Death and illness have never been strangers to humanity. But for a brief time around the 1500s, there was one particular ailment that was both brutal in its devastation and completely undecipherable to medical practitioners of the time. This malady was known as sweating sickness, and even today, scientists don’t know where it came from, why it seemed to suddenly leave, and whether it could ever return again.
Much of what we know about sweating sickness comes from the writings of British physician John Caius, who was at ground zero of the last big outbreak that occurred in Shrewsbury, England in 1551. It’s now thought that there were at least five major sweating sickness epidemics throughout England and some parts of Europe, with the first recorded in 1485. Some researchers have also argued that two smaller outbreaks may have occurred in 1578 and 1802.
Killer sweats
The intense episodes of perspiration that victims experienced obviously gave rise to the disease’s name, which was also known as the sweats. But the sweating was commonly preceded by chills, headaches, severe exhaustion, and pain around the limbs and shoulders. One striking feature was how rapidly people fell ill, with the sweats seeming to arrive within hours of the first symptoms.
All but one of the documented epidemics had high mortality rates, with as many as 50% of victims dying. If people made it through the first day of sweating, they would typically survive, but even this wasn’t a complete reprieve, since some people were unfortunate enough to catch it multiple times. The disease did seem to have its limitations, as outbreaks often swept across a region and ended within a few weeks.
Adding to the mystery is that outbreaks of sweating also showed up throughout France in the 18th and 19th century, which came to be blamed on a disease called Picardy sweat. The original outbreaks of sweating sickness never reached this region of Europe, and the described symptoms of Picardy sweat don’t completely align with sweating sickness, tending to be milder and commonly featuring a rash that could last up to a week. So it’s not clear if the two illnesses are even related.
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gizmodo.com/sweating-sickness-contagious-killer-mystery-disease-1851507417