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  • Sweating sickness



    does that sound like influenza to you ?
    (as suggested by different other sources)


    I'm curious whether all flu epidemics
    originate in SE-Asia as suggested by the recent paper.

    So, was there flu in Europe before ships traveled to
    India,Indonesia ?
    Was there flu in India,China before that ?

    ----------------------------------
    It was claimed that it only killed the rich, middle aged - not the young or the old, and that it caused a quick death : "They were dancing in court at nine and dead at eleven", wrote a Poole minister, while Dr Caius, physician to Henry VIII, compared it to "the Plague at Athens, a pestilent contagious fever of one natural day". Dr Caius recorded the signs and symptoms as "... burning heat, sickness, headache, delirium, intense thirst, laboured breathing, erratic pulse, followed by faintness, drowsiness, profuse sweating, sickness of stomach and heart but seldom vomiting". He added "... the symptoms reached their height by the seventh hour after onset, by the ninth delirium set in, and that death often quickly followed... However, if the victim survived the fifteenth hour the symptoms abated, and if they passed the twenty-fourth hour, they usually survived." The Sweat is believed to have arrived in England in 1485, transported from Rouen by mercenaries recruited to help establish Henry Tudor. The first recorded outbreak was at Milford Haven, the port at which Tudor landed his invading force. Other outbreaks were recorded throughout the country in 1508, 1517, and 1551.5


    here they claim it was hantavirus:
    Discover satisfies everyday curiosity with relevant and approachable science news, feature articles, photos and more.


    -------------------------------------------

    Although there were several outbreaks of the ?sweating sickness? (Sudor anglicus) in England between 1485 and 1551, only in 1529 did the disease spread far into the continent. In that year it had a devastating impact, spreading rapidly throughout Germany and thence into Scandinavia and the Baltic area, as well as into the Low Countries, Switzerland, and Austria. This study surveys the effect of the disease in Germany, and in particular draws attention to the astonishing speed with which the medical profession and the book trade there reacted to the crisis, which contrasts markedly with the apparent sluggishness of the response by English physicians and publishers. Nevertheless, it seems that it was the long English experience of the disease that eventually taught the Germans how to deal with it effectively; it is possible that the Reformer Robert Barnes (1495?1540), then in L?beck, played a role in this. (pp. 147?176)

    We should note that there is now general agreement that the sweating sickness was not a form. of influenza, despite Ynez Viol? O?Neill

    --------------------------------------------------

    The Sweate appeared first in the army of Henry Tudor (later Henry VII). After the battle of Bosworth Field, Henry's soldiers, returning home, spread it to London and the countryside. The epidemic subsided the following year, but the disease returned in 1508, 1517, 1528 (when it spread to continental Europe), and 1551.

    Except for the 1528 pandemic, the sweating sickness was restricted to the borders of England itself -- Wales and Scotland were spared. It reportedly even passed over foreigners in England and attacked Englishmen across the channel in Calais.

    Victims suffered pain in the head and chest, sometimes with rashes. A fever brought the furious sweating. Death came very quickly, sometimes within hours. Modern attempts to identify the disease have come up variously with typhus, influenza, scarlet fever, and, most sensationally (and improbably), a hanta virus1. Parallels have also been noted with the Picardy Sweat, a French epidemic of the 18th century. As with many epidemics of the more distant past, the vague descriptions that survive2 support any number of speculative diagnoses but no single definitive one.

    Whatever its identity, the microbe's strange anglophilia suggests that it was endemic in parts of Europe but not in England: This would explain its devastating effect in that country and the resistance of foreigners. In this scenario, Henry's French mercenaries are identified as the carriers.

    ----------------------------------------------------------

    Guy Thwaites is convinced that the Sweating Sickness was a Hanta virus. Evidence for his conclusion included the fact that the disease only occurred in the summer and the cases were scattered across rural England -- all suggesting a rodent born disease.

    --------------------------------------------------

    >There was no need in the past for human transportation to spread the flu around the world.
    >Just as there is no need for it today.
    >We still have birds.
    >Ships or no ships, airliners or no airliners....It's coming...
    > ...and multiple strains at once...

    birds don't spread seasonal flu.
    Only very rarely do bird-viruses enter infect humans
    or reassort with human flu.

    Hard to imagine that birds could cause human flu-epidemics
    with efficient h2h - and then this feature was "unlearnt" by the virus


    So, since when is there seasonal flu in humans with
    infections each season (5-20% of population),
    maybe in winter ?
    There should be historical records about this.
    I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
    my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

  • #2
    Re: sweating sickness

    From the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911:

    SWEATING-SICKNESS. A remarkable form of disease, not known in England before, attracted attention at the very beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It was known indeed a few days after the landing of Henry at Milford Haven on the 7th of August 1485, as there is clear evidence of its being spoken of before the battle of Bosworth on the 22nd of August. Soon after the arrival of Henry in London on the 28th of August it broke out in the capital, and caused great mortality. This alarming malady soon became known as the sweating-sickness. It was regarded as being quite distinct from the plague, the pestilential fever or other epidemics previously known, not only by the special symptom which gave it its name, but also by its extremely rapid and fatal course.

    From 1485 nothing more was heard of it till 1507, when the second outbreak occurred, which was much less fatal than the first. In 1517 was a third and much more severe epidemic. In Oxford and Cambridge it was very fatal, as well as in other towns, where in some cases half the population are said to have perished. There is evidence of the disease having spread to Calais and Antwerp, but with these exceptions it was confined to England.

    In 1528 the disease recurred for the fourth time, and with great severity. It first showed itself in London at the end of May, and speedily spread over the whole of England, though not into Scotland or Ireland. In London the mortality was very great; the court was broken up, and Henry VIII. left London, frequently changing his residence. The most remarkable fact about this epidemic is that it spread over the Continent, suddenly appearing at Hamburg, and spreading so rapidly that in a few weeks more than a thousand persons died. Thus was the terrible sweating-sickness started on a destructive course, during which it caused fearful mortality throughout eastern Europe. France, Italy and the southern countries were spared. It spread much in the same way as cholera, passing, in one direction, from north to south, arriving at Switzerland in December, in another northwards to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, also eastwards to Lithuania, Poland and Russia, and westwards to Flanders and Holland, unless indeed the epidemic, which declared itself simultaneously at Antwerp and Amsterdam on the morning of the 27th of September, came from England direct. In each place which it affected it prevailed for a short time only - generally not more than a fortnight. By the end of the year it had entirely disappeared, except in eastern Switzerland, where it lingered into the next year;' and the terrible "English sweat" has never appeared again, at least in the same form, on the Continent.

    England was, however, destined to suffer from one more outbreak of the disease, which occurred in 1551, and with regard to this we have the great advantage of an account by an eyewitness, John Kaye or Caius. the eminent physician.

    Symptoms
    The symptoms as described by Caius and others were as follows. The disease began very suddenly with a sense of apprehension, followed by cold shivers (sometimes very violent), giddiness, headache and severe pains in the neck, shoulders and limbs, with great prostration. After the cold stage, which might last from half-an-hour to three hours, followed the stage of heat and sweating. The characteristic sweat broke out suddenly, and, as it seemed to those accustomed to the disease, without any obvious cause. With the sweat, or after that was poured out, came a sense of heat, and with this headache and delirium, rapid pulse and intense thirst. Palpitation and pain in the heart were frequent symptoms. No eruption of any kind on the skin was generally observed; Caius makes no allusion to such a symptom. In the later stages there was either general prostration and collapse, or an irresistible tendency to sleep, which was thought to be fatal if the patient were permitted to give way to it. The malady was ' Guggenbiihl, Der englische Schweiss in der Schweiz (Lichtensteig, 1838).

    remarkably rapid in its course, being sometimes fatal even in two or three hours, and some patients died in less than that time. More commonly it was protracted to a period of twelve to twenty-four hours, beyond which it rarely lasted. Those who survived for twenty-four hours were considered safe.

    The disease, unlike the plague, was not especially fatal to the poor, but rather, as Caius affirms, attacked the richer sort and those who were free livers according to the custom of England in those days. "They which had this sweat sore with peril of death were either men of wealth, ease or welfare, or of the poorer sort, such as were idle persons, good ale drinkers and taverne haunters." Causes. - Some attributed the disease to the English climate, its moisture and its fogs, or to the intemperate habits of the English people, and to the frightful want of cleanliness in their houses and surroundings which is noticed by Erasmus in a well-known passage, and about which Caius is equally explicit. But we must conclude that climate, season, and manner of life were not adequate, either separately or collectively, to produce the disease, though each may have acted sometimes as a predisposing cause. The sweatingsickness was in fact, to use modern language, a specific infective disease, in the same sense as plague, typhus, scarlatina or malaria.

    The only disease of modern times which bears any resemblance to the sweating-sickness is that known as miliary fever ("` Schweissfriesel," "suette miliaire" or the "Picardy sweat"), a malady which has been repeatedly observed in France, Italy and southern Germany, but not in the United Kingdom. It is characterized by intense sweating, and occurs in limited epidemics, not lasting in each place more than a week or two (at least in an intense form). On the other hand, the attack lasts longer than the sweating-sickness did, is always accompanied by eruption of vesicles, and is not usually fatal. The first clearly described epidemic was in 1718 (though probably it existed before), and the last in 1861. Between these dates some one hundred and seventy-five epidemics have been counted in France alone.

    Authorities
    - For history see Bacon's Life of Henry VII., and the chronicles of Grafton, Holinshed, Baker, Fabyan, &c. The only English medical account is that of John Caius, who wrote in English A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease commonly called the Sweate, or Sweating Sicknesse (London, 1552); and in Latin De ephemera britannica (Louvain, 1556; reprinted London, 1721). The English tract is reprinted in Babington's translation of Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages (Syd. Soc., 1844). This also contains Hecker's valuable treatise on the English sweat, published in German (1834), and also printed in his Volkskrankheiten des Mittelalters, edited by Hirsch (Berlin, 1865). Griiner's Scriptores de sudore anglico (Jena, 1847), contains nearly all the original documents, including the two treatises of Caius. See also Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, trans. by Creighton (New Syd. Soc., 1885).

    The salvage of human life ought to be placed above barter and exchange ~ Louis Harris, 1918

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Sweating sickness

      sweating sickness disease also called English sweat
      Main a disease of unknown cause that appeared in England as an epidemic on six occasions—in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, 1551, and 1578. It was confined to England, except in 1528–29, when it spread to the European continent, appearing in Hamburg and passing northward to Scandinavia and eastward to Lithuania, Poland, and Russia; the Netherlands also were involved, but the disease did not spread to France or Italy.

      Apart from the second outbreak, all the epidemics were severe, with a very high mortality rate. The disease was fully described by the physician John Caius, who was practicing in Shrewsbury in 1551 when an outbreak of the sweating sickness occurred. His account, A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse (1552), is the main source of knowledge of this extraordinary disease.
      The illness began with rigors, headache, giddiness, and severe prostration. After one to three hours, violent, drenching sweat came on, accompanied by severe headache, delirium, and rapid pulse. Death might occur from 3 to 18 hours after the first onset of symptoms; if the patient survived for 24 hours, recovery was usually complete. Occasionally there was a vesicular rash. Immunity was not conferred by an attack, and it was not unusual for patients to have several attacks. Each epidemic lasted for only a few weeks in any particular locality.
      Since 1578 the only outbreaks of a disease resembling the English sweat have been those of the Picardy sweat, which occurred frequently in France between 1718 and 1861. In this illness, however, there was invariably a rash lasting for about a week, and the mortality rate was lower.
      It is difficult to know what the sweating sickness really was. Caius attributed it to dirt and filth. All the epidemics occurred in late spring or summer, so it may very well have been spread by insects. The disease seemed to be more severe among the rich than among the poor, and the young and healthy were frequent victims. It is unlikely to have been a form of influenza or typhus. One 20th-century writer identified it with relapsing fever, which is spread by lice and ticks and has many characteristics in common with sweating sickness. This explanation is certainly plausible. It is improbable that sweating sickness should appear as a well-defined disease and then vanish altogether, although such disappearances, while rare, are not unknown. http://www.britannica.com/

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      • #4
        Re: Sweating sickness

        The English sweating sickness, 1485-1551: a viral pulmonary disease?


        Med Hist. 1998 January; 42(1): 96–98.


        M Taviner, G Thwaites, and V Gant

        Department of Modern History, St Andrews University, London.

        (PDF file) of the complete article (362K),

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        • #5
          Re: Sweating sickness

          1485

          Sweating sickness first came to the attention of physicians at the very beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It was known, indeed, a few days after the landing of Henry at Milford Haven on 7 August 1485, as there is clear evidence of its being spoken of before the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August. Soon after the arrival of Henry in London on 28 August, it broke out in the capital. There, it killed several thousand people by its conclusion in late October that year.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> Among those killed were two lord mayors, six aldermen, and three sheriffs.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference">[2]</sup> This alarming malady soon became known as the sweating sickness. It was regarded as being quite distinct from the plague, the pestilential fever or other epidemics previously known, not only by the special symptom which gave it its name, but also by its extremely rapid and fatal course. The sweating sickness reached Ireland in 1492 when the Annals of Ulster (vol.iii, ed. B. MacCarthy, Dublin, 185, pp 358f.) record the death of James Fleming, baron of Slane from the pl?igh allais, newly come to Ireland. The Annals of Connacht (ed. A.M.Freeman, Dublin, 1944, pp 594f.) also record this obit, and the Annals of the Four Masters (vol.iii, ed. J.O'Donovan, Dublin, 1856, pp 1194f.) record 'an unusual plague in Meath ? of 24 hours' duration; and any one who survived it beyond that period recovered. It did not attack infants or little children. Note, however, that Freeman in his footnote to the Annals of Connacht denies that this 'plague' was the Sweating Sickness, in spite of the similarity of the names, but 'Relapsing or Famine Fever', possibly Typhus.

          [edit] 1507, 1517

          From 1492 nothing was heard of it until 1507, when a second, less widespread outbreak occurred, followed in 1517 by a third and much more severe epidemic. In Oxford and Cambridge it was frequently fatal, as well as in other towns, where in some cases half the population are said to have perished. There is evidence of this outbreak spreading to Calais and Antwerp, but with these exceptions it did not yet spread beyond England.
          The death of Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to King Henry VIII, and husband to Catherine of Aragon, has been attributed to the "sweats" by some historians. He died in his home at Ludlow Castle in 1502, leaving his young wife a widow.

          1528

          In 1528 the disease recurred for the fourth time and with great severity. It first showed itself in London at the end of May and speedily spread over the whole of England, though not into the far north of England, Scotland or Ireland. In London the mortality was very great; the court was broken up, and Henry VIII left London, frequently changing his residence. The most remarkable fact about this epidemic is that it spread over Europe, suddenly appearing at Hamburg and spreading so rapidly that in a few weeks more than a thousand people died. Thus was the terrible sweating sickness started on a destructive course, during which it caused fearful mortality throughout Eastern Europe. It spread much in the same way as cholera. It arrived at Switzerland in December, then northwards to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and then eastwards to Lithuania, Poland and Russia. It never appeared in France or Italy. It also emerged in Belgium and the Netherlands, probably transmitted direct from England as it appeared simultaneously in the cities of Antwerp and Amsterdam on the morning of 27 September. In each place which it infected, it prevailed for a short time, generally not more than a fortnight. By the end of the year it had entirely disappeared, except in eastern Switzerland, where it lingered into the next year. After this, it did not re-appear on mainland Europe.


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