The Epidemics of the Middle Ages

by J. F. C. Hecker; John Caius

The necessary data for furnishing a complete account of the Trousse-galant of 1528 do not exist, for physicians passed over this epidemic with the same coolness and indifference which unfortunately they may be justly accused of having shewn with respect to other important phenomena. But it returned once again in 1545–46, appearing in Savoy and over a great part of France; and we possess from Paré[178], and from Sander, a Flemish physician[179], though still a defective, yet a more satisfactory description of its symptoms on this occasion. Its course was, as before, very rapid, so that it destroyed the patient in two or three days; again it attacked the strong rather than the weak, as if in justification of its old name, and those who recovered remained for a long time distinguishable by the loss of their hair and their wretched appearance. Patients felt at the commencement an insufferable weight in the body, with extremely violent headache, which soon deprived them of all consciousness and passed into a profound stupor, even the sphincter muscles losing their power. In other cases a continued state of sleeplessness was followed by feverish delirium, so violent that it was necessary to have recourse to means of restraint. Such opposite states are usual in all typhous fevers. Sander expressly mentions that in most of those affected, eruptions made their appearance. He does not, however, state their nature or describe the course and crisis of the disease otherwise than that it terminated about the fourth or the eleventh day. Even the eruptions that did appear, which were probably petechiæ, and perhaps also (rother friesel) red miliary vesicles, came at an indefinite period; either at the commencement, when they afforded an unfavourable prognosis, or later, when they betokened a favourable crisis. Thread-worms, in great numbers, were evacuated alive under great torment, and generally increased the sufferings of the patient. The disease was scarcely less contagious than plague, and with respect to its treatment, bleeding, copious and even ad deliquium, was decidedly successful, which coupled with the attacks on the head just described[180], leads to the conclusion that there existed a fulness of blood and an inflammatory state of circulation, together, perhaps, with inflammation of the brain. We must not omit to observe that, during the pestilence of 1546, the bubo plague made its appearance here and there, especially in the Netherlands[181]; and in the following year, broke out and spread to a greater extent in France[182], whence it seems to follow, with respect to the malady of which we are now treating, that its nature resembled the petechial fever, since that disease usually precedes the occurrence of pestilences[183].

The assertion of historians, that in 1528, and the following years, France lost a fourth part of her inhabitants by famine and pestilence, seems, according to our representation, not to be by any means exaggerated. The consequences, as regarded the future destinies of that country, were likewise very important. For Francis the 1st saw that no new sacrifices could be borne by his people, who were already so sorely afflicted; and therefore abandoned his schemes of greatness and foreign power, consenting, on the 5th of August, 1529, to the disadvantageous treaty of Cambray.

Sect. 3.—Sweating Sickness in England, 1528.

Whoever, following the above facts, will represent to himself the state of Europe in 1528, will readily believe, that a poisonous atmosphere enveloped this quarter of the globe, and continually brought destruction and death over its nations. Ruin broke in upon them in a thousand forms, destroying their bodies and benighting their minds, and if to this we add the discord and the deadly party hatred which at that time prevailed in the world, it seems as if every circumstance that could affect mankind was implicated in this gigantic conflict, which threatened in its fatal result to annihilate all traces of the times that were past.

A heavier affliction than has yet been described was in store for England: for in the latter end of May, the Sweating Fever broke out there in the midst of the most populous part of the capital, spreading rapidly over the whole kingdom; and fourteen months later, brought a scene of horror upon all the nations of northern Europe, scarcely equalled during any other epidemic. It appeared at once with the same intensity as it had shewn eleven years before, was ushered in by no previous indications, and between health and death there lay but a brief term of five or six hours. Public business was postponed: the courts were closed, and four weeks after the pestilence broke out, the festival of St. John[184] was stopped, to the great sorrow of the people, who certainly would not have dispensed with its celebration had they recovered from the consternation arising from the great mortality. The king’s court was again deserted, and to the various passions and mental emotions which had been clashing there since the year 1517, as, for instance, those arising from the theological zeal which had been excited by Henry VIIIth’s defence of the faith, was added once more the old alarm and distress, which seemed to be justified by the death of some favoured courtiers; particularly of two chamberlains[185], and of Sir Francis Poynes, who had just returned from an embassy to Spain. The king left London immediately, and endeavoured to avoid the epidemic by continually travelling, until at last he grew tired of so unsettled a life, and determined to await his destiny at Tytynhangar. Here, with his first wife and a few confidents, he resided quietly, apart from the world, surrounded by fires for the purification of the air, and guarded by the precautions of his physician, who had the satisfaction to find that the pestilence kept aloof from this lonely residence[186].

How many lives were lost in this, which some historians have called the great mortality, can be estimated only by the facts which have been stated, and which betoken an uncommonly violent degree of agitation in men’s minds. Accurate data are altogether wanting, yet it is quite evident that the whole English nation, from the monarch to the meanest peasant, was impressed with a feeling of alarm at the uncertainty of life, to which neither the rude state of society, nor a constant familiarity with the effects of laws written in blood[187], had blunted their sensibility. Such a state does not exist without very numerous cases of mortality which bring the danger home to every individual, so that it is to be presumed that the churchyards were everywhere abundantly filled. Nor did this destructive epidemic come alone. Provisions were scarce and dear, and whilst hundreds of thousands lay stretched upon the bed of death, many perished with hunger[188], and the same scenes would have been experienced as in France, had not the corn trade afforded some relief[189].

As soon as the occurrences of this unfortunate year could be more closely surveyed, a conviction was at once felt, that it was one and the same general cause of disease which called forth the poisonous pestilence in the French camp before Naples, the putrid fever among the youth in France, and the sweating sickness in England, and that the varying nature of these diseases depended only on the conditions of the soil and the qualities of the atmosphere in the countries which were visited[190]. If, in opposition to these notions, a narrow view of human life in the aggregate should raise a doubt, this would be strikingly refuted by the wonderful coincidence, in point of time, of all these phenomena, occurring in such various parts of Europe; for while the French army, after an exposure of four weeks to the miseries and poisonous vapours of its camp before Naples, perceived the first forebodings of its destruction, the great famine with the Trousse-galant in its train was in full advance on the other side the Alps, and almost on the same day the Sweating Sickness broke out upon the Thames.

Sect. 4.—Natural Occurrences.—Prognostics.

The chronicles of all the nations of Europe are full of remarkable notices respecting the commotions of nature in these particular years, which were so utterly hostile to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In England the period of distress was already approaching; towards the end of the year 1527. Throughout the whole winter, (November and December, 1527, and January, 1528,) heavy rains deluged the country, the rivers overflowed their banks, and the winter seed was thus rotted. The weather then remained dry until April; but scarcely was the summer seed sown, when the rain again set in, and continued day and night for full eight weeks, so that the last hope of a harvest was now destroyed[191], and the soaked earth, in the thick mists that arose from its surface, hatched the well known demon of the Sweating Disease. It was now of no avail that the torrents of rain ceased, for the softened soil gave the pestilence constant nourishment, and the damp warmth which, alternating with unseasonable cold, remained prevalent during the following years all over Europe, rendered men’s bodies more and more susceptible to severe diseases.

The historians of that time were too much occupied with the intricate affairs of the court and of the church to devote any attention to nature, and on this account they have left us no satisfactory information of the state of the weather and the course of the seasons of those years in England, yet there is no reason to suppose that they were essentially different from those of the rest of Europe. This may be proved by the following collection of important natural occurrences, when taken in conjunction with the circumstances already stated respecting France and Italy.