English sweat

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Title page of a publication by Euricius Cordus , 1529

The English welding (also English welding disease , English sweat fever or English welding addiction ; Latin pestis sudorosa or sudor anglicus ) was a very contagious disease of unknown etiology , usually with fatal outcome, in the 15th and 16th centuries in five epidemic waves mainly in England occurred and then apparently disappeared again. The disease was characterized by a very short disease duration and a high mortality rate . It often only took a few hours from the onset of symptoms to death . A typical symptom was heavy sweating , which gave the disease its name.

It is still unclear what this disease was according to today's understanding. In the case of viral infections, speculations about the cause of the English sweat range from influenza to hantaviruses ; in the case of bacterial diseases, leptospirosis ( Weil's disease ) and pulmonary anthrax are considered.

Temporal occurrence

The English sweat occurred in 1485, 1506, 1517 and in the years 1528/29 and for the last time in 1551 pandemic or epidemic . The Sudor Anglicus was first documented in detail after the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485.

Doctors first became aware of English sweat at the very beginning of the reign of Henry VII of England . There is evidence that he was known a few days after Henry landed at Milford Haven on August 7, 1485, and certainly before the Battle of Bosworth on August 22. Soon after Henry's arrival in London on August 28th, he broke out in the capital and claimed many lives. This disease was soon the name welding disease (English sickness sweating awarded). It was considered very different from the plague or other previously known epidemic diseases, not only because of the eponymous symptoms, but also because of its very rapid and often fatal course.

However, doubts have arisen about the interpretation of the sources. Because the outbreaks in England coincided with the plague outbreaks in 1485/1486, 1517, 1528/1529 and 1551/1552, so that the proportion of deaths due to English sweat cannot be determined.

Using the well-documented epidemic of 1551, Paul Slack showed that members of the upper class in particular fell ill, but many did not die from it, so that the effect of the epidemic on the population was rather small. In addition, the contemporary chroniclers used the words "plague" or "pestilence" to describe English sweat as well as the plague and other contagious diseases or epidemics, so that confusion is obvious.

After the first wave in 1485, the disease did not appear a second time until 1507 and claimed far fewer lives than the first outbreak. In 1517 there was a third, serious outbreak. Oxford and Cambridge , like other cities, had many deaths, allegedly half the population in some cities. There are reports that the disease spread to Calais and Antwerp . With these exceptions, like the first two outbreaks, it was restricted to England.

In 1528 there was a fourth, severe outbreak. The disease first appeared in London in late May and quickly spread across England but did not make it to Scotland and Ireland . Mortality in London was high. The court was dissolved; King Henry VIII left the city and often changed his place of residence. It is believed that Anne Boleyn was also infected.

During the fourth epidemic, the disease spread to the rest of Europe at such a rate that thousands of people died within a few weeks in 1528/1529. Parallel to this epidemic, avian influenza was observed in 1528, during which pus-sized boils were found under the wings of dead birds.

The epidemic spread like cholera and reached Switzerland in December 1528, spreading northwards via Germany and Austria to Denmark , Sweden and Norway and eastwards along the southern Baltic coast on the Hanseatic trade routes to Lithuania , Poland and Russia . France and Italy were spared. The disease also occurred in the Netherlands , possibly coming directly from England, as it attacked Antwerp and Amsterdam simultaneously on the morning of September 27, 1528.

The disease hit Hamburg in July 1529, 1,100 residents died in 22 days. Lübeck and Bremen, Königsberg and Danzig were also affected. In Dortmund, 497 died of 500 sick people in the first four days of the epidemic. The disease reached Marburg in the first days of October 1529. The Speyer Bishop Georg von der Pfalz died of it on September 27, 1529 at Kislau Castle near Bad Mingolsheim . In Augsburg, 800 of 1,500 sufferers died in six days. Evidence is available from Nuremberg, Amberg, Kempten, Landshut, Memmingen , Ulm and Chemnitz. Martin Luther wrote to a friend about the counselor on the disease of Euricius Cordus :

"The little Artzney book that went out against this illness is the reason that many, when they start to sweat, are immediately frightened and think that they have the problem on their necks."

The epidemic did not last long in the affected areas, usually only two weeks. It only lasted a little longer in eastern Switzerland. After that, the English sweat no longer appeared in continental Europe . Ireland and Scotland have always been spared.

The lawyer and philosopher Thomas More attributed the diseases to the hygienic conditions of his time. Ludwig Bechstein wrote in 1853:

“In 1529 a dangerous disease came from England called perspiration or English perspiration. In Hamburg it won the first land on the mainland and dragged a thousand people there within twenty-two days. From there it went on to Liibeck, Wismar, Rostock, Greifswald, Stettin, Danzig and spread far and wide in the country. It flew through the cities and countries in the Hui, as it were. "

For Lübeck this epidemic was described in detail chronologically by the Stadtmedicus Rembertus Giltzheim .

England suffered a fifth outbreak in 1551. There is a report of this outbreak by an eyewitness, the English doctor John Caius . The disease did not reappear afterwards.

A similar illness called Picard's sweat fever , known in England as Picardy sweat , occurred epidemically in France, Italy and southern Germany from 1718 to 1861 , but lasted significantly longer with a period of one to two weeks and was fatal in fewer cases, and it was also unlike English sweat, accompanied by a rash ( sweat frizzles ). In France alone there were 175 epidemics. Again, this disease did not occur in the UK .

Symptoms

The symptoms have been described by Caius and others as follows: The disease began very suddenly with feelings of tightness followed by sometimes very violent chills , dizziness , headache, and pain in the neck, shoulders and limbs, accompanied by great exhaustion. This "cold" stage, which could last from half an hour to three hours, was followed by the stage of heat and sweating. The characteristic, often foul-smelling sweat broke out suddenly and, as it seemed to those familiar with the disease, for no apparent reason. With the sweat or shortly afterwards there was a feeling of heat (or fever ), accompanied by headache, delirium , nausea, vomiting , abdominal pain, racing pulse or palpitations and great thirst. Palpitations and heartache were common symptoms. No rash of any kind was observed; nor did Caius make any suggestion in this regard. In the later stages, there followed either general exhaustion, breakdown and rapid death, or an irresistible drowsiness which to give in was deemed fatal. Anyone who survived a seizure was not immune in the future; some people had multiple seizures before they died. There was also frequent nosebleed . It was significant that many of the patients died four to twelve hours after the onset of the disease and that those who survived 24 hours had a good chance of survival. Those who came into contact with sick people usually got sick themselves.

According to Naumann, the long-term consequences of the disease were frequent attacks of palpitations, sometimes for life, as well as night sweats long after the illness.

root cause

The cause is the most puzzling aspect of the disease. Some blame the ubiquitous dirt and sewage of the day that could have been the source of the infection.

That the first outbreak occurred at the end of the War of the Roses could mean the disease was brought to England by Henry VII's French mercenaries, especially since they appear to have been immune. Unusually, the disease often affected strong people between the ages of 15 and 42, often men, and more rarely women, children, and the elderly. The fact that the disease raged more violently among the wealthy than among the poor explains why it received special attention, unlike other diseases of the time. Today's suspicions about its cause range from influenza to flea and lice- borne diseases to Hanta viruses. A poisoning with ergot ( ergotism ) was also considered (although the contemporaries of the time were quite familiar with the symptoms of ergotism, which was known by several names of its own). Relationships with leptospirosis ( Weil's disease ), Q fever or pulmonary anthrax were also established. According to a description of the disease in the handbook of the medical clinic von Naumann, the sweat fever was accompanied by unnatural bird deaths, with the dead birds showing abscesses under their wings. It is therefore also possible that birds played a role in the transmission, or at least they seem to have been affected by the disease as well. Whether the sweat fever was a new type of zoonosis can only be guessed according to the current state of knowledge, although the course of the disease shows some indications for this assumption. Bechstein reports:

“Their cause was attributed to the peculiar weather of the year: mild winter, dry May, wet and cold summer, and then such heat that it was impossible not to sweat, even if one had walked naked, and with this paralyzing heat came addiction. "

In 2001, victims of the disease were identified in graves, but it was not possible to detect a pathogen by means of DNA analysis .

Argue against a hantavirus infection (Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome variant) that for transmission primarily rodents and their excreta (urine, feces, saliva) and infection may be mentioned. The virus must therefore always be reintroduced into the human population. Although the symptoms of Sudor Anglicus and Hantavirus-Pulmonary Syndrome are similar, this would not explain the sometimes very rapid spread of the disease.

See also

bibliography

  • John L. Flood: English sweat and German hard work. A contribution to the book trade history of the 16th century. In: William A. Kelly / Jürgen Beyer (eds.): The German book in Wolfenbüttel and abroad. Studies presented to Ulrich Kopp in his retirement. (= Studies in reading and book culture. Volume 1). University of Tartu Press, Tartu 2014, ISBN 978-9949-32-494-1 , pp. 119–178 (pp. 127–174: Bibliography of contemporary writings on English sweat).

literature

(in chronological order)

Web links

Commons : English Sweat  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ So in the minutes of the cathedral chapter of Lübeck 1529
  2. ^ John FD Shrewsbury: A History of Bubonic Plague in the British Islands . Cambridge 1970. p. 168
  3. ^ Paul Slack: Mortality crisis and epidemic disease in England 1485-1610. In: Charles Webster (Ed.): Health, medicine mortality in the sixteenth century. Cambridge 1979. p. 27
  4. ↑ Paul Slack, pp. 25-27
  5. ↑ See Heinrich Haeser: Historisch-pathologische investigations. As contributions to the history of common diseases. Volume I. Gerhard Fleischer, Dresden / Leipzig 1839, p. 238
  6. ↑ Manfred Vasold: Plague, hardship and heavy plagues. CH Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 116-122
  7. ^ Luther on August 29, 1529 to Wenzeslaus Link, quoted from Gunther Mann: Euricius Cordus. P. 3.
  8. ^ Ludwig Bechstein: German book of legends . Wigand, Leipzig 1853, p. 194.
  9. ^ Report on sweat addiction from the year 1529 , printed in Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch : The sweat addiction in Meklenburg in 1529 and the princely personal physician, Professor Dr. Rhembertus Giltzheim. In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Vol. 3 (1838), pp. 60–83 (digitized version )
  10. ^ John Caius: A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse. (For example a book or a guide against the disease generally known as sweating or sweating )
  11. ^ Moritz Naumann : Handbuch der medicinischen Klinik Volume 3. , Verlag August Rücker, Berlin 1831. Retrieved on October 20, 2010.