Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [561]
England. Meningeal symptoms were characteristic of the third visitation of the disease. In 1528 and 1529 there was a fourth visitation which resulted in the destruction of the French Army before Naples. It is said that in 1524 a petechial fever carried off 50,000 people in Milan, and possibly this was the same disease. In 1529 the disease had spread all over Europe, attended with great mortality.
Germany, France, and Italy were visited equally. The famine in Germany, at this time, is described by authorities in a tone of deep sympathy. Swabia, Lorraine, Alsace, and provinces on the border of the lower Rhine, were frightfully affected, so that the disease reached the same heights there as in France. In England Henry VIII endeavored to avoid the epidemic by continual traveling, until at last he grew tired of so unsettled a life and determined to await his destiny at Tytynhangar. It was not the inhabitants of the land alone who were affected, but even fish and the fowls of the air sickened. According to Schiller, in the neighborhood of Freiburg in Breisgau, dead birds were found scattered under the trees with boils as large as peas under their wings,--indicating among them a disease, and this extended far beyond the southern districts of the Rhine. The disease was undoubtedly of a miasmatic infectious nature, as was proved by its rapid spread and the occasional absence of a history of contagion. It was particularly favored in its development by high temperature and humidity.
The moral effect of the sweating sickness, similar to that of the black plague, was again to increase religious fanaticism and recreate the zeal of persecution.
On the 15th of April, 1551, there was an outbreak of the fifth and last epidemic of sweating fever in Shrewsbury, on the Severn. With stinking mists it gradually spread all over England, and on the 9th of July it reached London. The mortality was very considerable. The English residents were particularly susceptible, foreigners being comparatively exempt. The epidemic terminated about the 30th of September. Since that time the sweating sickness has never reappeared in England; but in the beginning of the eighteenth century a disease very similar in symptoms and course broke out in Picardy, in Northern France. Toward the end of the century it spread to the South of France, and since that time has appeared epidemically, 195 distinct outbreaks having been observed in the course of one hundred and sixty-nine years, from 1618 to 1787. The disease has frequently appeared in Italy since 1755, and in various parts of Germany since 1801. In Belgium it has been observed in a few places within the present century (Rohe).
Chronologic Table of the Principal Plagues.--In December, 1880, H. P. Potter, F.R.C.S., published a chronologic table of some of the principal plagues on record. In comments on his table, Potter says that he has doubtless included mention of many plagues which, although described under that name, are probably a dissimilar disease, writers having applied the terms pestilential and pestilent in a generic sense to diseases specifically different. It must also be remembered that, in some cases, death must have been due to famine, want, and privation, which are so frequently coexistent with pestilence. Following the idea of Hecker, the dancing manias have been included in this table.
{table omitted}
Small-pox.--From certain Chinese records it appears that small-pox, or a disease with similar symptoms, was known in China before the Christian era, and it was supposed to have been known at a very early period in India. Most likely it was introduced into Europe in the second century by a Roman army returning from Asia. Before the sixth century, the terrible century of the great plague, there seem to be no records of small-pox or other eruptive fevers. Neither Hippocrates, Galen, nor the Greek physicians who practiced at Rome, mention small-pox, although it is now believed that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died of this disease. According to Dupony, the first document mentioning variola
Germany, France, and Italy were visited equally. The famine in Germany, at this time, is described by authorities in a tone of deep sympathy. Swabia, Lorraine, Alsace, and provinces on the border of the lower Rhine, were frightfully affected, so that the disease reached the same heights there as in France. In England Henry VIII endeavored to avoid the epidemic by continual traveling, until at last he grew tired of so unsettled a life and determined to await his destiny at Tytynhangar. It was not the inhabitants of the land alone who were affected, but even fish and the fowls of the air sickened. According to Schiller, in the neighborhood of Freiburg in Breisgau, dead birds were found scattered under the trees with boils as large as peas under their wings,--indicating among them a disease, and this extended far beyond the southern districts of the Rhine. The disease was undoubtedly of a miasmatic infectious nature, as was proved by its rapid spread and the occasional absence of a history of contagion. It was particularly favored in its development by high temperature and humidity.
The moral effect of the sweating sickness, similar to that of the black plague, was again to increase religious fanaticism and recreate the zeal of persecution.
On the 15th of April, 1551, there was an outbreak of the fifth and last epidemic of sweating fever in Shrewsbury, on the Severn. With stinking mists it gradually spread all over England, and on the 9th of July it reached London. The mortality was very considerable. The English residents were particularly susceptible, foreigners being comparatively exempt. The epidemic terminated about the 30th of September. Since that time the sweating sickness has never reappeared in England; but in the beginning of the eighteenth century a disease very similar in symptoms and course broke out in Picardy, in Northern France. Toward the end of the century it spread to the South of France, and since that time has appeared epidemically, 195 distinct outbreaks having been observed in the course of one hundred and sixty-nine years, from 1618 to 1787. The disease has frequently appeared in Italy since 1755, and in various parts of Germany since 1801. In Belgium it has been observed in a few places within the present century (Rohe).
Chronologic Table of the Principal Plagues.--In December, 1880, H. P. Potter, F.R.C.S., published a chronologic table of some of the principal plagues on record. In comments on his table, Potter says that he has doubtless included mention of many plagues which, although described under that name, are probably a dissimilar disease, writers having applied the terms pestilential and pestilent in a generic sense to diseases specifically different. It must also be remembered that, in some cases, death must have been due to famine, want, and privation, which are so frequently coexistent with pestilence. Following the idea of Hecker, the dancing manias have been included in this table.
{table omitted}
Small-pox.--From certain Chinese records it appears that small-pox, or a disease with similar symptoms, was known in China before the Christian era, and it was supposed to have been known at a very early period in India. Most likely it was introduced into Europe in the second century by a Roman army returning from Asia. Before the sixth century, the terrible century of the great plague, there seem to be no records of small-pox or other eruptive fevers. Neither Hippocrates, Galen, nor the Greek physicians who practiced at Rome, mention small-pox, although it is now believed that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died of this disease. According to Dupony, the first document mentioning variola