EPIDEMICS. (SWEATING-SICKNESS.) 



313 



saw the heavens open and the saints and Vir- 

 gin Mary, according as the religious notions of 

 the age were strangely and variously reflected 

 in their imaginations. When the disease was 

 completely developed, the attack began with 

 epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell 

 senseless, panting and laboring for breath. 

 They foamed at the mouth, and, suddenly 

 springing up, began their dance with strange 

 contortions. 



It was but a few months ere this disease had 

 spread from Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared 

 in July, over the neighboring Netherlands. In 

 Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns 

 the dancers appeard with garlands in their hair 

 and their waists girt with cloth bandages, that 

 they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over, 

 receive immediate relief from the attack of tym- 

 pany. This bandage, by the insertion of a stick, 

 easily twisted tight. Many, however, obtained 

 more relief from kicks and blows, which they 

 found numbers of persons ready to administer, 

 for wherever the dancers appeared the people 

 assembled in crowds to gratify their curiosity 

 with the frightful spectacle. Peasants left 

 their plows, mechanics their workshops, house- 

 wives their domestic duties, to join in the wild 

 revels. Girls and boys quitted their parents, 

 and servants their masters, to amuse themselves 

 at the dances of those possessed, and greedily 

 imbibed the poison of mental aberration. 



The priests and the authorities took an inter- 

 est in the afflicted, who were numbered by 

 thousands. They divided them into separate 

 parties, to each of which they appointed re- 

 sponsible superintendents to protect them, and 

 so sent them on pilgrimages to chapels and 

 shrines, principally to those of St. Vitus. near 

 Zabern and Rotestrue, where priests were in 

 attendance to work upon the misguided minds, 

 and where it is probable that many were, 

 through the influence of devotion, cured of this 

 lamentable affliction. Yet in most cases music 

 afforded the sufferers relief. At the sound of 

 the flute or zithern they awoke from their leth- 

 argy, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at 

 first, according to the measure of the music, 

 were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried 

 on to a most passionate dance. Throughout 

 the summer season cities and villages resound- 

 ed with the notes of musical instruments, and 

 patients were everywhere met with who looked 

 upon dancing as their only remedy. 



There were more ancient dancing plagues. 

 In the year 1237 upward of a hundred children 

 were said to have been seized suddenly at Er- 

 furt, and to have proceeded dancing and jump- 

 ing along the road to Arnstadt. When they 

 arrived at that place they fell exhausted to the 

 ground, and, according to an old chronicle, 

 many of them, after they were taken home to 

 their parents, died, and the rest remained 

 affected to the end of their lives with a per- 

 manent tremor. Another occurrence is related 

 to have taken place at the Mosel bridge at 

 Utrecht in 1278, when two hundred fanatics 



began to dance, and would not desist when a 

 priest passed by carrying the host to a person 

 who was sick, upon which, as if in punishment, 

 the bridge gave way and they were all drowned. 

 A similar event is also said to have occurred as 

 early as the year 1027. Eighteen peasants are 

 said to have disturbed divine service on Christ- 

 mas eve, by dancing and brawling in the church- 

 yard, whereupon the priest inflicted a curse 

 upon them that they should dance and scream 

 a whole year without ceasing. 



The Sweating-Sickness, After the fate of Eng- 

 land had been decided by the Battle of Bos- 

 worth, on Atig. 22, 1485, the joy of the nation 

 was clouded by a strange disease, which, fol- 

 lowing in the rear of Henry's victorious army, 

 spread in a few weeks from the distant mount- 

 ains of Wales to the metropolis of the empire. 

 It was a violent inflammatory fever, which, 

 after a short rigor, prostrated" the powers as 

 by a blow, and amid painful oppression of the 

 stomach, headache, and lethargic stupor, suf- 

 fused the whole body with a fetid perspiration. 

 All this took place in a few hours, and the 

 crisis was always over within the space of a 

 day and a night. The internal heat that the 

 patient suffered was intolerable, yet every re- 

 frigerant was certain death. At first the new 

 foe was scarcely heeded ; citizens and peasants 

 went in joyful procession to meet the victori- 

 ous army, for tlie nation, after its many years 

 of civil war, looked forward to happier days of 

 peace. Very shortly, however, after the King's 

 entry into the capital on the 28th of August, 

 the sweating-sickness, as the disease was called, 

 began its ravages among the dense population 

 of the city. Two lord mayors and six alder- 

 men died within one week; many who had 

 been in perfect health at night were on the 

 following morning numbered with 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 com- 

 mercial houses their principals, and wards their 

 guardians, the festivities were soon changed 

 into mourning and grief. By the end of the 

 year the disease had spread over the whole of 

 England. Many persons of rank, of the eccle- 

 siastic and civil classes, became its victims, and 

 great was the consternation when it broke out 

 in Oxford. Professors and students fled in all 

 directions, but death overtook many of them, 

 and the university was deserted for six weeks. 

 The accounts that have been handed down are 

 very imperfect, but we may infer from the gen- 

 eral grief and anxiety, that the loss of life was 

 very considerable. 



In the summer of 1506 the sweating-sick- 

 ness visited England for a second time. The 

 renewed eruption of the epidemic was not on 

 this occasion connected with any important 

 occurrence, so that contemporaries have not 

 even mentioned the mouth when it began; and 

 in the autumn it disappeared. 



A third time, in 1517. the sweating-sickness 

 broke out, and was so violent and rapid in its 



