A Boke Or Counsel Against The Disease Commonly Called The Sweating Sicknesse
A Boke Or Counsel Against The Disease Commonly Called The Sweating Sicknesse is in Tudor Books.
1552. A boke or counsel against the disease commonly called the sweate or sweating sicknesse made by John Caius doctor in physick very necessary for every person and much requisite to be had in the hands of all sortes, for their better instruction, preparation and defence, against the sudden coming, and fearful assaultyng of the same disease. 1552.
The beginning of the disease.
In the yere of our Lorde God 1485 shortly after the 7th day of August, at which time kynge Henry the Seventh arrived at Milford in Wales, out of France, and in the first year of his reign, there chanced a disease among the people, lasting the rest of that month & all September, which for the sudden sharpeness and unwont cruelness passed the pestilence. For this commonly gave three or four often five sumtyme six as that first at Athenes which Thucidides describes in his second book, sometime eleven and sometime fourteen days respect, to whom it vexed. But, that immediatly killed some in opening there windows, some in playing with children in their street doors, some in one hour, many in two it destroyed, & at the longest, to the that merily dined, it gave a sorrowfull supper. As it found them so it took them, some in sleep some in wake, some in mirth some in care, some fasting & some full, some busy and some idle, and in one house sometime three sometime five, sometime seven sometime eight, sometime more sometime all, of the which, if the half in every Town escaped, it was thought great favour. How, or with what manner it took them, with what grief, and accidents it held them, hereafter the I will declare, whe I shall come to show the signs therof. In the mean space, know that this disease (because it most did stand in sweating from the beginning until the ending) was called here, the Sweating Sickenesse: and because it first beganne in England, it was named in other countries, the Englishe Sweat. Yet some conjecture that it, or the like, have been before seen among the Greeks in the siege of Troie. In the Emperor Octavius wars at Cantabria, called now Biscay, in Spain: and in the Turkes, at the Rhodes. How true that is, let the authors look: how true this is, the best of our Chronicles show, & of the late begin disease the fresh memory yet confirms. But if the name wer now to be given, and at my libertie to make the same: I would of the manner and space of the disease (by cause the same is no sweat only, as herafter I will declare, & in the spirites) make the name Ephemera, which is to say, a fever of one natural day. A fever, for the fervor or burning, dry & sweating fever like. Of one naturall day, for that it lasteth but the time of twenty-four hours. And for a distinction from the commune Ephemera, that Galene writes of, comming both of other causes, and wyth vnlike paines, I wold putte to it either Englishe, for that it followeth somoche English menne, to who it is almoste proper, and also began here: or els pestilent, for that it cometh by infection & putrefaction, otherwise then doth the other Ephemera. Whiche thing I suppose may the better be done, because I se straunge and no english names both in Latine and Greke by commune vsage taken for Englishe. As in Latin, Feure, Qnotidia, Tertian, Quartane, Aier, Infection, Pestilence, Uomite. Person, Reines, Ueines, Peines, Chamere, Numbre, &c. a litle altered by the commune pronunciation. In Greke, Plcuresie, Ischiada, Hydrops, Apostema, Phlegma, and Chole: called by the vulgare pronunciatio, Schiatica, Dropsie, Impostume, Phleume, & Choler: Gyne also, and Boutyre, Sciourel, Mouse, Rophe, Phrase, Paraphrase, & cephe, wherof cometh Chancers couercephe, in the romant of the Rose, writte and pronouced comoly, kerchief in the south, & courchief in the north. Thereof euery head or principall thing, is comonlye called cephe, pronouced & writte, chief. Uery many other there be in our commune tongue, whiche here to rehearse were to long. These for an example shortelye I haue here noted. But for the name of this disease it maketh now no matter, the name of Sweat being commonly used. Let us therefore return to the thing, which as occasion & cause served, came againe in the 1506 the twenty-second year of the said Kyng Henry the seuenth. After that, in the yeare 1526 the ninth yeare of Kyng Henry the VIII, and endured from July, unto middle of Decembre.
1528. The fourth time, in the year 1528 the twentieth year of the said Kyng, beginning in the end of May, & continuing June and July.
1551. The fifth time of this fearful Ephemera of Englande, and pestilent sweat, is this in the yeare 1551, of oure Lord God, and the fifth year of our Sovereign Lord King Edward the Sixth, beginning at Shreweshury in the middle of April, proceeding with great mortality to Ludlow, Presteigne, and other places in Wales, then to West Chester, Coventry, Oxford, and other towns in the South, and such as were in and about the way to London, whether it came notably the seventh of July, and there continuing sore, with the losse of seven hundred and sixty one from the fourth day until the eleventh day, besides those that died in the seventh and eighth days, of which no register was kept, for that it abated until the thirtieth day of the same, with the losse of forty-two hundred or more. Then ceasing there, it went from thence through all the east parts of England into the North until the end of August, at which time it diminished, and in the end of September fully ceased.
This disease is not a Sweat only, (as it is thought and called) but a fever, as I said, in the spirites by putrefaction venemous, with a fight, trauaile, and laboure of nature againste the infection receyued in the spirites, whervpon by chaunce foloweth a Sweate, or issueth an humour compelled by nature, as also chanceth in other sicknesses whiche consiste in humours, when they be in their state, and at the worste in certein dayes iudicial, aswel by vomites, bledinges, & fluxes, as by sweates. That this is true, the self sweates do shewe. For as in vtter businesses, bodies yt sore do labour, by trauail of the same are forced to sweat, so in inner diseases, the bodies traueiled & labored by thẽ, are moued to the like. In which labors, if nature be strõg & able to thrust out the poisõ by sweat (not otherwise letted) ye persõ escapeth: if not, it dieth. That it is a feuer, thus I haue partly declared, and more wil streight by the notes of the disease, vnder one shewing also by thesame notes, signes, and short tariance of the same, that it consisteth in the spirites. First by the peine in the backe, or shoulder, peine in the extreme partes, as arme, or legge, with a flusshing, or wind, as it semeth to certeine of the pacientes, flieng in the same. Secondly by the grief in the liuer and the nigh stomacke. Thirdely, by the peine in the head, & madnes of the same. Fourthly by the passion of the hart. For the flusshing or wynde comming in the vtter and extreame partes, is nothing els but the spirites of those same gathered together, at the first entring of the euell aire, agaynste the infection therof, & flyeng thesame from place to place, for their owne sauegarde. But at the last infected, they make a grief where thei be forced, which cõmonly is in tharme or legge (the fartheste partes of theire refuge) the backe or shulder: trieng ther first a brũt as good souldiers, before they wil let their enemye come further into theire dominion. The other grefes be therefore in thother partes aforsaid & sorer, because the spirites be there most plẽtuous as in their founteines, whether alwaies thinfection desireth to go. For frõ the liuer, the nigh stomack, braine, and harte, come all the iij. sortes, and kyndes of spirites, the gouernoures of oure bodies, as firste spronge there. But from the hart, the liuish spirites. In putrifieng wherof by the euel aier in bodies fit for it, the harte is oppressed. Wherupon also foloweth a marueilous heauinesse, (the fifthe token of this disease,) and a desire to sleape, neuer contented, the senses in al partes beynge as they were bounde or closed vp, the partes therfore left heuy, vnliuishe, and dulle. Laste foloweth the shorte abidinge, a certeine Token of the disease to be in the spirites, as wel may be proued by the Ephemera that Galene writethe of, whiche because it consistethe in the Spirites, lasteth but one natural day. For as fire in hardes or straw, is sone in flambe & sone oute, euen so heate in the spirites, either by simple distemperature, or by infection and putrefaction therin conceyued, is sone in flambe and sone out, and soner for the vehemencye or greatnes of the same, whiche without lingering, consumeth sone the light matter, contrary to al other diseases restyng in humoures, wherin a fire ones kindeled, is not so sone put out, no more then is the same in moiste woodde, or fat Sea coles, as well by the particular Example of the pestilence, (of al others most lyke vnto this) may be declared, whyche by that it stãdeth in euel humors, tarieth as I said, sometyme, from iiij. vii. ix. & xj. vntill xiiij. dayes, differentlie from this, by reason therof, albeit by infection most lyke to this same. Thus vnder one laboure shortelie I haue declared both what this disease is, wherein it consisteth, howe and with what accidentes it grieueth and is differente from the Pestilence, and the propre signes, and tokens of the same, without the whiche, if any do sweate, I take theym not to Sweate by this Sickenesse, but rather by feare, heate of the yeare, many clothes, greate exercise, affection, excesse in diete, or at the worst, by a smal cause of infection, and lesse disposition of the bodi to this sicknes. So that, insomoche as the body was nat al voide of matter, sweate it did when infection came: but in that the mattere was not greate, the same coulde neyther be perilous nor paineful as in others, in whom it was greater cause.