In the north of Germany another struggle was to be decided. The evangelical party wished to declare their faith before the empire and its ruler, to reveal the object of their efforts, and to defend the purity of their creed against danger and assault. For this purpose they prepared themselves with wise discretion, and in the measures taken by the reformers for the fortification of the great work, not the slightest trace was to be observed of the anxiety which at that time agitated the people. In the midst of a country whose inhabitants trembled at the new disease, and were perhaps already severely afflicted with it, did Luther, whilst at Marburg[277], sketch the first outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melancthon, has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the following spring, during his stay at Cobourg, he composed his sublime hymn, “Eine feste burg ist unser Gott,” a strong fortress is our God.
It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which took place in these years, especial importance would be attributed to the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in the narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God; and, indeed, this representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in all religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind and body, of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived by a superior insight into things; and the mean selfishness of mankind and their delusions respecting their own qualities induce them to adopt the more easily the partial view, that the Supreme Being allows pestilences to exist only to destroy their enemies of another faith. On this account, not only do most contemporary writers speak of the just wrath of God, and of the chastisement thus prepared for the sins of the world[278], but the papal party took every possible pains to represent the English pestilence as a punishment for heresy and an evident warning against the triumphant doctrines of Luther. The cases in Hamburgh, where the eruption of the Sweating Sickness almost immediately followed the abolition of the monasteries, may certainly have obtained credit for such representations among the wavering and short-sighted, and, in a hundred other towns also, the Papists may have taken advantage of a similar occurrence of circumstances, for 1529 was a year when great and important questions were decided. At Lübeck, the monks in general preached that the English sweating fever was but a punishment which heaven inflicted on the Martineans, for so they called the followers of Luther, and the people were not undeceived until they saw with astonishment that Catholics also fell sick and died[279]. They went, however, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that the meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the heretics[280]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527, cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds.
In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to endeavour to appease the visible wrath of God by the punishment of the heretics, and it was this sanguinary delusion, worthy of savage barbarians, which hastened the burning of Flistedt and Clarenbach[281]. To the completion of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might be added, of which the following may be taken as an example. In the March of Brandenburg the evangelical faith, notwithstanding great obstacles, spread every day more and more, and the Catholic priests soon found themselves deserted. Just as the Sweating Sickness broke out at Friedeberg, in the Newmark, a curate there delivered a sermon full of enthusiasm and passion, and endeavoured to convince his apostate congregation that God had invented a new plague in order to chastise the new heresy. A solemn procession, according to ancient usage and orthodox prescription, was to be held on the following day, and thus the congregation was to be led back into the bosom of the only true church. But behold, in the course of the night, the zealous curate died of some sudden disease; and as mankind are ever ready to interpret even the thunders of the Eternal according to their own wishes and narrow notions, the Protestants, it seems, did not fail in their turn to represent this event as a miracle[282].
Sect. 10.—The Physicians.
Under these circumstances, the faculty had a very difficult problem before them, for the very imperfect solution of which they cannot justly be reproached. A learned and active physician is certainly one of the noblest of the diversified forms of humanity; for he unites in himself the power arising from an insight into the works of nature, with the exercise of a pure philanthropy inseparable from his office. Few men, however, of this ideal perfection lived in those times, and their mitigating influence over the violence of the epidemic, which was generally past before they could closely examine their new enemy and give any deliberate advice, was doubtless but very inconsiderable. By so much the more busy were the ignorant and covetous, who, from time immemorial, the more numerous body in the profession, have always injured it in its moral dignity. They attacked the disease with bold assertions, alarmed the people with inconsiderate representations, lauded the infallibility of their remedies, and were the promulgators of injurious prejudices. In the Netherlands, as we are assured by Tyengius, a physician whom we reckon among the learned and benevolent, a vast number of patients died of the effects produced by the distribution of pernicious pamphlets, with which the Sweating Sickness was to be combated by those ignorant interlopers, who many of them gave it out that they had been in England, boasting to the inhabitants of their experience and skill, and with their pills and their “hellish electuaries,” flitting about from place to place[283], especially where rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should they be restored, they obtained the promise of mines of gold[284]. The like occurred in Germany, where, at the commencement, the sound sense of the people was overcome by this officiousness, and violent remedies were recommended as certain means of cure, in a deluge of pamphlets, some of which were written by persons not in the profession.
From this impure source was derived the prescription of the compulsory[285] perspiration for twenty-four hours, which, in the districts of the Rhine, was called the Netherlands regimen[286]; and it is unpardonable, that the physicians, either with blind pride disregarded, or were totally unacquainted with the prior experience of the English, which advocated discretion and the most appropriate line of treatment. This neglect, which was not compensated until thousands had already fallen, may possibly have arisen from the blameable silence of the English physicians, of whom, as if England had not yet been enlightened by the dawn of science, not an individual had written on the Sweating Sickness, or proposed a reasonable line of treatment, since the year 1485. Between England and Germany there existed, nevertheless, a constant intercourse; and it is incredible that that mode of procedure, which did not originate from a formal medical school, but from the sound sense of the people, should not have become earlier known on this side of the North Sea.
We must not here overlook the habits and domestic manners of the Germans, for these favoured not a little the baneful prejudice with regard to heat, for which we would not altogether make the physicians responsible. Housewives, even at that time, set far too much store by high beds, which annually received the feathers of the geese consumed at the table. The comforts of a warm feather bed were highly appreciated, and least of all were they disposed to deny them to the sick. Thus all inflammatory disorders were stimulated to much greater malignity, because such a bed either caused a dry heat, even to the extent of burning fever, or a useless debilitating perspiration. To this effect the very extensive misuse of hot baths conduced; and no less so the custom of clothing much too warmly. Upon the whole the notion was prevalent, as well with the people as with medical men, that diseases were to be combated by warmth and sudorifics. To new epidemics, however, the prevailing notions and customs are always applied; for the great mass of mankind, among whom may be included medical men, are entirely ruled by them; so that in this instance, the Sweating Sickness fell upon a country in which its utmost malignity would be called forth.
Yet after the first few days, in which many unfortunate cases occurred, people became aware of the error they had committed. An advocate of the twenty-four hours’ sudation, who, though not a medical man, had lauded this practice in a pamphlet on the subject[287], died in Zwickau on the 5th of September, the victim of his own imprudence. A few days after him died an apothecary, likewise treated with the heated bed. Upon this the physicians immediately abandoned the practice, directed that their patients should be sweated only for five or six hours, and in a more moderate degree: and the estimable anonymous writer to whom we have already alluded, thus seemed to meet with converts to his belief. In Hamburgh also, men became convinced of the pernicious effects of feather beds, and gave the preference to coverings of blankets[288]; for the English plan of treatment was presently known, and intelligent philanthropists, who saw its curative powers, made it public[289] in all quarters, through the medium of their correspondence. In Lübeck there lived at the time of the Sweating Fever a learned Protestant Englishman, Dr. Anthony Barns, who, with great kindness, made known everywhere the English treatment of the disease. He was, however, after the cessation of the pestilence, banished from the city, because he had petitioned the bigoted Catholic senate to tolerate his Protestant brethren. Many were saved by him; for it was the practice in this city also, to stew to death[290] those affected with the disease. In Stettin the English treatment was promulgated in good time, and two travelling artisans who had come thither from Hamburgh, were of the greatest assistance to the inhabitants of this city, by advising them to take the feathers out of their upper beds; they made known likewise how the sickness had been treated with success. They had seen cases themselves, and could therefore distinguish by their odour those who were suffering from the true sweating epidemic, from those who were seized with fever arising from panic. They were constantly besieged by persons asking questions and seeking assistance; and when the disease was at its greatest height, the streets were quite illuminated at night by the lights of the relatives of the patients[291], who were running in all directions in a state of distraction. The abhorrence of feather beds, and the hot plan, now followed so quickly the blind recommendation of the twenty-four hours’ sweat, that by the middle of September, and in many places still earlier, more correct views were generally adopted, and some intelligent men, after the sad experience which had been gained, seized the opportunity of doing more good to the public than their noisy predecessors, who had by this time so abundantly supplied the churchyards with bodies. Among these literally and truly beneficent physicians may be reckoned Peter Wild, at Worms[292], who warned his countrymen against the Netherlands practice[293]; as also an anonymous person, (the names of the best often remain unknown in times of confusion,) who, in popular language, strenuously dissuaded the people against the use of feather beds[294]. It also soon became a common saying, ”the Sweating Sickness will bear no medicine.”[295]
There is no ground for supposing that the influence of the faculty was much greater in the country where the Sweating Sickness originated than it was in Germany, for the number of learned physicians there was still fewer, and the knowledge of medicine not nearly so extended as it was in Italy, Germany, and France. The learned Linacre had already died in the year 1524. John Chambre[296], Edward Wotton[297], and George Owen[298], were the King’s body physicians about the time of the fourth epidemic visitation of the Sweating Sickness. William Butts[299] of whom Shakespeare[300] has made honourable mention, in all probability likewise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and worthy men[301], but posterity has gained nothing from them on the subject of the English Sweating Sickness. All these physicians were well informed, zealous, and doubtless also cautious followers of the ancient Greek school of medicine, but their merits were of no advantage to the people, who, when they departed from the dictates of their own understanding, and did not content themselves with domestic remedies, to which they had been accustomed, fell into the hands of a set of surgeons so rude and ignorant that they could only exist in the state of society which then prevailed[302].