Post by hi224 on May 3, 2021 5:11:46 GMT
English Sweat (also called the Sweating Sickness) was a mysterious sickness that struck England (and to a lesser degree continental Europe) in several epidemics from 1485 to 1551.
The symptoms of the sickness are described as sudden onset, cold shivers, profuse sweating (therefore the name), head- and joint aches and severe exhaustion. It should be noted that no rashes or similar are reported. The progression of the sickness was extremely fast and death or recovery usually happend within 24 hours. There was one comment that you could " merry at dinner and dead at supper".
The sweat was contagious, mostly happend during the warm months of the year and had the highest death rates under healthy young males. It should also be noted that infected did no get an immunity and could contract the sickness several times.
While the total number of deaths was quite low compared to other plagues of the time (e.g. the bubonic plague), the reported death rate (up to 99.4% case fatality rate for an outbreak in Dortmund, Germany) and the extreme short duration of the epidemics (sometimes only days from first to last infected) really stand out.
Also it is not really reassuring that till today we do not know what caused this sickness and why it vanished. There are some theories.
Epidemics:
The first epedemic happened in 1485 and was confined to England. Also the two following epedemics in 1507 and 1517 were mostly isolated in England (and in the second case the English territory of Calais).
Only the forth epidemic in 1528 also spread in Europe: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden... At the same time as the fourth epidemic an unknown avian disease was noted with dead birds having large abscesses. Which lead to the theory that birds might have been invloved in spreading the diseases.
The fifth and last epidemic in 1551 was again isolated in England. This outbreak was ducumented by the physician John Caius who wrote a book about the sweating sickness. It would be the first English book dedicated to a single sickness, which is one of the main sources known today dealing with this epidemic.
After that final outbreak the English sweat disappeared as fast as it had appeared.
The typical local outbreak lasted only a few days (<10) and often resulted in more deaths within these few days than in a complete year without the sickness.
Possible Causes:
It is unknown what caused this sickness. There is no currently known sickness that fits all of the symptoms or the epidemic spread. Excavations of corpses to extract DNA of a potential contagion have failed.
With the Picardy sweat there is another sickness from the 18th/19th century that has strikingly similar symptoms but had a way lower mortality and lastest for weeks not hours. Also the cause for this sickness is not know.
Relapsing fever: a bacteria caused infection, usally trandmitted by lice. The description of the symptoms is quite similar, but relapsing fever often leads to a black rash which was not reported for the sweat. Also it has a very low mortality.
Ergotism: poisoning from a rye fungs. This seems less likely because ergotism was know at that time
Hantavirus: these rodent based viruses can also cause similar symptoms and very fast deaths. But it is diffucult to explain the speed of the spread with a rodent based disease.
Other suggestions include a (maybe avian) influenza, anthrax spores, q fever, ...
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1044802/?page=1
www.gutenberg.org/files/33503/33503-h/33503-h.htm
www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-the-English-sweating-sickness-the-Picardy-sweat-HPS-and-HFRS_tbl1_259630360
The symptoms of the sickness are described as sudden onset, cold shivers, profuse sweating (therefore the name), head- and joint aches and severe exhaustion. It should be noted that no rashes or similar are reported. The progression of the sickness was extremely fast and death or recovery usually happend within 24 hours. There was one comment that you could " merry at dinner and dead at supper".
The sweat was contagious, mostly happend during the warm months of the year and had the highest death rates under healthy young males. It should also be noted that infected did no get an immunity and could contract the sickness several times.
While the total number of deaths was quite low compared to other plagues of the time (e.g. the bubonic plague), the reported death rate (up to 99.4% case fatality rate for an outbreak in Dortmund, Germany) and the extreme short duration of the epidemics (sometimes only days from first to last infected) really stand out.
Also it is not really reassuring that till today we do not know what caused this sickness and why it vanished. There are some theories.
Epidemics:
The first epedemic happened in 1485 and was confined to England. Also the two following epedemics in 1507 and 1517 were mostly isolated in England (and in the second case the English territory of Calais).
Only the forth epidemic in 1528 also spread in Europe: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden... At the same time as the fourth epidemic an unknown avian disease was noted with dead birds having large abscesses. Which lead to the theory that birds might have been invloved in spreading the diseases.
The fifth and last epidemic in 1551 was again isolated in England. This outbreak was ducumented by the physician John Caius who wrote a book about the sweating sickness. It would be the first English book dedicated to a single sickness, which is one of the main sources known today dealing with this epidemic.
After that final outbreak the English sweat disappeared as fast as it had appeared.
The typical local outbreak lasted only a few days (<10) and often resulted in more deaths within these few days than in a complete year without the sickness.
Possible Causes:
It is unknown what caused this sickness. There is no currently known sickness that fits all of the symptoms or the epidemic spread. Excavations of corpses to extract DNA of a potential contagion have failed.
With the Picardy sweat there is another sickness from the 18th/19th century that has strikingly similar symptoms but had a way lower mortality and lastest for weeks not hours. Also the cause for this sickness is not know.
Relapsing fever: a bacteria caused infection, usally trandmitted by lice. The description of the symptoms is quite similar, but relapsing fever often leads to a black rash which was not reported for the sweat. Also it has a very low mortality.
Ergotism: poisoning from a rye fungs. This seems less likely because ergotism was know at that time
Hantavirus: these rodent based viruses can also cause similar symptoms and very fast deaths. But it is diffucult to explain the speed of the spread with a rodent based disease.
Other suggestions include a (maybe avian) influenza, anthrax spores, q fever, ...
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1044802/?page=1
www.gutenberg.org/files/33503/33503-h/33503-h.htm
www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-the-English-sweating-sickness-the-Picardy-sweat-HPS-and-HFRS_tbl1_259630360