. Soranus followed, in the
essential points, Asclepiades, the founder of his school ; and later
writers generally regarded the inward heat, the hot breath, and
the burning thirst — symptoms which were occasionally less
marked, as proofs of the febrile nature of the disease. Numerous
theoretical views, belonging to particular schools, of which we do
not here treat, were intermingled with these, and upon the whole,
that form seems to have been esteemed as non-febrile, in which
the signs of feverish excitement appeared less marked. In all
cases the cardiac disease set in with external coldness, and with
a small, contracted, quick pulse, symptoms which with certainty
indicate fever. 1
Respecting the course of the cardiac disease, we are not fur-
nished with sufficient information. It was no doubt very rapid,
for the frame could not long endure symptoms of so violent a
kind, and the disorder must of necessity soon have come to a
crisis ; yet from the ample directions for treatment, we may con-
clude that it lasted at least some days. If the perspiration was
well surmounted, patients seemed to recover rapidly, and their
sufferings appeared to them, according to the expressions of Are-
treus, like a dream, out of which they awoke to a consciousness
1 Ccel Aurel. c. 33."p. 150.
THE CARDIAC DISEASE OF THE ANCIENTS. 289
of the increased acumen of their senses. 1 But the termination
was not always so fortunate. The disease was very dangerous,
and in many, after the occurrence of an incomplete crisis, an
insidious fever remained behind, which ended in a consumption. 2
The whole phenomenon was altogether peculiar, and among
existing diseases there are none which bear any comparison
with it.
There must therefore have been something in the whole state
of existence among the ancients which favoured the formation of
the cardiac disease. That it arose oftener in summer than in
winter, that it attacked men more frequently than women, and
especially young people full of life, and hot-blooded plethoric
persons, who used much bodily exercise, we learn from credible
observers. 3 In this respect, therefore, it bore a resemblance to
the English Sweating Sickness. We may also add, that indiges-
tion, repletion, drunkenness, as likewise grief and fear, but
especially vomiting and the employment of the bath after dinner,
occasioned an attack of the malady. 4 Let us call to mind the
habits of the ancients. It was in the time of Alexander that
oriental luxury was first introduced. Gluttony became a part of
the enjoyment of life, and warm baths a necessary refinement in
sensuality, which just at this time were philosophical^ established
by Epicurus ; nor was this the last instance in which philoso-
phers encouraged the errors and infirmities of human society.
Here again, therefore, as in the English Sweating Sickness,
we meet with the relaxed state of skin, and the foal repletion
engendered by the same indulgence in sensuality which we have
found to exist in the sixteenth centun\ How this corruption of
morals increased, and to what a frightful height it was carried
among the Romans, it is not necessary here further to elucidate ;
and we may take it for a fact, that in consequence of it, the
general constitution of the ancients underwent a peculiar modi-
fication ; that this relaxation of skin and gross repletion were
propagated from generation to generation ; and that, as among
chronic diseases, those of a gouty character were its more frequent
results, so among the inflammatory, the cardiac disease made its
appearance as the general effect of this kind of life.
AVhere, however, such a system of life existed among whole
communities, the original and peculiar occasion was not needed
in every individual case to bring the pre -disposition for a disease
1 L. II. c. 3. p. 30. - Arrt. Cur. ac. L. II. r. 3. p 193.
3 Cat. Aurel. c. 31. p. 146. ' Ibid.
10
290 SWEATING SICKNESSES.
which propagated itself by hereditary taint, to an actual eruption.
Shocks to the constitution of quite a different kind were often
sufficient for the purpose. Thus, among the Romans, it was by
no means always the case, that gluttony and relaxation of the
skin immediately gave rise to the cardiac disease ; while, on the
other hand, the usual faintness, induced by too copious blood-
letting, passed into this impetuous agitation of the heart, accom-
panied by colliquative sweats ; ! and all over- violent perspirations
in other diseases were apt to take the same dangerous course. 2
We must here also take into account a practice among the
Romans, which was very injurious, and yet rendered sacred by
the laws ; namely, visiting the public baths late in the evening,
just after the principal meal, and awaiting the digestion of their
food in these places of soft indulgence. 3 How much must the
tendency of sweating disorders have been favoured by these
means !
Surmises, founded on the facts already stated, can alone be
offered respecting the nature of the ancient cardiac disease. The
ancients give us no certain intelligence upon it ; for their mode
of observing did not lead to that object at which modern medicine
aims. That the cardiac disease teas not of a rheumatic character
seems deducible from several circumstances — from the quality of
the atmosphere in southern climates, which is not so favourable
to rheumatic maladies, as to give rise to a distinctly defined form
of that complaint throughout a period of five hundred years ;
from the nature of the so-called inflammatory fever, which ex-
hibited no rheumatic symptoms in its course ; and lastly, from
the treatment of the cardiac disease, for it was a common practice
to cool down the " diaphoretic" patients in the midst of their per-
spiration, by sponging them with cold water, to expose them to
the air, and some physicians went so far as to advise cold baths
and effusions. 4 How could they have ventured upon such reme-
dies if the cardiac disease had been of a rheumatic nature ?
In the sweating fevers of the sixteenth century, every abrupt
refrigeration, every exposure of the skin, was fatal. It is thence
1 Ccel. Aurel. c. 33. p. 153. A perfectly similar observation is made in the present
day, on the increasing frequency of liver complaints in England. Parents who have
been a long time in the East Indies, entail the predisposition to these diseases, which
are altogether foreign to the temperate zones, on their posterity, among whom there is
no need of a tropical heat, but merely common causes acting in their own country, to
call forth various liver complaints. Sec Bell (George Hamilton).
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APPENDIX.
A BOKE, OB COUNSEIIL
AGAINST
THE DISEASE
COMMONLY CALLED
THE S W E A T E ,
OR
SWEATYNG SICKNESSE.
MADE BY JHON CAIUS
DOCTpUR IN PHISICKE.
UERY NECESSARY FOR EUERYE PERSONNE, AXD MUCHE
REQUISITE TO BE HAD IX THE HANDES OF AL
SORTES, FOR THEIR BETTER INSTRUCTION,
PREPARACION AND DEFENCE, AGAINST
THE SOUBDEIN COMYNG, \M> FEARFUL
ASSAULTYNG OF THE SAME
DISEASE.
1552.
TO THE RIGHTE HONOURABLE
WILLIAM EAELE OF PEMBROKE,
LORDE HARBERT OF CARDIFE, KNIGHT OF THE
HONOURABLE ORDRE OF THE GARTER, AND
PRESIDENT OF THE KYNGES HIGHNES
COUNSEILL IN THE MARCHES
OF WALES :
JHON CAIUS
WISHETH HELTH AND HONOUR.
In the fereful tyme of the sweate (ryghte honourable) many resorted vnto me
for counseil, among whoe some beinge my frendes & aquaintance, desired me
to write vnto them some litle counseil howe to gouerne themselues therin :
saiyng also that I should do a greate pleasure to all my frendes and contrimen,
if I would deuise at my laisure some thig, whiche from tyme to tyme might
remaine, wherto men might in such cases haue a recourse & present refuge at
all nedes, as the they had none. At whose requeste, at that tyme I wrate
diuerse counseiles so shortly as I could for the present necessite, whiche they
bothe vsed and dyd geue abrode to many others, & further appoynted in my
self to fulfill (for so much as laye in me) the other parte of their honest request
for the time to come. The whiche the better to execute and brynge to passe,
I spared not to go to all those that sente for me, bothe poore, and riche, day
and night. And that not only to do the that ease that I could, & to instructe
the for their recouery : but to note also throughly, the cases and circumstaunces
of the disease in diuerse persons, and to vnderstande the nature and causes of
the same fully, for so much as might be. Therefore as 1 noted, so I wrate as
laisure then serued, and finished one boke in Englishe, onely for Englishe me
not lerned, one other in latine for men of lerninge more at large, and generally
for the help of the which hereafter should haue nede, either in this or other
coutreis, that they may lerne by our harmes. This I had thoughte to haue set
furth before Christmas, & to haue geue to your lordshippe at new-yeres tide,
but that diuerse other businesses letted me. Xeuertheles that which then coulde
not be done cometh not now out of season, although it be neuer so simple, so
it may do ease hereafter, which as I trust this shal, so for good wil I
geue and dedicate it vnto your good Lordshippe, trustyng
the same will take this with as good a mind, as
I geue it to your honour, whiche our Lorde
preserue and graunt long
to continue.
At London the first of Aprill.
1552.
THE
BOKE OF J HON CAITTS
AGAINST
THE SWEATYNG SICKNES.
Man beyng borne not for his owne vse and comoditie alone, but also for the
commo benefite of many, (as reason wil and al good authoures write) he whiche
in this world is worthy to lyue, ought al wayes to haue his hole minde and in-
tente geuen to profite others. Whiche thynge to shewe in effecte in my selfe,
although by fortune some waies I haue ben letted, yet by that whiche fortune
cannot debarre, some waies again I haue declared. For after certein yeres
beyng at cambrige, I of the age of xx. yeres, partly for mine exercise and profe
what I coulde do, but chefely for certein of my very fredes, dyd translate out
of Latine into Englishe certein workes, hauyngnothynge els so good to gratifie
theim w'. Wherof one of 8. Chrysostome de modo orandi deum, that is, of y°
manner to praye to god, I sent to one my frende then beyng in the courte. One
other, a Avoorke of Erasmus de vera theoloyia, the true and redy waye to reade
the scripture, I dyd geue to Maister Augustine Stiwarde Alderman of Nor-
wiche, not in the ful as the authore made it, but abbreuiate for his only purpose
to whome I sent it, Leuyng out many subtile thinges, made rather for great &
learned diuines, the for others. The thirde was the paraphrase of the same
Erasmus vpon the Epistle of S. Jude, whiche I translated at the requeste of
one other my deare frende.
These I did in Englishe the rather because at that tyme men ware not so
geuen all to Englishe, but that they dyd fauoure & mayteine good learning con-
teined in tongues & sciences, and did also study and apply diligently the same
the selues. Therfore I thought no liurte done. Sence f tyme diuerse other
thynges I haue written, but with entente neuer more to write in the Englishe
tongue, partly because the comoditie of that which is so written, passeth not the
compasse of Englande, but remaineth enclosed within the seas, and partly be-
cause I thought that labours so taken should be halfe loste among them whiche
sette not by learnyng. Thirdly for that I thought it beste to auoide the iudge-
ment of the multitude, from whome in maters of learnyng a man shalbe forced
to dissente, in disprouyng that whiche they most approue, & approuyng that
whiche they moste disalowe. Fourthly for that the common settyng furthe and
printlg of euery foolishe thyng in englishe, both of phisicke vnperfectly, and
other matters vndiscretly diminishe the grace of thynges learned set furth in
thesame. But chiefely, because I wolde geue none example or comforte to my
countrie men, (who I wolde to be now, as here tofore they haue bene, compar-
able in learnyng to men of other countries) to stonde onoly in the Englishe
A COUNSEILL AGAINST THE SWEAT. 327
tongue, but to leaue the simplicite of thesame, and to procede further in many
and diuerse knoweleges bothe in tongues and sciences at home and in vniuersi-
ties, to the adournyng of the comon welthe, better seruice of their kyng, &
great pleasure and commodite of their owne selues, to what kinde of life so
euer they shold applie them. Therfore whatsoeuer sence that tyme I minded
to write, I wrate y e same either in greke or latine. As firste of all certein com-
mentaries vpon certein bokes of William framingha, maister of art in Cam-
brige, a man of great witte, memorie, diligence and learnyng, brought vp in
thesame scholes in Englande that I was, euer fro his beginnyng vntil his death.
Of the which bokes, ij. of cotimtia (or cotinence) werin prose, y e reste in metre
or verse of diuerse kindes. One a comforte for a blinde ma, entitled ad Aemi-
lianum caecum consolatio, one other Ecpyrosis, seu incendiu sodomoru, the burn-
yng of Sodome. The thirde Laurentius, expressyng the tormentes of Saincte
Laurence. The fourthe, Idololatria, Idolatrie, not after the trade and veine of
scripture (wherein he was also very well exercised) but conformable to scrip-
ture and after the ciuile and humane learnyng, declaryng them to worshippe
Mars, that warre, or fight : Venus, that lyue incontinently : Pluto, that folowe
riches couetousely ; and so forth through all vices vsed in his time. The fiueth
boke Arete, vertue : the sixth, Epigrames, conteined in two bokes, whiche by
an epistle of his owne hand before y e boke yet remainyng, he dedicated vnto
me, purposyng to haue done many more prety thynges, but that cruell death
preueted, and toke him away wher he and I was borne at Norwiche, in the yere
of our Lord M.d.xxxvij. the xxix. daie of September, beynge then of the age
of xxv. yeres, vij. Monethes, and vj. daies, a greate losse of so notable a yonge
man. These workes at his death he willed to comme to my handes, by which
occasion after I had viewed the, and perceiued them ful of al kyndes of learn-
yng, thinkyng the no workes for all me to vnderstande with out helpe, but such
as were wel sene in all sortes of authours : I endeuoured my selfe partely for
the helpe of others, & partly for mine owne exercise, to declare vpon theim
the profite of my studie in ciuile and humane learnynge, and to haue before
mine eyes as in a worke (which was alwaies my delyght) how muche I had
profited in the same. Thys so done, I ioyned euery of my commentaries to
euery of hys saied bokes, faier written by Nicolas Pergate puple to the saied
Maister Framyngham, myndyng after the iudgement of learned men had in
thesame, to haue set theim furthe in prynte, if At had ben so thought good to
theim. For whyche cause, at my departynge into Italie, I put an Epistle be-
fore theym dedicatorye to the right Reuerend father in God Thomas Thirlbye,
now Bishoppe of Xorwiche, because thesame maister Framyngham loued hym
aboue others. He after my departure deliuered the bokes to the reuerende
father in god Jho Skippe, late bishop of Hereforde, then to D. Thirtle, tutor to
the sayd maister framynha, fro him to syr Richard Morisine, now ambassadoure
for y" kinges maiestie with theperour, then to D. Tailour Deane of Lincolne,
and syr Thomas Smithe, secretarie after to y" kynges Maiestie, all great learned
men. Fro these to others they wente, among whome the bokes died, (as I sup-
pose,) or els be closely kept, that after my death they may be setfurthe in the
names of them which now haue the, as their workes. Howe soeucr it be, wel I
knowc that at my returne out of Italie (after vj. yeres continuance ther) into
Englad, I coulde neuer vnderstand wher they wer, although I bothe diligently
and desirousely sought the. After these I translated out of Greke into Latine
a litle boke of Nicephorus, deelarynge howe a man maye in praiynge confesse
hym selfe, which after I dyd geue vnto Jho Grome bacheler in arte, a yong
328 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
man in yeres, but in witte & learnyng for his tyme, of great expectatio. That
clone I beganne a chronicle of the citie of Norwiche, of the beginninge therof
& thinges done ther fro time to time. The matere wherof yet rude and vn-
digested lyeth by me, which at laisure I minde to polishe, and to make an end
of that I haue begunne. And to be shorte, in phisicke diuerse thynges I haue
made & settefurth in print bothe in Greke and Latine, not mindyng to do other
wise, as I haue before said, al my life : For which cause al these thinges I haue
rehersed, els superfluous in this place. Yet see, meaning now to counseill a
litle agaynst the sweatyng sickenes for helpe also of others, notwithstanding
my former purpose, two thynges compell me, in writynge therof, to returne
agayne to Englishe, Necessite of the matter, & good wyl to my countrie, frendes,
& acquaintance, whiche here to haue required me, to whome I thinke my selfe
borne.
Necessite, for that this disease is almoste peculiar vnto vs Englishe men, and
not common to all men, folowyng vs, as the shadowe the body, in all countries,
albeit not at al times. Therfore compelled I am to vse this our Englishe
tongue as best to be vnderstande, and moste nedeful to whome it most foloweth,
most behoueth to haue spedy remedie, and often tymes leaste nyghe to places
of succource and comforte at lerned mennes handes : and leaste nedefull to be
setfurthe in other tongues to be vnderstand generally of all persons, whome it
either haunteth not at all, or els very seldome, as ones in an age. Thinkynge
it also better to write this in Englishe after mine own meanyng, then to haue
it translated out of my Latine by other after their misunderstandyng.
Good wyll to my countrie frendes and acquaintance, seynge them wyth out
defence yelde vnto it, and it ferefully to inuade the, furiousely handle them,
spedily oppresse them, vnmercyfully choke them, and that in no small numbers,
and such persons so notably noble in birthe, goodly conditions, graue sobrietie,
singular wisedoe, and great learnynge, as Henry Duke of Suflblke, and the
lorde Charles his brother, as fewe hath bene sene lyke of their age : an heuy &
pitifull thyng to here or see. So that if by onely learned men in phisicke &
not this waye also it should be holpen, it were nedeful almost halfe so many
learned men to be redy in euery toune and citie, as their should be sweatynge
sicke folkes. Yet this notwithstandynge, I wyll euery man not to refuse the
counseill of the present or nighe phisicen learned, who maie, accordyng to the
place, persone, cause, & other circustances, geue more particular counseil at
nede, but in any wise exhorte him to seke it with all diligence. To this enter-
prise also amonge so many learned men, not a litle stirreth me the gentilnes
and good willes of al sortes of men, which I haue well proued heretofore by my
other former bokes. Mindynge therefore with as good a will to geue my
counseil in this, and trusting for no lesse gentlenes in the same, I wyll plainly
and in English for their better vnderstandynge to whome I write, firste declare
the beginnynge, name, nature, and signes of the sweatynge sickenes. Next,
the causes of the same. And thirdly, how to preserue men fro it, and remedy
them whe they haue it.
The beginnyng of the disease. — In the yerc of our Lorde God M.CCCC.lxxxv.
shortly after thevij. daye of august, at whiche tyme kynge Henry the seuenth
arriued at Milford in walles, out of Fraunce, and in the firste yere of his reigne,
ther chaunced a disease among the people, lastyng the reste of that monethe &
all September, which for the soubdeine sharpenes and vnwont cruelnes passed
the pestilence. For this commonly geueth iij. or iiij. often vij. sumtyme ix. as
that firste at Athenes whiche Thucklules describeth in his seconde boke, sum-
THE SWEAT. 329
tyme xj. and sumtyme xiiij. dayes respeete, to whome it vexeth. But that im-
mediatly killed some in opening theire windowes, some in plaieng with children
in their strete dores, some^in one hour, many in two it destroyed, & at the
longest, to the that merilye dined, it gaue a sorowful Supper. As it founde
them so it toke them, some in sleape some in wake, some in mirthe some in care,
some fasting & some ful, some busy and some idle, and in one house sometyme
three sometime hue, sometyme seuen sometyme eyght, sometyme more some
tyme all, of the whyche, if the haulfe in euerye Towne escaped, it was thoughte
great fauour. How, or wyth what maner it toke them, with what griefte, and
accidentes it helde theym, herafter the I wil declare, whe I shal come to shewe
the signes therof. In the mene space, know that this disease (because it most
did stand in sweating from the beginning yntil the endyng) was called here,
the Sweating sickenesse : and because it firste beganne in Englande, it was
named in other countries, the englishe sweat. Yet some coniecture that it, or
the like, hath bene before seeneamong the Grekes in the siege of Troie. In
theperor Octauius warres at Cantabria, called nowe Biscaie, in Hispaine : and
in the Turkes, at the Rhodes. How true that is, let the aucthours loke : how
true thys is, the best of our Chronicles shewith, & of the late begonne disease
the freshe memorie yet confirmeth. But if the name wer now to be geuen, and
at my libertie to make the same : I would of the maner and space of the dis-
ease (by cause the same is no sweat only, as herafter I will declare, & in the
spirites) make the name Ephemera, which is to sai, a feuer of one natural dai.
A feuer, for the feruor or burning, drieth & sweating feure like. Of one
naturall day, for that it lasteth but the time of xxiiij. houres. And for a dis-
tinction from the commune Ephemera, that Galene writeth of, comming both
of other causes, and wyth vnlike paines, I wold putte to it either Englishe, for
that it followeth somoche English menne, to who it is almoste proper, & also
began here : or els pestilent, for that it cometh by infection & putrefaction,
otherwise then doth the other Ephemera. Whiche thing I suppose may the
better be done, because I se straunge and no english names both in Latine and
Greke by commune vsage taken for Englishe. As in Latin, Feure, Quotidia,
Tertian, Quartane, Aier, Infection, Pestilence, Uomite, Person, Reines. Ueines,
Peines, Chamere, Numbre, &c. a litle altered by the commune pronunciation.
In Greke, Pleuresie, Ischiada, Hydrops, Apostema, Phlegma, and Chole : called
by thevulgarepronunciatio, Schiatica, Dropsie, Impostume, Phleume, & Choler :
Gyne also, and Boutyre, Sciourel, Mouse, Rophe, Phrase, Paraphrase, & cephe,
wherof cometh Chaucers couercephe, in the romant of the Rose, writte and
pronoiiced comoly, kerchief in y* south, & courchief in the north. Thereof
euery head or principall thing, is comonlye called cephe, pronoiiced & writte,
chief. Uery many other there be in our commune tongue, whiche here to re-
hearse were to long. These for an example shortelye I haue here noted. But
for the name of this disease it maketh now no matter, the name of Sweat beyng
comoly vsed. Let vs therfore returne to the thing, which as occasio & cause
serued, came againe in the M.D.vi. the xxii. yeare of the said Kyng Henry the
seuenth. Aftre that, in the yeare M.D.xvii. the ix. yeare of Kyng Henry the
viii, and endured from July, vnto y e middest of Decebre. The iiii tyme, in the
yeare M.D.xxviii. the xx. yeare of thesaied Kyng, beginning in thende of May,
& continuing June and July. The fifth tyme of this fearful Ephemera of Eng-
lande, and pestilent sweat, is this in the yeare M.D.LI, of oure Lorde GOD,
and the fifth yeare of oure Souereigne Lorde king Edwarde the sixth, begin-
ning at Shrewesbury in the middest of April, proceadinge with grcate mortalitie
330 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
to Ludlowe, Prestenc, and other places in Wales, then to Westchestre, Couentre,
Drenfoorde, and other tounes in the Southe, and suche as were in and aboute
the way to London, whether it came notablie the seuenth of July, and there
continuing sore, with the losseof vii. C. lxi. from the ix. day vntil the xvi. daye,
besides those that died in the vii. and viii. dayes, of who no regiatre was kept,
fro that it abated vntil the xxx. day of the same, with the losse of C. xlii. more.
Then ceassing there, it wente from thence throughe al the east partes of Eng-
land into the Northe vntill the ende of Auguste, at whiche tyme it diminished,
and in the ende of Septembre fully ceassed.
This disease is not a Sweat onely, (as it is thought & called) but a feuer, as
I saied, in the spirites by putrefaction venemous, with a fight, trauaile, and
laboure of nature againste the infection receyued in the spirites, whervpon by
chaunce foloweth a Sweate, or issueth an humour compelled by nature, as also
chanceth in other sicknesses whiche consiste in humours, when they be in their
state, and at the worste in certein dayes iudicial, aswel by vomites, bledinges,
& fluxes, as by sweates. That this is true, the self sweates do shewe. For as
in vtter businesses, bodies y' sore do labour, by trauail of the same are forced
to sweat, so in inner diseases, the bodies traueiled & labored by the, are moued
to the like. In which labors, if nature be strog & able to thrust out the poiso
by sweat (not otherwise letted) y e perso escapeth : if not, it dieth. That it is
a feuer, thus I haue partly declared, and more wil streight by the notes of the
disease, vnder one shewing also by thesame notes, signes, and short tariance of
the same, that it consisteth in the spirites. First by the peine in the backe, or
shoulder, peine in the extreme partes, as arme, or legge, with a flusshing, or
wind, as it semeth to certeine of the pacientes, flieng in the same. Secondly
by the grief in the liuer and the nigh stomacke. Thirdely, by the peine in the
head, & madnes of the same. Fourthly by the passion of the hart. For the
flusshing or wynde comming in the vtter and extreame partes, is nothing els
but the spirites of those same gathered together, at the first entring of the euell
aire, agaynste the infection therof, & flyeng thesame from place to place, for
their owne sauegarde. But at the last infected, they make a grief where thei
be forced, whiche comonly is in tharme or legge (the fartheste partes of theire
refuge) the backe or shulder : trieng ther first a brut as good souldiers, before
they wil let their enemye come further into theire dominion. The other grefes
be therefore in thother partes aforsaid & sorer, because the spirites be there
most pletuous as in their founteines, whether alwaies thinfection desireth to go.
For fro the liuer, the nigh stomack, braine, and harte, come all the iij. sortes,
and kyndes of spirites, the gouernoures of oure bodies, as firste spronge there.
But from the hart, the liuish spirites. In putrifieng wherof by the euel aier in
bodies fit for it, the harte is oppressed. "Wherupon also foloweth a marueilous
heauinesse, (the fifthe token of this disease,) and a desire to sleape, neuer con-
tented, the senses in al partes beynge as they were bounde or closed vp, the
partes therfore left heuy, vnliuishe, and dulle. Laste foloweth the shorte
abidinge, a certeine Token of the disease to be in the spirites, as wel may be
proued by the Ephemera that Galene writethe of, whiche because it consistethe
in the Spirites, lasteth but one natural day. For as fire in hardes or straw, is
sone in flambe & sone oute, euen so hcate in the spirites, either by simple
distemperature, or by infection and putrefaction therein conceyued, is sone
in flambe and sone out, and soner for the vehemencye or greatnes of the
same, whiche without lingering, consumeth sone the light matter, contrary to
al other diseases rcstyng in humoures, wherin a fire ones kindeled, is not so sone
THE SWEAT. 331
put out, no more then is the same in moiste woode, or fat Sea coles, as well by
the particular Example of the pestilence, (of al others mostlyke vnto this) may
be declared, whyche by that it stadeth in euel humors, tarieth as I said, some-
tyme, from iiij. vii. ix. & xj. vntill xiiij. dayes, difFerentlie from this, by reason
therof, albeit by infection most lyke to this same. Thus vnder one laboure
shortelie I haue declared — both what this disease is, wherein it consisteth, howe
and with what accidentes it grieueth and is differente from the Pestilence, and
the propre signes, and tokens of the same, without the whiche, if any do sweate,
I take theym not to Sweate by this Sickenesse, but rather by feare, heate of the
yeare, many clothes, greate exercise, affection, excesse in diete, or at the worst,
by a smal cause of infection, and lesse disposition of the bodi to this sicklies.
So that, insomoche as the body was nat al voide of matter, sweate it did when
infection came : but in that the mattere was not greate, the same coulde neythef
be perilous nor paineful as in others, in whom was greater cause.
The causes. — Hetherto I haue shewed the beginning, name, nature, & signes
of this disease : nowe I will declare the causes, which be ij. : infectio, & impure
spirites in bodies corrupt by repletio. Infection, by thaire receiuing euel
qualities, distepring not only y e hete, but the hole substace therof, in putrifieng
thesame, and that generally ij. waies. By the time of the yere vnnatural, &
by the nature & site of the soile & region — wherunto maye be put the particular
accidentes of this same. By the time of the yeare vnnaturall, as if winter be
hot & drie, somer hot and moist : (a fit time for sweates) the spring colde and
drye, the fall hot & moist. To this mai be ioyned the euel disposition by con-
stellation, whiche hath a great power & dominion in al erthly thinges. By
the site & nature of the soile & regio, many wayes. First & specially by euel
mistes & exhalatios drawen out of the grounde by the sune in the heate of the
yeare, as chanced amog the Grekes in the siege of Troy, wherby died firste
dogges & mules, after, me in great numbre : & here also in Englad in this
m.d.lj. yeare, the cause of this pestilent sweate, but of dyuers nature. Whiche
miste in the countrie wher it began, was sene flie fro toune to toune, with suche
a stincke in morninges & eueninges, that me could scarcely abide it. The by
dampes out of the earth, as out of Galenes Barathru, or the poetes auernii, or
aomu, the dampes wherof be such, that thei kil y e birdes flieg ouer them. Of
like dampes, I heard in the north coutry in cole pits, wherby the laboring me
be strcight killed, except before the houre of coming therof (which thei know by
y" flame of their cadle) thei auoid the groud. Thirdly by putrefactio or rot in
groudes aftre great flouddes, in carious, & in dead men. After great fluddes,
as happened in y" time of Gallien theperor at rome, in Achaia & Libia, wher the
seas sodeinly did ouerflow y e cities nigh to y" same. And in the xi. yeare of
Pclac/ius, when al the flouddes throughe al Italye didde rage, but chieflye Tihris
at Rome, whiche in many places was as highe as the walles of the citie.
In carios or dead bodies, as fortuned here in Englande vpon the sea banckes
in the tyme of King Alured, or Alfrede ; (as some Chroniclers write) but in the
time of king Ethelred after Sabellicus, by occasion of drowned Locustes cast
vp by the Sea, which by a wynde were driuen oute of Fraunce thether. This
locust is a flie in bignes of a manes thumbe, in colour broune, in shape some-
what like a greshopp:T, hauing vi. fiete, so many wynges, two tiethe, & an
hedde like a horse, and therfore called in Italy CauaUeto, where ouer y c city of
Padoa, in the yeare m.d.xiij. (as I remembre,) I, with manye more did see a
swarme of theim, whose passage ouer the citie, did laste two hours, in breadth
inestimable to eucry man there. Here by example to note infection by deadde
332 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
menne in Warres, either in rotting aboue the ground, as chaunced in Athenes
by theim of Ethiopia, or els in beyng buried ouerly as happened at Bulloigne,
in the yere M.D.xlv. the yeare aftre king Henrye theight had conquered the
same, or by long continuance of an hoste in one place, it is more playne by
dayly experience, then it neadeth to be shewed. Therefore I wil now go to the
fourth especial cause of infectio, the pent aier, breaking out of the ground in
yearthquakes, as chaunced at Uenice in the first yeare of Andrea Dandulo, then
Duke, the xxiiij. day of Januarye, and xx. hour after their computacion. By
which infectio mani died, & many were borne before their time. The v. cause is
close, & vnstirred aire, & therfore putrified or corrupt, out of old welles, holes
in y e groud made for grain, wherof many I did se in & about Pesaro in Italy,
by openig the aftre a great space, as both those coutrime do cdfesse, & also by
exaple is declared, for y e manye in openig the vnwarely be killed. Out of caues,
& tobes also, as chaiiced first in the country of Bdbilonia, proceding aftre into
Grece, and so to Rome, by occasion that y e souldiers of themperour Marcus
Antoninus, vpon hope of money, brake up a golden coffine of Auidius Cassias,
spieg a litle hole therin, in the teple of Apollo in Seleucia, as Ammianus Marcel-
linus writeth. To these mai be ioyned the particular causes of infectio, which
I cal the accidentes of the place, augmenting thesame. As nigh to dwelling
places, merishe & muddy groundes, puddles or donghilles, sinkes or canales,
easing places or carions, deadde ditches or rotten groundes, close aier in houses
or ualleis, with suche like. Thus muche for the firste cause.
The second cause of this Englyshe Ephemera, I said were thimpure spirites in
bodies corupt by repletio. Repletion I cal here, abundance of humores euel
& maliciouse, from long time by litle & litle gathered by euel diete, remaining
in the bodye, coming either by to moche meate, or by euel meate in qualitie, as
infected frutes, meates of euel iuse or nutrimet ; or both ioyntly. To such
spirites when the aire infectiue cometh cosonant, the be thei distepered, cor-
rupted, sore handled, & oppressed, the nature is forced, & the disease engendred.
But while I doe declare these impure spirites to be one cause, I must remoue
your myndes fro spirites to humours, for that the spirites be fedde of the finest
partes therof, & aftre bringe you againe to spirites where I toke you. And
forsomuche as I haue not yet forgotten to whome I write, in this declaration I
will leaue a part al learned & subtil reasos, as here void & vnmiete, & only vse
suche as be most euident to whom I write, & easiest to be vnderstanden of the
same : and at ones therwith shew also why it hauteth vs English men more
the other nations. Therfore I passe ouer the vngetle sauoure or smell of the
sweate, grosenes, colour, and other qualities of the same, the quantitie, the
daunger in stopping, the maner in coming furthe redily, or hardly, hot or cold,
the notes in the excremetes, the state longer or sorer, with suche others, which
mai be tokes of corrupt humours & spirites, & onli wil stad upo iii. reasos de-
claring y e same swet by gret repletio to be in vs not otherwise for al the euel
aire apt to this disease, more the other natios. For as hereaftre I wil shew, &
Gale cofirmeth, our bodies ca not suffre any thig or hurt by corrupt & infectiue
causes, except ther be in the a certel mater prepared apt & like to receiue it,
els if one were sick, al shuld be sick, if in this countri, in al coutres wher the
infection came, which thig we se doth not chace. For touching the first reaso,
we se this sweting sicknes or pestilet Ephemera, to be oft in Englad, but neuer
entreth Scotland, (except the borders) albeit thei both be ioinctly within the
copas of on sea. The same begining here, hath assailed Brabant & the costes
nigh to it, but neuer passed Germany, where ones it was in like facio as here,
THE SWEAT. 333
with great mortalitie, in the yere m.d.xxix. Cause wherof none other there is
naturall, then the euell diet of these thre contries whiche destroy more meates
and drynckes withoute al ordre, coueniet time, reaso, or necessite, the either
Scotlande, or all other countries vnder the sunne, to the greate annoiance of
their owne bodies and wittes, hinderance of theim which have nede, and great
dearth and scarcitie in their cumon welthes. Wherfore if Esculapius the in-
uentour of phisike, y e sauer of me from death, and restorer to life, should re-
turne again Ito this world, he could not saue these sortes of men, hauing so
moche sweatyng stuffe, so many euill humoures laid vp in store, fro this dis-
pleasante, feareful, & pestilent disease : except thei would learne a new lesson,
& folowe a new trade. For other wise, neither the auoidyng of this countrie
(the seconde reason) nor fleyng into others, (a commune refuge in other dis-
eases) wyll preserue vs Englishe men, as in this laste sweate is by experience
well proued in Cales, Antwerpe, and other places of Brabant, wher only our
contrimen ware sicke, & none others, except one or ii. others of thenglishe diete,
which is also to be noted. The cause hereof natural is onely this, that they
caried ouer with the, & by lyke diete ther incresed that whiche was the cause
of their disease. Wherefore lette vs asserteine our selues, that in what soeuer
contrie lyke cause and matter is, there commyng like aier and cause efficient,
wil make lyke effecte and disease in persos of agreable complexions, age, and
diete, if the tyme also doe serue to these same, and in none others. These I
putte, for that the tyme of the yere hote, makethe moche to the malice of the
disease, in openynge the pores of the body, lettynge in the euill aier, resoluynge
the humores and makynge them fiowable, and disposing therfore the spirites
accordyngly, besyde, that (as I shewed in the first cause of this pestilente
sweate) it stirreth and draweth out of the erthe euill exhalations and mistes, to
thinfection of the aier and displeasure of vs. Diet I put, for that they of the
contrarie diete be not troubled with it at all. Age and complexion, for this,
that although it spareth no age of bothe kyndes, nor no complexion but some
it touchethe, yet for the most parte (wherby rules and reasones be alwayes to be
made) it vexed theim of the middle age, beste luste, and theim not moch vnder
that, and of complexions hote & moiste, as fitteste by their naughty & moche
subtiltie of blode to fede the spirites : or nigh and lyke to thesame in some one
of the qualities, as cholerike in hete, phlegmatike in moister, excepte thother
their qualities, as drinesse in cholerike, & cold in phlegmatike, by great dominion
ouer thother, did lette. For the clene contrarie complexios to the infected aier,
alwaies remaine helthful, saulfe and better then tofore, the corrupte and infected
aier notwithstanding. Therfore cold and drie persones either it touched not
at all, or very fewe, and that wyth no danger : such I say as beside their com-
plexion, (whiche is so harde to finde in any man exacte and simple, as exactc
helthes) were annoied with some corrupt humoures & spirites, & therfore mete
by so moch to receiue it, & that by good reaso. For nothing can naturally
haue power to do ought against any thing, excepte the same haue in it selfc a
disposicion by like qualities to receiue it. As the cause in the fote canot
trouble the flank and leue the knee (the mean betwixte) except there were a
greater consent and likenes of nature in sufferance (whiche we call tympathian)
betwixte those then thother. Nor fire refusynge stones, canne burne hardes,
strawe, stickes and charcole, oile, waxe, fatte, and seacole, except these same
first of al wer apte, and by conuenient qualities disposed to be enflamcd and
burned. Nor any man goeth about to burne water, because the qualities thereof
be contrary, and the body vndisposcd to the like of fire. By whiche reason it
334 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
may also be pcrceiued, that y' venemouse qualitie of this corrupt aire is hote
and moiste, for it redily enfectethe the lyke complexions, and those nigh vnto
th3im, and the contrary not at all, or hardly : & easely doth putrify, as doe the
Southe wyndes. Therfore next vnto those colde and drie coplexions, olde men
escaped free, as like to theim by age : and children, as voide of replecion con-
sumed bv their great hete, and therefore alwaies redy to eate. But in this dis-
ease the subtile humour euill and abundant in full bodies fedyng y" spirites, is
more to be noted then the humour complexional, whiche notwithstanding, as
an helper or hinderer to y" same, is not to be neglected. For els it should be
in all contries and persones indifferently, wher all complexionesbe. The thirde
and laste reason is, y' they which had thys sweat sore with perille or death,
were either men of welthe, ease, & welfare, or of the poorer sorte such as wer
idls persones, good ale drinkers, and Tauerne haunters. For these, by y e great
welfare of the one sorte, and large drinkyng of thother, heped vp in their bodies
moche euill matter : by their ease and idlenes, coulde not waste and consume
it. A confirmacion of this is, that the laborouse and thinne dieted people,
either had it not, because they dyd eate but litle to make the matter : or with
no greate grefe and danger, because they laboured out moche thereof. Where-
fore vpon small cause, necessarily must folowe a smal effecte. All these reasones
go to this ende, that persones of all contries of moderate and good diete, escape
thys Englishe Ephemera, and those be onely vexed therewith, whiche be of im-
moderate and euill diete. But why ? for the euill humores and corrupte aier
alone ? No, for the the pestilence and not the swet should rise. For what
then? For y e impure spirites corrupte in theim selues and by the infectiue aier.
Why so ? for that of impure and corrupte humores, whether thei be blode or
others, can rise none other then impure spirites. For euery thynge is suche as
that whereof it commeth. Now, that of the beste and fineste of the blode, yea
in corrupte bodies (whyche beste is nought) these spirites be ingendred and
fedde, I before expressed. Therfor who wyl haue them pure and cleane, and
him selfe free from sweat, muste kepe a pure and cleane diete, and then he
shalbe sure.
The presentation. — Infection by the aier, and impure spirites by repletion
thus founde and declared to be the causes of this pestilente sweate or Englishe
ephemera, lette vs nowe see howe we maye preserue our selues from it, and
howe it may be remedied, if it chaunce, wyth lesse mortalitie. I wyll begynne
wyth preseruation. That most of all dothe stande in auoidyng the causes to
come of the disease, the thinges helping forward the same, and remouyng
that whiche is alredy had & gotten. Al be done by the good order of thynges
perteynyng to the state of the body. Therfore I will begin with diete where
I lefte, & then go furth with aier where I beganne in treatyng the causes, and
declare the waie to auoide infection, and so furthe to the reste in order. Who
that lustethe to lyue in quiete suretie, out of the sodaine danger of this Eng-
lishe ephemera, he aboue all thynges, of litle and good muste eate & spare not,
the laste parte wherof wyl please well (I doubt not) vs Englishe men : the
firste I thinke neuer a deale. Yet it must please theim that entende to lyue
without the reche of this disease. So doyng, they shall easely escape it. For
of that is good, can be engendred no euill : of that is litle, can be gathered no
great store. Therfore helthful must he nedes be and free from this disease,
that vsethe this kinde of liuynge and maner in dietynge. An example hereof
may the wise man Socrates be, which by this sorte of diete escaped a sore pes-
tilence in Athene^, neuer fleynge ne kepyng close him selfe from the same.
THE SWEAT. 335
Truly who will lyue accordynge to nature and not to lust, may with this diete
be well contented. For nature is pleased with a litle, nor seketh other then
that the mind voide of cares and feares may be in quiete merily, and the body
voide of grefe, maye be in life swetly, as Lucretius writeth. Here at large to
ronne out vntill my breth wer spent, as vpon a common place, against y" in-
temperace or excessiue diete of Englande, thincommodities & displeasures
of the same many waies : and contrarie, in commedation of meane diete and
temperance (called of Plato sophrosyne, for that it coserneth wisdome) and the
thousande commodities therof, both for helthe, welthe, witte, and longe life,
well I might, & lose my laboure : such be our Englishe facions rather then
reasones. But for that I purpose neither to wright a longe worke but a shorte
counseill, nor to wery the reders with that they luste not to here, I will lette
that passe, and moue the that desire further to knowe my mynde therin, to re-
member that I sayd before, of btle & good eate and spare not, wherby they
shall easely perceiue my meanyng. I therefore go furth with my diete, wher-
in my counseill is, that the meates be helthfull, and holsomly kylled, swetly
saued, and wel prepared in rostyng, sethyng, baking, & so furth. The bred,
of swet come, wel leuened, and so baked. The drinke of swete malte and
good Avater kyndly brued, without other drosse nowe a daies vsed. No
wine in all the tyme of sweatyng, excepte to suche whose sickenes require it for
medicin, for fere of inflamynge & openynge, nor except y e halfe be wel soden
water. In other tymes, old, pure, & smal. Wishig for the better executio
hereof & ouersight of good and helthsome victalles, ther wer appointed cer-
tein masters of helth in euery citie and toune, as there is in Italie, whiche
for the good order in all thynges, maye be in al places an example. The
meates I would to be veale, muttone, kidde, olde lambe, chikyn, capone, henne,
cocke, pertriche, phesane, felfare, smal birdes, pigeon, yong pecockes, whose
flesh e by a certeine natural & secrete propertie neuer putrefie, as hath bene
proued. Conies, porke of meane age, neither fatte nor leane, the skynne take
awaye, roste, & eate colde : Tartes of prunes, gelies of veale & capone. Yong
befe in this case a litle poudered is not to be dispraised, nor new egges &
good milke. Butter in a mornyng with sage and rewe fastynge in the sweat-
ynge tyme, is a good preseruatiue, beside that it nourisheth. Crabbes, craues-
ses, picrel, perche, ruffe, gogion, lampreis out of grauelly riuers, smeltes, dace,
barbell, gornerd, whityng, soles, flunders, plaice, millers thumbes, minues, w*
such others, sodde in water & vinegre w 1 rosemary time, sage, & hole maces, &
serued hote. Yea swete salte fishe and linge, for the saltes sake wastynge y"
humores therof, which in many freshe fishes remaine, maye be allowed well
watered to the that haue none other, & wel lyke it. Nor all fishes, no more
then al fleshes be so euil as they be take for : as is wel declared in physik, &
approued by the olde and wise romaines moche in their fisshes, lusty char-
tusianes neuer in fleshes, & helthful poore people more in fishe then fleshe.
But we are nowe a daies so vnwisely fine, and womanly delicate, that Ave may
in no wise touch a fisshe. The olde manly hardnes, stoute courage, & pein-
fulnes of Englande is vtterly driuen awaye, in the stede wherof, men now a
daies recieve womanlines, & become nice, not able to withstande a blaste of
wynde, or resiste a poore fishe. And children be so brought vp, that if they
be not all daie by the fire with a toste and butire, and in their furres, they be
streight sicke.
Sauces to metes I appoint firste aboue all thynges good appetite, and
next Oliucs, capers, iusc of lemones, Barberies, Pomegranctcs, Orcnges and
336 A C0UXSE1LL AGAINST
Sorel, veriuse, & vineigre, iuse of vnripe Grapes, thepes or Goseberies. After
mete, quinces, or marmalade, Pomegranates, Orenges sliced eaten with Suger,
Succate of the pilles or barkcs therof, and of pomecitres, olde apples and peres,
Prunes, Reisons, Dates & Nuttes. Figges also, so they be taken before diner,
els no frutes of that yere, nor rawe herbes or rotes in sallattes, for that in suche
times they be suspected to be partakers also of the enfected aire.
Of aire so much I haua spoken before, as apperteinethe to the declaration
of enfection therby. Nowe I wyl aduise and counseill howe to kepe the same
pure, for somoche as may be, or lesse enfected, and correcte the same corrupte.
The first is done in takynge a way y e causes of enfectio. The seconde, by
doynge in all pointes the contrary thereto. Take awaye the causes we maye,
in damnyng diches, auoidynge carios, lettyng in open aire, shunning suche
euil mistes as before I spake of, not openynge or sturrynge euill brethynge
places, landynge muddy and rotte groundes, burieng dede bodyes, kepyng
canelles cleane, sinkes & easyng places sweat, remouynge dongehilles, boxe and
euil sauouryng thynges, enhabitynge high & open places, close towarde the
sowthe, shutte toward the winde, as reason wil & thexperience of M. varro in
the pestilece at Corcyra confirmethe. Correcte in doyng the contrary we shall,
in dryenge the moiste with fyres, either in houses or chambers, or on that side
the cities, townes, & houses, that lieth toward the infection and wynde com-
myng together, chefely in mornynges & eueninges, either by burnyng the
stubble in the felde, or windfallynges in the woodes, or other wise at
pleasure. By which policie skilful Acron deliuered Athenes in Gretia, and
diuine Hippocrates abderd in Thratia fro y° pestilece, & preserued fro the same
other the cities in Grece, at diuerse times coyng with the wynde fro (Ethiopia,
ilhjria § pcsonia, by putting to the fires wel smelling garlades, fioures &
odoures, as GaJene and Soranus write. Of like pollicie for purgyng the aier
were the bonfires made (as I suppose) fro long time hetherto vsed in y c middes
of sommer, and not onely for vigiles. In cofortyng the spirites also, and by
alterynge the aier with swete odoures of roses, swet perfumes of the same,
rosemary leaues, baies, and white sanders cutte, afewe cloues steped in rose
water and vinegre rosate, the infection shalbe lesse noious. With the same
you maye also make you a swete house in castynge it abrode therin, if firste
by auoidynge the russhes and duste, you make the house clene. Haue alwaies
in your handcercher for your nose and mouth, bothe with in your house and
without, either the perfume before saide, or vinegre rosate : and in your mouth
apece either of setwel, or of the rote of enula campana wel steped before in vinegre
rosate, a mace, or berie of Juniper. In wante of suche perfumes as is before-
saide, take of mirrhe & drie rose leues of eche a lyke quantite, with a little
franke eucense, for the like purpose, and caste it vpon the coles : or burne
Juniper & their beries. And for so moche as clenelines is a great help to
helthe, mine aduise is, that all your clothes be swete smellynge and clene, and
that you wasshe your handes and face not in warme water, but with rose water
and vinegre rosate colde, or elles with the faire water and vinegre wherein the
pilles or barkes of orenges and pomegranates are sodden : or the pilles of pome-
citres & sorel is boiled : for so you shalle close the pores ayenst the ayre, that it
redily entre not, and cole and tempre those partes so wasshed, accordynge to the
right entente in curynge this disease. For in al the discurse, preseruatio, and
cure of thys disease, the chefe marke & purpose is, to minister suche thynges as
of their nature haue the facultie by colyng dryenge and closyng, to resiste
putrefaction, strength and defende the spirites, comforte the harte, and kepe all
THE SWEAT. 337
the body ayenst the displeasure of the corrupte aire. Wherfor it shal be wel done,
if you take of this cdposition folowyng euery mornyng the weight of ij. d. in vi.
sponefulles of water or iuleppe of Sorel, & cast it vpon your meate as pepper. R
sels citri. acetos. ros. rub. sadal. citrin. an. 5 i, boli amieni orietal. 5 i. s, terr. sigil.
5 8, margarit. 3 i, fol. auri puri. n°. iiij, misce. & f. pul. diuidatur ad pod. 3 s. Ch-
in the stede of this, take fasting the quantitie of a small bene of Mithridatum or
Uenice triacle in a sponeful of Sorel, or Scabious water, or by the selfe alone. And
in goyng abrode, haue in youre hande either an handekercher with vinegre
and rose water, or a litle muske balle of nutmegges, maces, cloues, saffro, &
cinamome, of eche the weight of ij. d. finely beate ; of mastike the weight of
ij. d.'ob. of storax, v. d. of ladane x. d. of Ambre grise vi. graines, of Muske
iii. graines dissolued in ryght Muscadel : temper al together, & make a balle.
In want of Mithridatum or suche other as I haue before mencioned, vse dayly
the Sirupes of Pomegranates, Lemones, and Sorell, of eche half an vnce, with
asmuche of the watres of Tormentille, Sorell, and Dragones, fasting in the
morning, and one houre before supper. A toste in vinegre or veriuse of Grapes,
with a litle poulder of Cinamome and Settewelle caste vppon it. Or two
figges with one nutte carnelle, and tenne leaues of rue in eche, and a litle salt.
Or boutire, rue, and sage, with breade in a morning eaten nexte your harte, be
as good preseruatiues, as, theie be easye to be hadde. These preseruatives I
here appoincte the more willingly among many others further to be fetched,
because these maye easelier be hadde, as at hande in niede, which now to
finde is my most endeuour, as moste fruictfulle to whome I write. And this
to be done I counsaille in the sickenesse tyme, when firste you heare it to be
comming and begonne, but not in the fitte. Alwayes remembryng, not to go
out fastinge. For as Cornelius Celsus wrytethe, Uenime or infection taketh
holde muche soner in a bodye yet fasting, then in the same not fastinge. Yet
this is not so to be vnderstande, that in the mornynge we shal streight as our
clothes be on, stuffe our bellies as fulle as Englishe menne, (as the Frenche
man saieth to our shames,) but to be contente with oure preseruatiues, or with
a little meate bothe at breakefaste (if custome and nede so require) dynner and
supper. For other wise nature, if the disease shoulde take vs, shoulde haue
more a doe aganiste the full bealy and fearce disease, then it were able to
susteyne.
Aftre diete and ayer followethe filling or emptieng. Of filling in the name
of repletio I spake before. Of eptieng, I will now shortely write as of a thing
very necessary for the conseruation of mannes healthe. For if that whiche is
euel within, be not by good meanes & wayes wel fet oute, it often times destroy-
ed the lyfe. Good meanes to fet out the euelle stuffe of the body be two,
abstinence, & auoydance.
Abstinence, in eatynge and drinekynge litle, as a lytle before I sayed, and
seldome. For so, more goeth awaie then comethe, and by litle and litle it
wasteth the humours & dneth. Therfore (as I wiene) throughe the counseil
of Phisike, & by the good ciuile, & politique ordres, tedring the wealth of
many so much geue to their bellies to their own hurtcs & damages, not able
for wat of reaso to rule the selues, & therby enclined to al vices and diseases :
for thauoiding of these same, increase of vertue, witte and health, sauing
victualles, making plenty, auoyding lothesomenesse or wearincsse, by chaunge,
in taking sometime of that in the sea, and not alwaies destroieng y» of the
lande, an ordre (without the whiche nothing can stand) and comon wealth,
dayes of abstinence, and fasting were firste made, and not for religion onely.
11
338 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
Auoidance, because it canot be safely done withoute the healpe of a good
Phisicien, I let passe here, expressing howe it shoulde bee done duelye accord-
inge to the nature of the disease and the estate of the personne, in an other
booke made by me in Latine, vppon this same matter and disease. Who
therfore lusteth to see more, let him loke vpon that boke. Yet here thus
much wil I say, that if after euacuation or auoiding of humors, the pores of
the skinne remaine close, and yf sweating excrement in the fleshe continueth
grosse (whiche thinge howe to know, hereafter I will declare) then rubbe you
the person meanly at home, & bathe him in faire water sodden with Fenel,
Chamemil, Rosemary e, Mallowes, & Lauendre, & last of al, powre water half
colde ouer al his body, and so dry him, & clothe him. Al these be to be don a
litle before y° end of y" spring, that the humours may be seatled, and at rest,
before the time of the sweting, whiche cometh comonly in somer, if it cometh
at al. For the tormoiling of the body in that time when it ought to be most
quiete, at rest, and armed against his enemy, liketh me not beste here, no more
then in the pestilence. Yet for the presente nede, if it be so thoughte good
to a learned and discrete Phisicien, I condescend the rather. For as in thys,
so in alle others before rehearsed, I remytte you to the discretion of a learned
manne in phisike, who maye iudge what is to be done, and how, according to
the present estate of youre bodies, nature, custome, and proprety, age, strength,
delyghte and qualitie, tyme of the yeare, with other circumstaunces, and there-
after to geue the quantitie, and make diuersitie of hys medicine. Other wise
loke not to receiue by this boke that good which I entend, but that euel which
by your owne foly you vndiscretelye bring. For good counseil may be abused.
And for me to write of euery particular estate and case, whiche be so manye as
there be menne, were so great almost a busines, as to numbre the sandes in
the sea. Therfore seke you out a good Phisicien, and knowen to haue skille,
and at the leaste be so good to your bodies, as you are to your hosen or shoes,
for the wel making or mending Avherof, I doubt not but you wil diligently
searche out who is knowe to be the best hosier or shoemaker in the place
where you dwelle : and file the vnlearned as a pestilence in a comune wealth.
As simple women, carpenters, pewterers, brasiers, sopeballesellers, pulters,
hostellers, painters, apotecaries (otherwise then for their drogges), auaunters
the selues to come from Pole, Constantinople, Italie, Almaine, Spaine, Fraunce,
Grece and Turkie, Inde, Egipt or Jury : from y e seruice of Emperoures, kinges
& quienes, promising helpe of al diseases, yea vncurable, with one or twoo
drinckes, by waters sixe monethes in continualle distillinge, by Aurum potabile,
or quintessence, by drynckes of great and hygh prices, as though thei were made
of the sfme, moone, or sterres, by blessynges and Blowinges, Hipocriticalle
prayenges, and foolysh smokynges of shirtes Smockes and kerchieffes, wyth
suche others theire phantasies, and mockeryes, meaninge nothinge els but to
abuse your light belieue, and scorne you behind your backes with their medi-
cines (so filthie, that I am ashamed to name theim) for your single wit and
simple belief, in trusting the most, whiche you know not at al, and vnderstad
least : like to them whiche thinke, farre foules haue faire fethers, althoughe
thei be neuer so euel fauoured & foule : as thoughe there coulde not be so con-
ning an Englishman, as a foolish running stranger, (of others I speake not) or
so perfect helth by honest learning, as by deceiptfull ignorance. For in the
erroure of these vnlerned, reasteth the losse of your honest estimation, diere
bloudde, precious spirites, and swiete lyfe, the thyng of most estimation and
price in this worlde, next vnto the immortal soule.
THE SWEAT. 339
For consuming of euel matter Avithine, and for making our bodies lustye,
galiard, & helthful, I do not a litle comende exercise, whiche in vs Englishe
men I allowe quick, and liuishe : as to runne after houndes and haukes, to
shote, wrastle, play at Tenes and weapons, tosse the winde balle, skirmishe at
base (an exercise for a gentlemanne, mucbe vsed among the Italianes,) and
vaughting vpon an horse. Bowling, a good excercise for women : castinge of
the barre and camping, I accompt rather a laming of legges, then an exercise.
Yet I vtterly reproue theim not, if the hurt may be auoyded. For these a
conueniente tyme is, before meate : due measm-e, reasonable sweatinge, in al
times of the yeare, sauing in the sweatinge tyme. In the whiche I allow rather
quietnesse then exercise, for opening the body, in suche persons specially as
be liberally & freely brought vp. Others, except sitting artificers, haue theire
exercises by daily labours in their occupatios, to whom nothing niedeth but
solace onely, a thing conuenient for euery bodye that lusteth to Hue in helth.
For els as no other thing, so not healthe canne be longe durable. Thus I
speake of solace, that I meane not Idlenesse, wisshing alwayes no man to be
idle, but to be occupied in some honest kinde of thing necessary in a comon
welth. For I accompt the not worthi meate & drink in a como welth, y' be
not good for some purpose or seruice therin, but take the rather as burdennes
vnprofitable and heauye to the yearth, men borne to fille a numbre only, and
wast the frutes whiche therthe doeth grue, willing soner to fiede the Lacede-
monians old & croked asse, whiche labored for the liuing so long as it coulde
ior age, then suche an idle Englisshe manne. If the honestye and profite of
honeste labour and exercise, conseruation of healthe, preseruation from sicke-
nesse, maintenaunce of lyfe, aduancement, safety from shamefull deathes,
defence from beggerye, dyspleasures by idlenesse, shamefulle diseases by the
same, hatefulle vices, and punishemente of the immortalle soule, canne not
moue vs to reasonable laboure and excercise, and to be profitable membres of
the commune welthe, let at the least shame moue vs, seyng that other country
menne, of nought, by their owne witte, diligence, labour and actiuitie, can
picke oute of a cast bone, a wrethen strawe, a lyghte fether, or an hard stone, an
honeste lyuinge : Nor ye shal euer heare theym say, alas master, I haue no
occupacio, I must either begge or steale. For they can finde other meanes
betwene these two. And forsomuche as in the case that nowe is, miserable
persons are to be relieued in a comon welth, I would wisshe for not fauouring
the idle, the discretion of Marc. Cicero the romaine were vsed in healping them :
Who wolde compassion should be shewed vpon them, whome necessitie
compelled to do or make a faute : & no copassion vpon them, in whome a
faulte made necessitie. A faulte maketh necessitie, in this case of begging, in
them, whyche might laboure and serue, & wil not for idlenes : and therfore
not to be pitied, but rather to be punished. Necessitie maketh a fault in the,
whiche wold labor and serue, but canot for age, Ipotecy, or sickenes, and ther-
fore to be pitied & relieued. But to auoyde punishmente & to shew the waye
to amendmente, I would again wishe, y 1 forsomuch as we be so euel disposed
of our selfes to our own profites and comodities with out help, this old law
were renued, which forbiddeth the nedy & impotent parentes, to be releued of
those their welthi chyldren, that by theym or theire meanes were not broughte
vppe, eyther in good learning and Science, or honeste occupation. For so is
a man withoute science, as a realme withoute a kyng. Thus muche of exercise,
and for exercise. To the which I wolde now ioyne honeste companye betwene
man and woman, as a parte of natural exercise, and healpe to y' emptieng &
04 *
340 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
lightning the bodye in other tymes allowed, in this sweating tyme for helthes
sake, & for feare of opening the bodye, and resoluing the spirites, not ap-
proued, but for dout, that w' lengthing the boke, I shold wery y e reader.
Therfore I let y' passe & come to sleping & waking, whiche without good
ordre, be gretly hurtful to the bodie. For auoiding the whiche, I take the
meane to be best, and against this sweat moste commendable. But if by ex-
cesse a man must in eyther part offend, I permit rather to watch to muche,
then to lie in bedde to longe : so that in watchinge, there be no way to surfet-
ting. Al these thinges duely obserued, and M-ell executed, whiche before I
haue for preseruation mencioned, if more ouer we can sette a parte al affections,
as fretting cares & thoughtes, dolefull or sorowfull imaginations, vainc feares,
folysh loues, gnawing hates, and geue oure selues to lyue quietly, frendlie, &
merily one with an outher, as men were wont to do in the old world, whe this
countrie was called merye Englande, and euery man to medle in his own mat-
ters, thinking theim sufficient, as thei do in Italye, and auoyde malyce and
dissencion, the destruction of commune wealthes, and priuate houses : I doubte
not but we shall preserue oure selues, bothe from this sweatinge syckenesse?
and other diseases also not here purposed to be spoken of.
The cure or remedy. — But if in leauinge a parte these or some of them, or
negligently executing them, it chaunceth the disease of sweating to trouble our
bodies, then passinge the bondes and compasse of preseruation, we must come
to curation, the way to remedie the disease, & the third and last parte (as I
first sayed) to be entreated in this boke. The principalle entente herof, is to
let out the venime by sweate accordinge to the course of nature. This is
brought to passe safely two waies, by suffring and seruing handsomly nature,
if it thruste it oute readily and kindely : and helping nature, if it be letted, or
be weake in expeDinge. Seme nature we shall, if in what time so euer it taketh
vs, or what so euer estate, we streyghte lay vs downe vppon oure bedde, yf we
be vp and in oure clothes, not takyinge them of : or lie stille, if we be in bed
out of our clothes, laiyng on clothes both wayes, if we wante, reasonably, and
not loadinge vs therewith vnmeasurably. Thus layed and couered, Ave must
endeuoure our selues so to continue wyth al quietnes, & for so much as may be
without feare, distruste, or faintehartednesse, an euel thinge in al diseases.
For suche surrendre and geue ouer to the disease without insistence. By
whiche occasion manye more died in the fyrste pestilence at Athcnes, that I
spake of in the beginnynge of thys boke, then other wyse should. Oure kepers,
friendes and louers, muste also endeuoure theym selues to be handesome and
dilygente aboute vs, to serue vs redilye at al turnes, and neuer to leaue vs
duringe foure and twentie houres, but to loke welle vnto vs, that neyther we
caste of oure clothes, nor thruste out hande or foote, duryng the space of the
saide foure and twenty houres. For albeit the greate daungere be paste after
twelue houres, or fourtene, the laste of trial, yet many die aftre by to muche
boldenes, when thei thinke theim selues most in suretye, or negligence in at-
tendaunce, when they thinke no necessitie. "Wherby it is proued that without
dout, the handsome diligence, or carelesse negligence, is the sailing, or casting
awaye of many. If ij. be taken in one bed, let theym so continue, althoughe it
be to their vnquietnesse. For feare wherof, & for the more quietnesse &
safetye, very good it is duryng all the sweating time, that two persones lye not
in one bed. If with this quietnes, diligece, and ordre, the sicke do kindelye
sweate, suffre them so to continue, without meate all the xxiiij. houres: with-
oute driucke, vntil the fifth houre, if it maie be. Alwayes taking hede to theim
THE SWEAT. 341
in the fourth, seuenth, nineth, & eleuenth houres speciallye, and fourteenth
also, as the laste of triall and daungier, but of lesse in bothe. For these be
most perilous, as I haue obserued this yere in this disease, hauing y" houres
iudicial, as others haue theire dayes, and therfore worse to geue anye thinge in,
for troublyng nature standyng in trialle. Yet wher more daunger is in for-
bearyng then in takyng, I counseill not to spare in these howres to do as the
case requireth with wisdome & discretion, but lesse then in other howres. In
the fifthe howre geue theim to drinke clarified ale made only doulcet with a
litle suger, out of a cruet, or glasse made in cruet facion, with a nebbe, for
feare of raisynge theim selues to receiue the drinke offered, & so to let the
sweat, by the ayer strikyng in. But if the sicke on this wise beforesaid canot
sweate kyndly, then nature must be holpen, as I sayd before. And for so moch
as sweat is letted in this disease fower waies, by disorder, wekenes of nature,
closenes of the pores in the skinne, & grosnes of the humoures : my counseil is
to auoide disorder by suche meanes as hetherto I haue taught, and next to open
the pores if they be close, and make thinne the matter, if it be grosse, and pro-
uoke sweat, if nature be weke. Those you shal doe by gentle rubbynges, this
by warme drinckes as hereafter streight I will declare. And for that eucry
mah hath not the knowlege to discerne which of these is the cause of let in
sweatyng, I wil shewe you plainly howe to do with moste suretie and leste of-
fense. I wyll beginne with wekenes of nature. Therefore remember well that
in treatynge the causes of this disease, I sayed that this sweate chauncethe
comonly in theim of the mydde age and beste luste, the infection hauyng a cer-
tein concordance, or conuenience with the corrupte spirites of theim more then
others. Knowe agayne that nature is weke, ij. waies, either in the selfe, or by
the annoiance of an other. In the selfe, by wante of strength consumed by
sicknes or other wise. By annoiaunce of an other, when nature is so ouerlaid
with the quantitie of euill humours that it can not stirre. Betwene thes two
set youre witte, and se whether the perso be lustye or sickly. If he be lustye,
vnderstande that the sweat doth not stoppe for wekenes of nature in it selfe.
Then of necessitie it must be for some of thother causes. But for whiche, thus
knowe. Consider whether the lusty person were in foretyme geuen to moche
drynkyng, eatyng and rauenyng, to moch ease, to no exercise or bathinges in
his helth, or no. If all these you finde in him, knowe that bothe nature is
wekened by the annoiance of the humoures, and that the skinne is stopped, and
the humoure grosse, and that for thys the sweate is letted. If you finde onely
some of these, and that rauenynge, annoiance is the cause. If want of exercise
or bathinges, stoppinges of the pores and closenesse, or grosenes of humours,
or bothe, be the cause of not sweatying. On the othersyde, if the perso be
sickely, it is easely knowe that his wekenes consisteth in nature the self. And
for so moche as weke folkes and sicke shal also by other causes not sweate, con-
sider if in his sickenes he hath swette moche or no, or hath be disposed to it
and coulde not. If he neither hath swette, nor coulde sweat disposed, knowe
that closenes of the skinne, and grosenes of the humour is the cause. Ther-
fore euery thing in his kynde muste be remedied, "Wekenes of nature, by
drinkes prouokyng sweate : closenes, & grosenes, by rubbynge, as I said. But
be ware neither to rubbe or geue drinkes, excepte you see cause as beforcsavd.
For other wise, the one hindrethe nature, and thother letteth out the spirites &
wastcth y e strength. Therefore accordingly, if rubbe you must, geue to the
sicke in to their beddes a newe and somewhat harde kerchefe, well warmed but
not hote, and bydde theim rubbe all their bodies oucr therewith vnder the
312 A COUNSEILL AGAINST
clothes, neither to moche neither to litle, nor to harde or to softe, but meanely
betwene, takyng you hede whiche be aboute them, that by stirrynge their amies
they raise not the clothes to let in the ayer. This done, if case so require,
geue the a good draught of hote possette ale made of swiete milke turned with
vinegre, in a quarte wherof percely, and sage, of eche haulfe one litle handfull
hath been sodden, wyth iii. sliftes of rosemary, ii. fenel rootes cutte, and a fewe
hole maces. Alwaies remembrynge here, as in other places of this boke, to
heate the herbes in a peuter dishe before the fyre, or washe theim in hote water,
before you putte them in to the posset ale, and that you putte their to no colde
herbes at any tyme durynge the hole fitte. Or geue theim posset ale hote with
rosemary, dittane, & germander. Or baie beries, anise seades, & calamintes
with claret wine sodden and dronke warme. Or white wine with hore and
wilde tansy growen in medes sodden therin, and ii. d. weight of good
triacle, dronke hote, or in y e stede of that, wilde tanesy,'mogwort or feuerfue.
These prouoke sweat, may easely be hadde, & be metest for the which haue al
y e causes beforesayde of lettyng thesame. But specially if for colde and grose
humoures, or for closenes of the skinne, the sweate commethe not furthe. If
with one draught they sweate not, geue theim one other, or ij. successiuely, after
halfe one houre betwene, and encrease the clothes, first a litle aboue the meane,
after, more or lesse as the cause requireth, & make a litle fire in the chamber of
clene woode, as ashe & oke, with the perfume of bdellium : or swiet woode, as
Juniper , fyrre, or pine, by theimselues : remembrynge to withdrawe the fire,
when they sweat fully, and the clothes aboue the meane, by litle and litle as
you laide theim on, when they firste complaine of faintyng. And after xii. or
xiiii. houres, some also of the meane, but one after an other by halfe one houre
successiuely with discrecion, alwaies not lokyng so moche to the quantitie of
the sweat, as what the sicke may saufely beare. And in suche case of faintynge,
suffer competent open aier to come into the chamber, if the same and the wether
be hote, for smoderynge the pacient, by suche windowes as the wynde liethe not
in, nor openeth to the south. Put to their noses to smell vinegre and rose
water in an handkercher, not touchynge theim there with so nighe as maye be.
Cause theim to lie on their right side, and bowe theim selues forward, call theim
by their names, and beate theim with a rosemary braunche, or some other
swete like thynge. In the stede of posset ale, they whiche be troubled with
gowtes, dropsies, reumes, or suche other moiste euill diseases, chauncing to
sweat, may drinke a good draught of the stronger drinke of Guaiacum so hote
as they can, for the lyke effecte, as also others may, not hauynge these deseases,
if it be so redy to theim as the other. After they ones sweat fully, myne aduise
is not to geue any more posset ale, but clarified ale with suger, duryng the hole
fitte, neither vnreasonably, nor so ofte as they call for it, neither yet pinchyng
theym to moche when they haue nede, alwayes takynge hede not to putte any
colde thynge in their mouthe to cole and moiste them with, nor any colde water,
rose water, or colde vinegre to their face duryng the sweat and one daie after at
the leaste, but alwaies vse warmeth accordynge to nature, neuer contrariyng
thesame so nighe as may be. If they raue or be phrenetike, putte to their nose
thesame odour of rose water & vinegre, to lette the vapoures from the headde.
If they slepe, vse theim as in the case of faintyng I said, with betyng theim and
callynge theim, pullyng theim by the eares, nose, or here, suffering them in no
wise to slepe vntil suche tyme as they haue no luste to slepe, except to a learned
ma in phisicke the case appere to beare the contrary. For otherwise the venime
in slepe continually runneth inward to y" hart. The contrary hereof we muste
THE SWEAT. 343
alwaies intende, in prouokyng it outwarde by all meanes duryng the fitte,
whyche so longe lasteth in burnynge and sweatyng, as the matter thereof hath
any fyrie or apte partes therfore. For as great & strong wine, ale, or bere, so
longe do burne as there is matter in theim apte to be burned, and then cesse
■when that whiche remainethe is come againe to hys firste nature : that is, to
suche water clere & vnsauery, as either the bruer receiued of the riuer, or vine
of the earth : euen so the body so longe continuethe burnynge and sweatynge,
as their is matter apte therefore in the spirites, and then leaueth, when the cor-
rupcion taken of the finest of the euill blode is consumed, and the spirites lefte
pure and cleane as they were before the tyme of their corruption.
This done, and the body by sufficient sweate discharged of the venime, the
persone is saulfe. But if be by vnrulines & brekyng his sweate, sweateth not
sufficiently, the he is in daunger of death by y' venime that doth remaine, or at
the leaste to sweate ones againe or oftener, as many hath done, fallynge in thrise,
sixe tymes, yea, xii. times some. If sufficiently the sweate be come, you shal
know by the lightnes & cherefulnes of the body, & lanckenes in all partes, by
the continuall sweatyng the hole daie and out of all partes, whyche be the beste
and holsome sweates. The other which come but by tymes and onely in certein
partes, or broken, be not sufficient nor good, but very euill, of whose insuffi-
ciency, ij. notes learne : a swellyng in y" partes with a blackenes, & a tinglyng
or prickyng in the same. Suche I aduise to appointe theim selues to sweat
againe to ridde their bodies of that remaineth, & abide it out vntill they fele
their bodies lanke & light, and to moue the sweat as before I said, if thesame
come not kyndly by the selfe. If they canot forbeare meate during y e space of
their fitte, and faste out their xxiiij. houres, without danger, geue theim a litle
of an alebrie onely, or of a thinne caudel of an egge sodden with one hole mace
or ij. If they be forced by nature to ease them selues in the meane time, let
them do it rather in warme shetes put into them closely, then to arise. After
they haue thus fully swette, conuey closely warme clothes into theyre beddes,
and bid them wipe themselues there with in al partes curiouslye : and be ware
that no ayer entre into theire open bodies (and speciallye their arme holes, the
openest & rarest parte therof) to let the issue of that whych doeth remaine. The
lyke may be done in the reste of their fitte, with lyke warenes, for that clenli-
nesse comfortethe nature, and relieueth the pacient. If in duringe oute the
foure and twentye houres there be thought daungiere of death without remou-
ing, rather warme well the other side of the bedde, and wil hym to remoue
himself into it, the to take him vp & remoue hym to an other bed, which in no
case mai be done. For better is a doubtful ware hope, then a certeine auen-
tured death. The foure and twenty houres passed duly, they may putte on
theire clothes warme, aryse, and refresshe theym selues with a cawdle of an
egge swietelye made, or such other meates and sauces reasonably and smally
taken, as before I mencioned. And if their strength be sore wasted, let theym
smelle to an old swiet apple (as Aristotle did by his reporte in the boke de porno)
or hottc new bread, as Democritus did, by the record of Laertius in his life, either
by it self alone, or dipped in wel smelling wyne, as Maluesey or Muscadelle, &
sprinckled with the pouder of mintes. Orenges also and Lemones, or suche
rnuske balles as I before described, be thinges mete for this purpose. For as I
saied in my ij. litle bokes in Latine de medendi methodo, of deuise to cure dis-
eases, there is no thinge more comfortable to the spirites then good and swiet
odoures. On this wise aduised how to order your selues in al the time of the
fitte, now this remaineth, to exhorte you not to go out of your houses for iij.
3-1-4 A COUNSEILL AGAINST THE SWEAT.
dayes, or ij. at the least after the fitte passed, and then wiselye, warely, and not
except in a faire bright daye, for feare of swouning after great emptinesse, and
vnwont ayer, or for forcyng nature by soubdaine strikyng in of thesame aicr,
colde, or euil, in to the open body. For nature so forced, maketh often tymes
a sore and soubdaine fluxe, as wel after auoidaunce of these humores by
sweate, (as was this yere well sene in many persones in diuerse contries of Eng-
lande for none other cause) as of others by purgation.
Thus I haue declared the begynning, name, nature, accidentes, signes, causes,
presentations, and cures naturall of this disease the sweatynge sickenes, Eng-
lish Ephemera, or pestilent sweate, so shortly & plainly as I could for y" cGmune
saufty of my good countrimen, help, relieue, & defence of thesame against y e
soubdaine assaultes of the disease, & to satisfie the honeste requeste of my
louynge frendes and gentle acquaintance. If other causes ther be supernatural,
theim I leue to the diuines to serche, and the diseases thereof to cure, as a
matter with out the compasse of my facultie.
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
TRANSLATED BY
ROBERT H. COOKE, M.R.C.S.,
. AUTHOR OP " EPIDEMIC MENTAL DISEASES OF CHILDREN,"
LATE SURGEON TO THE NEW ASYLUM FOR FATHERLESS CHILDREN.
23
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
Mental emotions, as causes of nervous disorders, may be regarded from a
purely physical point of view. They produce definite sensations, differing in
nature and in force, whatever be the thoughts whence they have arisen, and
whatever the department of the mind to which they appertain.
These sensations have their seat in the sympathetic nerve : they have there-
fore the peculiarities of all perceptions within this sphere ; that is to say, they
have not the clearness and definiteness of sensations in the other two spheres,
without, however, being on that account less violent and agitating ; and they
affect the consciousness in quite another manner. Many of them indeed never
affect it at all, but do not any the less exercise a secondary action on the brain
and spinal marrow. Those which are more clearly marked can be depicted
more definitely, either directly or by comparisons — anxiety, a feeling of com-
fort in all its stages of exaltation up to ecstasy, an oppressive painful sensation,
with its well-known actual transitions to decided pain of individual parts, are
common enough, but language could more easily describe the less perfect senses,
than it could give names to the innumerable conditions which are observed in
this dark world of sensations. The patient, who himself has usually no clear
idea of what is the case with him, has no words, or, if he has them, they are
not understood by the observer, unless he be profoundly versed in these sub-
jects, and for this it is essential that he have himself passed through like suffer-
ings, and have observed them attentively in himself — a demand, that, indis-
pensable as it is, but very few can satisfy. For this reason the emotions, and
especially their physical aspect, with which the physician is chiefly concerned,
have never been amenable to a profound psychological research. With the
objective phenomena, an acute and persevering observer can easily make him-
self acquainted, but the subjective sensations are always in their very nature
obscure, and it is no wonder that the physicians, who in general are the only
true psychologists, have always been deterred by the great difficulties of this
inquiry, and that even in recent times the improved knowledge of the sympa-
thetic nerve has added far less light than might have been expected from an
investigation in this more tangible field.
I will not here give a review of the emotions ; still less will I exhibit the
chaos of opinions and doctrines, which have received currency in science from
the early Greek philosophies downwards, not even those which have been con-
firmed by experience. The present state of our knowledge only requires us to
start with the axiom, that in the excitement of actual nervous disorders by
mental emotions, the sensation aroused by them in the sympathetic nerve is
the proximate pathological element from which issues every development of
morbid phenomena in all their groups. The universal course in these cases is as
follows : any thought or idea seizes the mind, that is, in its purely somatic accepta-
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES. 347
tion. A nerve-motion radiates from the brain to the sympathetic nerve, and pro-
duces here, either in the thorax or the abdomen, a sensation which may, or may
not, be attended by organic activity or by motion. This sensation passes by
without further consequences if it is slight, or short-lived, like all sensations in
whatever sphere. But if it is violent, or of long duration, it enters into the
category of nerve-irritants, and at once engages the whole reflex activity ; that
is to say, it operates according to the first and most essential law of nervous
action. This operation may now either be limited to the sympathetic nerve
within the circle of which the most diverse reflex phenomena may occur, or it
transfers itself to the spinal marrow or the brain. In the first case we see, apart
from the familiar consequences in the organic sphere, painful and motional
disorders, of which colic and heartburn are very common instances ; in the
second case motional disorders almost exclusively, from shivering to chorea,
catalejisy, epilepsy ; in the third case mental disorders of most diverse kinds,
but most frequently combinations of cerebral and spinal disease ; in short, in all
spheres every conceivable form of nervous disorder.
In respect to the excitement of particular forms of nervous disease, dis-
tinctions may unquestionably be established between the individual emotions
and the corresponding passions which arise out of them ; but what with the
infinite variety. of the effects of nervous irritants in general, and the countless
play of the sympathies, it is clear that these distinctions can only be mantained
very generally. Single cases are of little account here ; the question is of the
effects of emotions and passions on the large scale, when they become domi-
nant in human society, attaining, therefore, more readily, their highest pitch and
displaying their properties in the multitudes. In reality at times there appear,
widely diffused and dominant, certain groups of nervous diseases, which stand
in very manifest connexion with the predominant emotions and passions, as also
with the sentiments and the mental bias of nations. We might have been able
to point to much that is more instructive than what is now procurable, but that,
unhappily, attentive observers have always been rare, and phenomena of the
highest importance to psychologists have not been transmitted to posterity, by
those to whom they were tedious because they were ordinary and of daily
occurrence.
Of all the emotions it is quite manifest that those of religion operate most
upon the popular masses ; it is therefore these above all others which have
furnished pathology with a multitude of forms of nervous diseases, most various
and dismal, often extraordinary and hardly comprehensible, seldom therefore
or almost never understood, and this in nations most diverse in creed, from the
ancient mythology down to the most recent Christian sects. In this respect no
confession appears to have any advantage over the others, when it is pushed
to a certain morbid elevation of religious feeling. In their effect on the nervous
system they all agree, and it is chiefly mental and motional, that is to say,
cerebral and spinal, diseases which we see arise from the source of overstrained
religious feelings. The former — because the presentations of faith, whose root
is in the reason, in the knowledge of man's relations to a higher state, the essen-
tial distinctive of the human from the animal soul— these can easily be
overstrained or thrown into confusion by bodily feelings. With these presenta-
tions there is then associated the poetic play of religious phantasies, or they
are darkened by the black bile of superstition. But from either of these the
brain, the organ of spiritual activity, is as impotent to guard itself as from the
23 *
348 CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
sweetest fairy-like juggleries of fever-delirium, or the black cruel forms of
incubus.
The latter — the motional diseases, because overstretched religious feelings
lay hold on nothing easier than on the spinal marrow, which stands in the
closest connexion with the sympathetic nerve.
The present were exactly the time to look closely at the religious emotions on
their pathological side, however we may incur the risk in investigations of this
kind of being misunderstood, or, as from of old has been the case, of being taxed
with heresy by the orthodox of all sects. Within the last fifteen years (1845)
they have strikingly increased in all nations and in all confessions. Much as
they have sought to obtain currency in circles small and great, they have how-
ever not yet robbed this age of its character ; it is still an age of reason, of
victorious struggle against the natural limitations of human life, an age of secular
interests, as it is called, but in a good sense. In science, as in life, there always
must be and always has been a contrast — the head of the medal and its reverse.
It is also very clear that they are as yet far from having the importance they
attained in the olden time ; they are neither so universal nor so true as in some
former centuries ; they usually have an end in view, and a political tinge. They
lack therefore the potent all-engrossing sincerity, which has been in former
times observed in them ; but they do not on that account belie their essential
nature. The physical sensations of overstrained religious emotion are in general
very intense. We distinguish them as disagreeable — oppression and anxiety ;
and agreeable, pleasui'able, bordering upon voluptuousness, and often enough
passing quite into it. In this case the transition to the sexual sphere is easy
and imperceptible, and they are associated with hysterical and hypochondriacal
conditions, as by numberless examples is notorious. It is indeed well estab-
lished that hysterical sexual excitement and the condition of worn-out hypo-
chondriacal debauchees produce especial tendency to all sorts of bigotry and
superstition. Moreover overstrained true religious feelings entirely agree with
those which are artificial and simulated in their operation on the nervous
system ; indeed the latter are more ready than the former to excite nervous
diseases, because they are forced, and therefore from the first put the nerves
into a forced unnatural condition.
Demonomanias, convulsions, somnambulism, catalepsy, motional disorders
of every kind, are manifested at the present day in all places where fanatical
sects pursue their practices, with quite as much importance as at any other time,
only in more limited circles. In these cases it is easy to observe that in the
great majority of the lookers-on nearly the same excitement is evinced as in any
previous century, and those morbid phenomena are very commonly regarded
as the revelations of a most hallowed inspiration, and even as miracles, when they
are often nothing more than the physical consequences of a nervous irritant.
Practical psychology seems in many circles not yet to have got out of its
infancy.
With the present time I will not now occupy myself, though it affords abund-
ance of instructive matter for inquiries of this sort. Instead of this I will set
up a few pictures from the remote part, which will be found to exhibit speak-
ing and well-marked features.
The Child-pilgrimages of the Middle Ages have not as yet in modern times
been sufficiently investigated. I might have appended them to my monograph
of the Dancing Mania, but did not wish to overload that work, which, as it is,
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES. 3±9
contains a great \ariety of matter. They have all a common cause, religious
enthusiasm, and agree therefore in the main, however different their religious
moving forces and however unequal in respect to their extent.
The greatest phenomenon of this kind, to which indeed history has nothing
similar to present, was the Boy Crusade of the year 1212. Of this event we
have the accounts of eye-witnesses which are entirely worthy of confidence (for
they are mostly state documents) but from which accurate pathological ob-
servation is confessedly not to be expected. At this time the Holy Land had
been, as is known, long again reduced under the sway of the Saracens. Pain
at this loss, and with it a longing for the regaining of the dearest possession of
Christendom, was spreading with renewed sincerity and force among all the
nations of the West. Modern historians have judged the idea of the Crusades
from an intellectual stand-point ; from such a point it must be confessed that it
appears very worldly and trivial ; but such a manner of regarding it is funda-
mentally false. On the small scale, as well as in the gross, it is just the nature of
the emotions and passions to subdue and take full possession of the under-
standing and all the other mental agencies. The greatest convulsions of the
world have been accomplished by mental excitements, the springs of which
could not always stand at the tribunal of the understanding. These excitements
were not on that account the less true and honourable. The only thing that is
absolutely unworthy of human nature is that religious intoxication which
spiritual ambition, itself destitute of religion, excites in the ignorant multitudes
for its own purposes.
The idea, then, of the reconquest of the Holy Land took hold of men's
minds at that time not less powerfully than, for instance, the mania of Martyrdom
at the beginning of the 4th century, in which children in great numbers took
their share. Whoever observes children attentively, sees readily that they in
their own fashion decidedly sympathise with all the excitements of adults, and
for this reason, that the strongest impulse in them is that of imitation. Reli-
gious and political passions without exception, even to the most petty excite-
ments, acquire such mastery over them, as to manifest themselves in much
greater strength, and apparently at the first view in much greater absurdity
sometimes, in them than in their exemplars. The tenderness of their nervous
systems occasions in them much stronger physical sensations, and in this, as
well as in the small strength of their will, lies the ground that nervous dis-
orders are a more common result in them than in adults. The boundary line
between the precursory state and the disease is here plainly and sharply drawn ;
it is the suspension of the will, which Paracelsus has already very accurately and
acutely alluded to in connexion with Chorea.
In the year 1212 the minds of men were in that state that some outbreak of
the overstrained feelings could not long be deferred. The first impulse was
given by a shepherd-boy, Etienne, of the village of Cloies in Vendume, of whom
wonderful narratives spread through France with inconceivable rapidity. lie
held himself for an ambassador of the Lord, who had appeared to him in the
guise of an unknown foreigner, received some bread from him, and given
him a letter to the King. His sheep were said to have knelt before him to
worship him, a miracle which perhaps was hardly required to invest him with
the nimbus of sanctity. The shepherd-boys of the neighbourhood gathered
about him, and soon there streamed together more than thirty thousand souls
to partake of his revelations, and to be thrown into ecstasies by his discourses. In
St. Denys he performed miracles, he was the saint of the day, the messenger
350 CHlLD-PILGRIMAGES.
of God, before whom the people bent the knee ; and when the king, concerned
at this intoxication of a multitude that could not be disregarded, but not with-
out having asked the opinion of the University of Paris, forbade the assemblies,
no one regarding the temporal power. Every day there arose new eight or
ten year old prophets, who preached, worked miracles, animated whole armies
of children, and led them full of transport to the Holy Stephen. When any
asked these children in pilgrims' coats whither they were going, they answered
as from one mouth, " To God." Their orderly processions were headed by
oriflams, many carried wax-candles, crosses, and censers, and they sang in-
cessantly hymns of fervid devotion and to new melodies : the words, " Lord,
raise up Christendom," and " give us back the true Cross," were often repeated
in them. It is to be regretted that the witnesses of a movement which snatched
the whole child-world as if into a whirlpool, have not committed to writing
either the songs or the melodies to which they were sung ; for it cannot be
doubted that with them some of the fairest flowers of popular poetry have been
lost, however overwrought and morbid may have been the excitement which
gave occasion to them. 1
The consternation of the parents at this event was boundless. No persua-
sion, nor even the despair and tears of the mothers, could keep back the boys.
Were they hindered, they wept day and night, pined with sorrow, and fell ill
with trembling of the limbs, so that at last of necessity they were let go.
Others made light of locks and bolts, found means to elude the most vigilant
attendants, to join the representatives of the shepherd-boy, Stephen, and at
last even to behold this holy crusade-preacher. And there was no distinction
of rank: the children of counts and barons ran away, as well as the sons of
citizens and the poorest peasant boys, only the rich parents, when they could
not keep their children back, sent guides to accompany them, who quietly may
have rescued many. Many parents summoned their children to take the cross,
others yielded to what they were unable to prevent, not venturing to oppose
the eulogists of the little crusade-preachers. Only a few intelligent men, among
whom were even some of the clergy, shook their heads, but it was in vain that
they sought to restrain the multitude from their giddy infatuation, which must
soon enough carry them to an abyss. No one of them ventured to utter his
mind aloud, fearful of being charged with heresy, warned also by the disregard
given to even the king's command.
The movement did not last long, before there was assembled at Vendome an
innumerable army of boys, armed and unarmed, many on horseback, the most
on foot, and among them not a few girls in male clothing. Their number is
estimated at more than thirty thousand.
They all acknowledged the beloved Stephen as their Lord, and their guide to
the Holy Land, which they purposed to wrest from the Saracens. They put
him in a carriage, which they decorated with flags and tapestries, and the most
noble youths, in splendid equestrian accoutrement, formed his body-guard,
which he stood in need of to restrain the eagerness of his believers, each of
whom blessed himself if he could but carry away a few threads of his dress, after
his words had kindled to a glow the flame of his devotion and enthusiasm. On
occasions of this kind there arose sometimes such a dense throng about the
carriage of the children's prophet, that not a few were squeezed to death. The
1 One of these hymns, with its melody, has been discovered since this pamphlet was
written. See Evangelical Christendom, 1850. (Translator.)
CHILD-PILGRIMAGES. 3 5 1
extraordinary procession now set itself in movement from Vendome to Mar-
seilles. It was July, it was hot and dry, but none of the difficulties of the pil-
grimage, neither the thirst on the hot and dusty plain of Provence, nor the
hunger to which the poorer must have been exposed after the first days of the
journey, stifled the flame of devotion and enthusiasm. "To Jerusalem" was
the cry of the children, when they were asked by the astonished beholders
whither their pilgrimage was ; and none doubted Stephen's promise that the
sea would go back before them, and they should reach the Holy Land dry-shod.
As a matter of course, they were joined by the usual hangers-on of armies, a
troop of miscreants who threw themselves like vultures on the welcome prey,
and by cheating and open robbery so miserably stripped them, that probably
the most were only maintained by the benevolence of the inhabitants. But the
worst awaited them in Marseilles. Two merchants of that place, whose names
have been transmitted to posterity, Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, vied
with the inhabitants in affectionate reception of the young pilgrims, attended
their religious exercises with devout aspect, and promised to take them to
Palestine feu* God's blessing only. The boy-army was still so numerous as to
fill seven large ships, and thus the little crusaders set sail enthusiastically
courageous, and full of gratitude to their benefactors. But two days after
their departure a storm arose, two ships struck on St. Peter's Island, and not a
soul was saved. The bodies were collected and buried in a church erected by
Gregory IX. to their memory (Ecclesia novorum innocentium). The other five
ships steered to Bougia and Alexandria, and the young crusaders were here all
sold as slaves to the Saracens, and it is certain that none saw their native land
again. The two betrayers afterwards met with their reward. The Emperor
Frederick II. had them hanged in Sicily.
Such was the end of the children's crusade in France. Not quite so un-
happy was the fate of the youthful crusaders from Germany, where the agita-
tion was quite as great at that time as in France, especially in the Rhine
countries and far eastward, though we are not in a position to define its limits
more exactly. Here also there arose child-prophets, and carried their play-
mates away to the same mad crusading devotion, the only thought of which
was the Holy Sepulchre. It was a literal repetition of that which occurred in
France, though the little fanatics could not have received the smallest intelli-
gence of the events at Vendome. Their costume was that of the unarmed
pilgrims in the earlier crusades, with the sclavina marked, of course, with the
cross, and they carried the pilgrim's staff and wallet (burdones, scarcellas). In
number they perhaps even exceeded the French children's army, and every-
where notice was taken of their hymns with which they inspirited themselves to
their holy task. They were not united under one leader, but hastened in two
detachments to the sea, which they also confidently believed would go back
before them.
One of these detachments, under the leadership of one Nicolas (of whom it
is not known what was his age, or whence he came), went up by the Rhine,
crossed Mont Cenis, and reached Genoa, still with a strength of 7000. It may
not unfairly be assumed that at first it was at least twice as numerous, for the
passes of the Alps were very difficult in the Middle Ages. Only the most
robust and the older children could reach so distant a goal, the feeble fell ill
on the journey and starved in the mountain gorges. Many of them were of
noble families, and were better cared for. Guides and nurses were provided
for them, and these were soon joined by the usual swarms of sisters-errant. In
352 CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
Genoa it was believed that the thoughtful parents had even been mindful of
the entertainment which companions of this sort could offer them. But this
we will leave undetermined. The Genoese did not at all believe in their de-
voutness ; they explained the undertaking as an outbreak of self-will and
childish levity, apprehended scarcity of provisions or some other peril to their
state, thought that they would be rendering a service to the Emperor, who was
in constant feud with the Pope, if they received the little pilgrims and knights,
and shut the gates in their faces. They were only admitted after some nego-
tiations on the 24th of August ; but by this time many had wearied of the
crusading adventure, had sought and obtained hospitality, and therefore
quietly kept back.
Some of them, recommended by their illustrious descent, formed closer con-
nexions with patrician families, and are said to have become the founders of a
rich and mighty posterity. The others were compelled, after a few days, to
withdraw. They did not take ship, however, but scattered themselves in
different directions. Many attempted to return to Germany, fell into extreme
misery, and some, the best off perhaps of all, were retained as servants in vari-
ous parts of the country. The few who saw their fatherland again were re-
ceived with contempt and derision, perhaps even by those who with hypocritical
officiousness had helped them at their departure ; for false enthusiastic excite-
ments readily veer into the opposite state of feeling, especially when their
vanity has been shown by the result, from which alone the multitude judges.
But it was a justification of all those thoughtful men who had declared the under-
taking to be an adventure without sense and reason, and held the mania of
child-pilgrimage as a delusion of Satan. A part of the army, however, re-
mained faithful to its purpose, but divided into separate masses, which marched
from Liguria through part of Italy. A number of boys made a pilgrimage to
Home, and found an opportunity of presenting themselves to the Pope, who
received them graciously. He did not, however, absolve them from their ob-
ligation to the Cross, but took an oath of them to go out to the conquest of
Jerusalem when they should be grown up. Hard and cruel as this clerical pro-
cedure was, at a time in which at least 60,000 families were thrown into the
deepest trouble by a foolish fanaticism, it yet corresponded exactly to the policy
of the Romish chair. For it was by emissaries from Rome that the agitation
for crusades had been excited in France and Germany ; and when the Pope
heard of the events in Vendome, he had expressed joy at the unfortunate result
of his endeavour, and had mourned deeply at the apathy of the adults, among
whom not an arm was anywhere lifted for the holy object.
Of the other child-army we have no accurate information. We do not even
know the name of its leader : it is not improbable there were many, and all the
greater must have been its ruin by the thieves and sharpers who joined it. The
swarm of children, which certainly was not smaller than the army of Nicolas
that was scattered in Liguria, took its way through the wild gorges of Uri,
over St. Gotthard ; a few bands may also have gone over the Spliigen. But in
Lombardy the little crusaders were received with great coldness, and were
ridiculed for their blind belief that the sea would open for them a dry road to
Jerusalem. Many perished with hunger and destitution. Others were taken
into service for their bare sustenance ; the strongest in faith and in body, whom
nothing could turn aside from their purpose, reached to Brindisi, and here and
in other seaport towns they fell into the hands of slave-merchants, who carried
them a welcome booty to the Saracens.
CHILD- PILGRIMAGES. 353
It seems that more adults and women joined the German than the French
child-crusade. And the number of girls under age is also said to have been
greater. Proportionally more fatal was the moral corruption, which indeed was
without bounds, so that of the survivors there were probably few that escaped
falling victims to seduction and infamy.
The second children's pilgrimage falls only twenty-five years later ; so that
the assumption of a morbid excitability of the child-world at all this time ap-
pears to be justified. It was confined to the city of Erfurt, and the phenome-
non was very transient, but not the less presents all the distinctive marks of a
religious convulsion, and exhibited more of disease than other child-pilgrimages,
as far at least as has come down to posterity. On the 15th July, 1237, there
assembled, unknown to their parents, more than 1000 children, left the town
by the Lober Gate, and wandered, dancing and leaping, by the Steigerwald to
Armstadt. A congress such as this, as if by agreement, resembles an in-
stinctive impulse as in animals, when, for instance, swallows and storks collect
for their migration ; the same phenomenon has doubtless taken place in all
children's pilgrimages, it was also remarked by eye-witnesses of the first of them,
in a manner characteristic of the Middle Ages. It was not till the next day
that the parents learned the occurrence, and they fetched their children back
in carts. No one could say who had enticed them away. Many of them are
said to have continued ill some time after, and in particular to have suffered
from trembling of the limbs, perhaps also from convulsions. The whole affair
is obscure, and so little account has been taken of it by contemporaries, that the
chronicles only speak of the fact, and say nothing of its causes. The only
probable conjecture is that the many noisy and pompous festivities connected
with the canonization of St. Elisabeth, the Landgravine of Thuringia, had
excited in the child-world of Erfurt this itch for devotion, which sought to re-
lieve itself by displays of spinal activity. For this child-pilgrimage is in very
near proximity to the Dancing Mania.
Still much more obscure is a child-pilgrimage of 1458, of which the motives
were quite clearly religious. It is probably, at present, almost impossible to
trace the chain of ideas which occasioned it ; it is enough that it was in honour
of the Archangel Michael. More than 100 children from Hall, in Suabia, set
out, against the will of their parents, for Mont St. Michel in Normandy. They
could not by any means be restrained, and if force was employed, they fell
severely ill, and some even died. The mayor, unable to prevent the journey,
kindly furnished them a guide for the long journey, and an ass to carry their
luggage. They are said to have actually reached the then world-renowned
Abbey, now, as is well known, a state prison, and to have performed their de-
votions there. We have absolutely no other information of them, and it
appears that this child-pilgrimage, which falls to the time when chorea was very
frequent and widely spread in Germany, has excited even much less attention
than the migration of the children of Erfurt in the year 1237.
AUTHOEITIES.
1. From the Chronicle of the Monastery of the Dead Sea. [Ex Chronico
Coenobii Mortui Maris. Ab anno 1113 usque ad annum 1235. Itecueil
des Historiens des Gaules et de la France. Tom. xviii. Paris, 1822.
Fol. p. 355. C]
At the same time in the realm of France, boys and girls, with some youths
and old men, carrying banners, wax candles, crosses, censers, made processions,
and went through the cities, villages, and castles, singing aloud in the French
language, " Lord God, raise up Christendom ; Lord God, give us back the true
cross." They continually sang, not only these words, but also many others,
because there were many processions, and each procession varied them to its
own liking. And this thing, never heard of in past ages, was a wonder to
many, because, as they believed, it was a presage of future things, namely, of
those which came to pass in the following year. For the Roman Legate
(Robert de Corcon) came within the borders of France, and marked with the
cross, in the name of the Crucified One, an abundant multitude, the number of
which the knowledge of God alone can compute.
2. Anonymi Continuatio appendicis (Robertus de Monte ad Sigebertum, Ab-
bot of Mont St. Michel). Ibid. p. 344. A.
3. From the Chronicle of an anonymous Canon of Laon. Ibid. (p. 702.) p. 715.
In the month of June of the same year (1212) a certain boy, by occupation
a shepherd, of a village named Cloies, near the town of Vendome, said that the
Lord had appeared to him in the form of a poor foreigner, and had received
bread from him, and had delivered to him letters to be taken to the King of
the French. When he came, together with his fellow shepherd-boys, there
assembled to him from diverse parts of Gaul nearly xxx. thousand persons.
When he tarried at Saint Denys the Lord wrought many miracles by him, as
many have witnessed. There were also very many other boys who were held
in great veneration by the common multitude in many places, because they also
were believed to work miracles ; to whom a multitude of boys gathered, as
wishing to proceed under their guidance to the holy boy Stephen. All acknow-
ledged him as master and prince over them. At length the king, having con-
sulted the masters of Paris upon the assembly of boys, at his command they
returned to their homes ; and thus that childish enthusiasm, as it was lightly
commenced, was as lightly terminated. But it seemed to many that, by means
of such innocents gathered of their own accord, the Lord would do something
great and new upon the earth, which issued far otherwise.
4. Matthew Paris, Monk of St. Albans. (Historia Major, juxta exemplar
Londinense 1571, verbatim recusa. Ed. Willielmo Wats. Londini 1640.
Fol. p. 242.
In the course of the same year (1213), in the following summer, there arose
in France a certain heresy never before heard of. For a certain boy, instigated
AUTHORITIES. 355
by the enemy of mankind, a boy indeed in years, but most vile in his way of
life, went through the cities and towns in the realm of the French, as though
sent by the Lord, singing in French measures: "Lord Jesus Christ, give us
back the Holy Cross," with many other things added. And when he was seen
and heard by other boys of the same age, an infinite number followed him ;
who, wholly infatuated by the craft of the devil, left their fathers and mothers,
their nurses and all their friends, singing in like manner as their master sang.
Nor, wonderful to say, could either bolts restrain them, or the persuasion of
their parents recall them from following their aforesaid master to the Medi-
terranean Sea, which crossing, they went on their way singing in orderly pro-
cession, and in troops. For now no city could hold them for their multitude.
But their master was placed in a chariot adorned with coverings, and was
surrounded with guards shouting about him, and armed. But such was their
number that they crushed one another through excess of crowding. For he
regarded himself blest who could carry away some threads or hairs from his
garments. But at last, by the device of the, old impostor Sathanas, they all
perished either on land or in the sea.
5. Chronicle of Alberic, Monk of Liege. [Cronica Alberici Monachi trium
fontium Leodinensis Dijocesis. In : G. G. Leibnitii Accessionum Histori-
carum Tomo II. Hannoverae 1698. 4to. p. 459.]
There happened in this year an expedition of young children miraculously,
as it were, assembling from all parts ; they came first from the parts of the city
of Vendome of the Parish", who when they were about thirty thousand, came
to Marseilles as wishing to go over the sea against the Saracens. But ribald
and bad men joined to them, so corrupted the whole army, that, some perishing
in the sea, some being put up for sale, few of so great a multitude returned,
but of those who escaped thence the Pope gave a commandment, that when
they should be old enough, they should go over the sea, having been marked
with the cross. And the betrayers of these children are said to have been
Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, merchants of Marseilles, who being own-
ers of ships, ought, so they promised them, to carry them over the sea for
God's sake, without payment, and filled seven large ships with them, and when
they had come with two days' sailing to Saint Peter's Island to the Her-
mit's Rock, a tempest arose and two ships perished, and all the children of
those ships were drowned, and, after a time (as is said) Pope Gregory IX.
founded in the same island the Church of the Xcw Innocents, and appointed
twelve prebendaries, and there are in that church the bodies of the children,
which the sea threw up there, and to this day they are shown to pilgrims un-
corrupted. But the betrayers succeeded in taking the other five ships to Bu-
gia and Alexandria, and there they sold all those children to the princes of the
Saracens and to merchants, from whom the Caliph bought for himself 400 all
clerks, because thus he would separate them from the others, among whom
were eighty all priests, and he treated them more honourably than was his
wont. It is that Caliph of whom I have spoken above who studied at Paris in
the dress of a clerk, and learned fully all that is known among us, and he now
lately has left off sacrificing camel's flesh. The princes of the Saracens being as-
sembled at Baldach in the same year in which the children were sold, they slew
in their presence eighteen of these children by different kinds of martyrdom,
because they would by no means relinquish the Christian faith, but cherished it
diligently in slavery: he who said this, and was one of the above-said clerks
whom the Caliph bought for himself, has faithfully reported that he has never
356 CHILD-PILGEIMAGES.
heard that one of the above-said children apostatised from the Christian faith.
And the two aforesaid betrayers, Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, after-
Avards went to Mirabel, prince of the Saracens of Sicily, and wished to
arrange with him the betrayal of the Emperor Frederic, but the Emperor by
the grace of God triumphed over them, and hanged Mirabel with his two sons
and those two traitors on one gallows, and after eighteen years he who report-
ed this added that Mashemuch of Alexandria still kept carefully seven hun-
dred, not now children, but men of full age.
6. Albert, Abbot of Stade, a contemporary. [Alberti Abbatis Stadensis
Chronicon, a condito orbe usque ad A. Chr. 1256. In : Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum. Ed. Joh. Schilterus. Argentorati 1702. Fol. p. 300.]
(Assembly of lunatic boys.) About that time boys, without a master, without
a leader, from all the towns and cities of all countries, ran with eager steps to-
ward the parts beyond the sea, and when it Avas asked of them whither they
were running, they answered : To Jerusalem, to get back the Holy Land. Very
many of them were locked up by their parents, but in vain, for, breaking fast-
enings or walls, they ran out. The Pope, having heard these reports, sighing
said: These boys have laid it to us, that we sleep while they run for the re-
covery of the Holy Land. To this day it is not known what became of them.
But many returned, of whom when the cause of the expedition was asked, they
said that they knew not. Naked women also about the same time ran through
the towns and cities saying nothing.
7. Johannes Iperius, Abbot of St. Bertin's, 1366—1383, of little authority.
[Chronicon Sythiense Sancti Bertini. Recueil des Histor. de la France et
des Gaules. Tom. xviij. p. 593. p. 603 C]
When at that time processions were being made through France to beseech
the favour of God against the infidels, it came into the mind of a young shep-
herd in the diocese of Chartres, that he would go to the procession, and he
went. Returning he found his sheep almost destroying the corn, and when he
would drive them away, they bent their knees to him as if asking pardon.
Which when it was spread abroad, they honoured him with too much attention,
to whom in a short time there poured in from every part of the kingdom count-
less thousands of children, no one at all commanding or urging them ; who,
being asked whither they were going, replied all as with one breath: To God.
8. Vincentius, Bishop of Beauvais. [Bibliotheca Mundi, seu Speculi Majoris
Vincentii Burgundi Prsesulis Bellovacensis, ordinis prsedicatorum, etc.
Tomus quartus, qui speculum Historiale inscribitur. Opera et Studio
Theologorum Benedictinorum Collegii Vedactini in Alma Academia
Duacensi. Duaci 162L Fol. L. xxx. C. 5. p. 1238.]
Also in the above-mentioned year little boys, to about 20 thousand as it
is reckoned, were marked with the cross, and coming in bands to various sea-
ports, in particular, Marseilles and Brindisi, returned famished and stripped.
But it was said that the Old Man of the Mountain, who had been used to bring
up the Arsacidse from boyhood, had detained two European clerks in prison,
and would never let them go, till he had received a faithful promise from them
that they would bring him some boys of the realm of France. By them there-
fore the aforesaid boys were supposed to have been enticed by some false re-
ports of visions, and by promises to them when they were marked with the cross.
9. Caffari (contemporary statesman) Annales Genuenses ab A. 1101. Libro
IV. Col. 403. Muratori, T. VI.
AUTHORITIES. 35
!—
But in the month of August, on the Sabbath day, VIII Calend. September,
a certain Teutonic boy, named Nicolas, entered the city of Genoa for pur-
poses of pilgrimage, and with him a great multitude of pilgrims carrying
crosses and staves, in the judgment of a working man more than 7000, [thus
of the 30,000, about a fourth part] men and women, boys and girls. And on
the Lord's day following they departed from the city ; but many men, women,
boys, and girls of that number remained at Genoa.
10. Author unknown. [Fragmentum Historicum incerti auctoris, M. Alberti
Argentinensis Chronico in manuscriptis codicibus praffixum, p. 74. Ger-
maniae Historicorum illustrium Tomus unus, Christian-Urtisii fide et studio
nunc editus. Francofurti 1585. Fol. p. 88.]
At that time there was made a foolish expedition, young and silly persons
taking the mark of the cross without any discretion, rather for curiosity than
for their salvation. Persons of both sexes, boys and girls, not under age only,
but also grown up, married women with virgins, set out, going with empty purses
not only through all Germany, but also through parts of Gaul and Burgundy ;
neither could they by any means be restrained by their parents and friends,
but used all efforts to join that expedition, so that everywhere in the towns
and in the country they left their tools and whatever they had in hand at
the time, and joined the bands as they passed by. And as for such novelties
we are often a folk of easy faith, many thought that this came to pass not
through lightness of mind, but by a divine inspiration and a kind of piety.
For which reason they also succoured them in their expenses, furnishing food
and other necessary things.
But when the clergy and some others of sounder mind spoke against it, and
judged that expedition vain and useless, the laics vehemently cavilled, saying,
that the clerks were unbelievers, and that they opposed this thing for envy
and coveteousness, rather than for truth and righteousness. But forasmuch
as no affair that is commenced without the balancing of reason and without
vigour of counsel, attains to a good conclusion ; after this foolish multitude
arrived at the parts of Italy, they were separated and scattered through the
cities and towns, and many were kept by the inhabitants of the land as servants
and handmaids. Others are said to have reached the sea, who were taken
prisoners by the sailors and mariners, and carried to other distant parts of the
earth. But the rest coming to Rome, when they saw that they could go no further,
not being sustained with any authority, at last became aware that their labour
was frivolous and empty : and yet they were by no means absolved from the
vow of the cross, except the boys under the age of discretion, and those who
were oppressed with old age. Therefore, thus deceived and perplexed, they
began to return ; and they who formerly used to pass through the countries
in parties and troops, and never without the song of encouragement, now re-
turning, singly and in silence, barefooted and famished, were a scoffing to all
men : also many virgins were ravished, and lost the flower of their chastity.
11. Chronicle of the City of Genoa. [Chronica de Civitate Januensi, edita a
Fratre Jacobo de Voragine ordinis Fratrum pranlicatorum d. gr. Archi-
episcopo Januense. usa Musatori, Rer. Ital. Scriptt. Tom. ix. p. 1. Col.
(pag.) 45 E.]
In the year of the Lord MCCXXII (?) in the month of August, there
came to Genoa a certain Theuton named Nicolas, in the habit of a pilgrim,
and there followed him a great multitude of pilgrims both great and
358 CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
small, and even young children, and all had pilgrims' coats (sclavinas) mark-
ed with crosses, and pilgrims' staves (burdones), and pilgrims' wallets (scarsel-
las), saying that the sea would be dried up at Genoa, and thus they must go to
Jerusalem.
But many of them were sons of nobles, whom their fathers had provided
with harlots. But the Genoese agreed that they must withdraw from the city,
partly because they thought they were prompted by levity more than by
necessity ; partly because they feared lest they should bring dearth into the
city ; partly because they apprehended danger to the city from so great a mul-
titude ; chiefly because the Emperor was then in rebellion with the Church,
and the Genoese clave to the Church against the Emperor. After a short time
all that thing came to nothing, because it was founded upon nothing.
12. Sicard, Bishop of Cremona, contemporary. [Sicardi Episcopi Cremonensis
Chronicon. Muratori Rer. Ital. Scriptt. Tom. VII. Mediol. 1725. Eol.
p. (col.) 624.]
In the same year, 1212, under the guidance of boys seemingly of twelve
years, who said that they had seen a vision, and who took the sign of the cross,
in the parts of Cologne, an innumerable multitude of poor people of either sex,
and of boys, made pilgrimage through Germany, marked with the cross ; and
they came into Italy, saying with one heart and one voice, that they would
cross the seas dry-shod, and recover the Holy Land of Jerusalem by the power
of God. But at the end it all as it were came to nought. In the same year
there was so mighty a famine, especially in Apulia and Sicily, that mothers
even ate their children.
13. Lambert, monk of St. James' Monastery, Liege. [Lamberti Parvi, Leodi-
nensis S. Jacobi Monasterii monachi Chronicon, a Reinero, ejusdem
ccenobii asceta continuatum. Vett. Scriptorum et Monumentorum his-
toricorum dogmaticorum moralium amplissima collectio, Edmundi Mar-
tene et Ursini Durand. Tom V. Paris 1729. Fol. col. (p.) 40.]
A wonderful movement of children as well from the Roman as from the Teu-
tonic kingdom, and chiefly of shepherds, both of the male and of the female sex.
But they wept most profusely whom their fathers and mothers did not suffer
to go. We believe that this was effected by magical arts, because their labour
had no results, for at the last they were dispersed, and their journey was
brought to nought. But their intention was that they would cross the sea,
and, which their fathers and kings had not done, recover the sepulchre of
Christ ; but because this work was not of God it had no effect. The heat was
extremely great in the first xv days of July.
14. Godfrey, monk of St. Pantaleon at Cologne : a Benedictine of the time of
the Emperor Frederick II. [Godefridi Monachi S. Pantaleonis apud
Coloniam Agrippinam Annales ab a. 1162 ad a. 1237. In: Rerum Ger-
manicarum Scriptores ex biblioth. Marquard. Frehered. Burcard. Gotthelf
Struve. Tom. I. Argentorat. 1717. fol. p. 333—381.]
In that same year from all France and Germany boys of divei-se ages and
ranks, marked with the cross, affirmed that they were commanded by God to
proceed to Jerusalem, for the succour of the Holy Land. After the example
of whom a multitude of youths and women, marking themselves with the cross,
set in order to go with them. To whom also some evil-disposed men joining
themselves, nefariously and secretly took from them the things they had
brought out, and those which they daily received from the faithful, and went
AUTHORITIES. 359
away secretly : one of whom being taken at Cologne ended his life on the Gal-
lows. Many also of them perished in woods and desert places of heat, hunger,
and thirst : others, having crossed the Alps, as soon as they entered Italy were
spoiled and driven back by the Lombards and returned with disgrace. (The
destruction of Milan, 1162, had embittered the haired of the Lombards to the
Germans.)
15. Chronicle of St. Medard's, Soissons. [Ex Chronico S. Medardi Suessionis.
Apud Acherium, Tom II. Spicileg. in Fol. pag. 489 (a) Ibidem, p. 720 —
721. A.]
(Dtae 1209.) An innumerable multitude of children and boys from different
parts, cities, castles, towns, camps, and farms of France, going out without the
permission and assent of their parents, said that they had undertaken to cross
the sea in quest of the Holy Cross : but they succeeded not at all. For all, in
different ways, were ruined, died, or returned. They say indeed and affirm for
a certainty, that every ten years before that wonder happened, fishes, frogs,
butterflies, bhds, proceeded in like manner, according to their kind and their
season. At that time so great a multitude of fishes was caught that all mar-
velled greatly. And certain old and decayed men affirm as a certain thing,
that from different parts of France an innumerable multitude of dogs gathered
together at the town of Champagne which is called Manshymer. But those
dogs having divided into two parties, and fighting bravely and bitterly against
one another, nearly all slew one another in the mutual slaughter, and very
few returned.
16. Thomae Cantipratani Bonum universale de Apibus L. II. c. 2. Edition,
without date and place, of the loth century.
17. Roger Bacon. [Fratris Rogeri Bacon ordinis Minorum Opus majus ad
Clementem IV. Pont. Max. primum a Samuele Tebb, M. D. Londini
editum 1733. Nunc vero diligenter recusum. Accedit prologus galeatus
in reliqua opera ejusdem Autoris. Venetiis 1750. Ap. Franc. Pitteri.
Fol. p. 189.]
I write these things not only for prudent consideration, but also be-
cause of the perils which occur and will occur to Christians and the Church of
God through infidels, and especially Antichrist, because he will use the power
of wisdom, and turn all things to evil. And by exhibiting words and deeds
of this kind ( ? stellificanda verba, &c), and ordering them with great desire
of mischief, with most sui-e aim, and eager confidence, he will allure to misery
not only single persons, but cities and countries.
Perhaps ye have seen or heard for certain, that boys of the realm of
France collected together in infinite multitude, after acertainevil man, so that they
could not be restrained either by their fathers or mothers or friends, and were
put in ships and sold to the Saracens, and this not LXIV years ago. In like
manner in our times a master shepherd stirred up all Almayne and France, and
there ran after him a multitude of people, and he had favour with all the com-
mon and lay people, in contempt of the clergy and to the confusion of the
Church. And he said to the Lady Blanche, that he would go to her son be-
yond the sea, with such words deceiving that most prudent woman. They
that were wise did not doubt but they were messengers of the Tartars or
Saracens, and had some contrivance whereby they fascinated the common
people. And I saw with my own eyes one that bore something openly in his
hands, as it were a sacred thing, as one carries the relics, and he went bare-
360 CHILD-PILGRIMAGES.
footed, and there was about him a multitude of armed men, but so scattered
in the fields that he could be seen of all who met him with that which he car-
ried in his hand with great ostentation.
18. Martin Crusius, Historian, and Professor of Greek and Latin at Tubingen.
[Martin. Crusius, annales Suevici, sive Chronica rerum gestarum antiquis-
simse et inclytse Suevicae gentis. Francofurti 1595. Fol. L.VII. Pars III.
p. 405.]
A. 1458. At Hall of the Suabians, on the Thursday after Pentecost, more
than a hundred boys, against the will of their parents, made a pilgrimage to
Saint Michael. But the senate assigned them an ass and a guide, lest any evil
befal them.
Aventinus writes to M. Joan. Herold that the pilgrimage of boys, suddenly
stirred up, was made to S. Michaels in Normandy of France : and they could
not be kept back by their mothers. Otherwise they immediately died. After-
wards a great pestilence followed — Wonderful fanaticism.
19. Chronicle of the Monastery of Elwangen. [Chronicon Elwangensis Monas-
terii excerptum perpra;dictum D. Matth. Mai'eschalcum ab anno 1065
usque ad a. 1477. p. 453. Germanicarum rerum Scriptores aliquot insig-
nes hactenus incogniti. Tomus unus, nunc primum editus. Ex biblio-
theca Marquardi Freheri. Francofurti 1624. Fol. p. 463.]
1459. A number of Boys went on pilgrimage to St. Michael's situated
in the middle of the Sea, when the sea divided itself each day, the boys went
through with their feet dry.
20. John Lindner, Monk at Pirna. [Excerpta Saxonica, Misnica et Thurin-
giaca ex Monachi Pirnensis, seu, vero nomine, Joannis Lindneri sive
Tillani onomastico autographo quod extat in Bibliotheca Senatoria Lip-
siensi. Col. 1447. Jo. Burchard Menckenius Scriptores rerum Germani-
carum, pra?cipue Saxonicarum. Tom. II. Lips. 1728. Fol.]
And (MCCXXXVII) more than 1000 children assembled at Erfort, went to
Arnstadt, danced, etc. there, the parents got cars, sledges and carts, they let
themselves be fetched home, " no one could find out the cause."
21. Civitatis Erfurtensis Historia Critica et diplomatica, oder vollstandige
Alte, Mittel-und Neue Historie von Erfurth etc. Ausgefertigt von Joh.
Heinr. v. Falkenstein. Erfurt 1739. 4to. Buch II. Cap. 3. § 15. s. 84.
JOHX GUILDS A>'H SON, PRINTERS.
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