[517] The Venetian ambassador (Cal. S. P. Venetian, v. 541) says that the sweat was at an end in London in twenty days. He says, also, that children under ten years were not subject “questo influsso.” The excitement caused by the London epidemic is shown in an entry of money in the corporation records of Canterbury: “1551. To one of the King’s servants that brought word how many were dede in the swett.” (Hist. MSS. Commiss. IX. 154 b.)
[518] Edward VI. to Fitzpatrick.
[519] Drake’s Eboracum, p. 128.
[520] Nichols, notes to Machyn, giving a reference to Gent. Magaz. 1825, II. 206.
[521] Fuller (ed. Nichols, p. 183) says, under 1551: “Many in Cambridge died of this sweating sickness, patients mending or ending in twenty-four hours.” The death of the two young noblemen was made an occasion for copies of verses by members of the University.
[522] Strype, Memorials, III. chap. 7 (cited in notes to Machyn).
[523] Lysons, Magna Britannia, VI. 539.
[524] Calendar of State Papers. Venetian, V. 541, under the date of 18 Aug. 1554.
[525] Thomas Cogan, ‘The Haven of Health: chiefly made for the comfort of students, and consequently for all those that have a care of their health, amplified uppon fiue wordes of Hippocrates, written Epid. 6. Labour, Meate, Drinke, Sleepe, Venus.... Hereunto is added a Preseruation from the Pestilence: with a short Censure of the late sicknesse at Oxford.’ London, 1589. New ed. 1596, p. 272.
[526] There is a single reference to a sweat on the Continent in 1551, which may really have been one of those epidemics of typhus (or influenza), with a sweating character, that were observed in 1557-8 and 1580. Brassavolus, writing de morbo Gallico, and illustrating the fact that epidemics were sometimes generated by drought (though mostly by humidity), says that the sweat in England, in former years, came with drought, and that at the time of his writing, the 15th September, 1551, that disease was vexing Flanders,—the season being extremely dry,—and had attacked many thousands. This was first noticed by Häser, Op. cit. III. (1882), p. 332. The reference to Brassavolus is Luisini’s Script. de lue venerea. Lugd. Bat. 1728, f. p. 671.