Possibly the great storm on the 10th of August may have given an impulse to the development of this very remarkable epidemic; for an highly electrical state of the atmosphere increases the susceptibility for diseases. It is likewise not to be overlooked, that on the 24th of August, while the sky was overcast, there came on an insufferable heat[235], which must have debilitated the body after such long-continued cold wet weather. At all events, in the beginning of September, we find that the Sweating Fever broke out at the same time at Stettin, Dantzig, and other Prussian cities; at Augsburg, far to the south on the other side of the Danube, at Cologne on the Rhine, at Strasbourg, at Frankfort on the Maine, at Marburg[236], at Göttingen, and at Hanover[237]. The position of these cities gives an impressive notion of the extent of country of which the English Sweating Sickness took possession, as it were by a magic stroke. It was like a violent conflagration, which spread in all directions; the flames, however, did not issue from one focus, but rose up everywhere, as if self-ignited; and whilst all this occurred in Germany and Prussia, the inhabitants of the other northern countries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, perhaps also Lithuania, Poland and Russia, were likewise visited by this violent disease.
The malady appeared in Stettin on the 31st of August, among the servants of the Duke[238]. On the 1st of September, the Duchess herself sickened, in common with many people about the court, and burgesses in the city. A few days afterwards several thousands were affected by the disease, so that there was not a street from which some corpses were not daily carried out. This dreadful period of terror, however, did not last much longer than a week, for about the 8th of September the pestilence abated in its violence, so as no longer to be regarded with terror; and after this time only a few isolated cases occurred[239].
On the same day, namely, the 1st of September, the disease appeared in Dantzig, fifty German miles further to the eastward, and was here also so destructive, that it carried off in a short time 3000 inhabitants[240], some say even 6000—but this seems certainly too high an estimate for Dantzig, and probably includes the greater part of Prussia. If we were to give credence to an anonymous reporter[241], this plague abated in five days, and relieved the inhabitants from the mortal anxiety which, until they recovered their senses, led them everywhere to commit acts of injustice and injury to avert the danger.
In Augsburg we find the Sweating Sickness on the 6th of September. It lasted there also only six days, affected about 1500 of the inhabitants, and destroyed more than half that number, or, as it is said, about 800[242].
At Cologne it appeared precisely at the same time, as we learn from the expressions of the Count von Newenar, a prelate of that place, who finished his account of this disorder on the 7th of September[243]. At Strasburg it broke out some ten or twelve days earlier, namely, on the 24th of August. In this place about 3000 people sickened in one week, but very few of them died[244]. At Frankfort on the Maine they were holding the autumn fair (which began on the 7th of September) just at the time when the Sweating Sickness prevailed[245], whence arose the opinion, which has been broached again in more modern times[246], that the traders on their return carried the disease thence throughout the whole of Germany, and that in the intercourse by means of this fair, the main cause of the spread of the epidemic was to be found. After the facts which have been brought forward, such a narrow view needs no refutation. The Sweating Sickness was fleeter than the conveyances of goods and people, which at that time made their way along the pathless and unbeaten roads; for “no sooner did a rumour of the approach of the disease reach anyplace than the disease itself accompanied it.”[247]
Between the boundaries which have been indicated, only a few isolated towns and villages escaped, and there are probably few of the chronicles of that age, so prolific of great events, in which the dreadful scourge of the year 1529 is not expressly mentioned; yet the sweating fever, like other great epidemics, spread, doubtless, very unequally, and it is ascertained that the further south it extended, the milder it was upon the whole; and also that all those places where it broke out late suffered beyond comparison less than those which were visited early in September and in the latter part of August; for not to lay much stress on the sultry heat from the 24th of August, which probably did not last long, the chief cause of its great malignity at first was the violent method resorted to in the treatment of the sick, the inapplicability of which was fortunately soon perceived. Only one citizen was affected with the Sweating Sickness in Marburg, and even he recovered[248], whilst at Leipzig, the pestilence either never broke out at all, or very much later, perhaps in October or November; for the physicians of that place gave it clearly to be understood in their pamphlets, that they knew nothing of the disease from their own observations[249], and no sooner did the report get abroad that the dreaded enemy had not penetrated within the walls of this commercial city, than crowds of fugitives came thither from far and near in order to seek protection and security, although the place in itself was by no means fitted for a place of refuge, for the swampy atmosphere which rose from the city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and dark streets, many lingering diseases[250].
Sect. 6.—In the Netherlands.
It is remarkable that the Netherlands were visited by the Sweating Fever[251] full four weeks later, although the commercial intercourse with England, if we were to attach any especial importance to this circumstance, was far more considerable than that of the German cities in the North Sea. It appeared for the first time in Amsterdam on the 27th of September in the forenoon, whilst the city was enveloped in a thick fog[252], and just at the same time, perhaps a day earlier, in Antwerp, where, on the 29th of September, they made a solemn procession in order by prayer to avert greater harm from the city; for in the last days of September 400 to 500 people died of the English Sweating Sickness at that place[253]. It might have been supposed that the damp soil of Holland, and its impenetrable fogs, would invite the pestilence much earlier than the high and serene country between the Alps and the Danube, or the far distant land of Prussia, but the development of epidemics follows no human calculation or medical views! In the towns around Amsterdam the Sweating Fever appears not to have broken out until the mortality had ceased in that city, that is to say, five days after the 27th of September, so that we cannot be far wrong in assuming that in the latter end of that month, and the commencement of October, it had spread over the whole territory of the Netherlands including Belgium[254]. Alkmaar and Waterland remained free[255], as doubtless had been the case with particular places both in England and Germany.
The exceedingly short time that the Sweating Sickness lasted in the different places that it visited, was as astonishing as its original appearance. For since it raged in Amsterdam for only five days, and not much longer, as we have shewn, in Antwerp and many German towns, it could hardly have continued more than fifteen days in any other places; thus displaying the same peculiarity on this occasion by which it had already been marked in its former visitations. This short period, however, must not be understood to include the sporadic occurrence of the disease, otherwise, as a contemporary of credit assures us, that the sweating fever attacked some persons twice and others three or even four times[256], we might thence conclude, that, although perhaps in some places the pestilence did, after raging for a certain number of days, suddenly cease, so that no isolated cases afterwards occurred, yet that the general duration of its prevalence was longer than has been stated.