WEBVTT - Ep 65 Sweating Sickness: Ready, Sweat, Go! 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 In this same year, a new kind of sickness came 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.520 suddenly through the whole region, even after the first entering 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.600 of the King into this aisle, which was so sore, 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.920 so painful, and sharp, that the like was never heard 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:18.000 of to any man's remembrance before that time. For suddenly 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.040 a deadly and burning sweat invaded their bodies and vexed 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.040 their blood, and with a most ardent heat, infested the 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.680 stomach and the head. Grievously. By the tormenting and vexation 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.120 of which sickness, men were so sore, handled and so 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.200 painfully pained, that if they were laid in their bed, 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.880 being not able to suffer the importunate heat, they cast 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.920 away the sheets and all the clothes lying on the bed. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.400 If they were in their apparel and vestures, they would 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.080 put off all their garments, even to their shirts. Others 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.760 were so dry that they drank the cold water to 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.200 quench their importunate heat and insatiable thirst. Others that could 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.480 or at the least wood, abide the heat and stink. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.440 For indeed the sweat had a great and strong caused 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.800 clothes to be laid upon them as much as they 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.399 could bear to drive out the sweat, if it might 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.560 be all in manner, as soon as the sweat took them, 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.720 or within a short space after yielded up their ghost, 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.679 so that of all of them that sickened, there was 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:20.520 not one amongst a hundred that escaped, insomuch that, beside 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.200 the great number which deceased. Within the city of London, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.399 two mayors successively died of the same disease within eight days, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.880 and six aldermen. And when any person had fully and 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.360 completely sweat twenty four hours, for so long did the 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.280 strength of this plague hold them, he should be then 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.080 clearly delivered of his disease, yet not so clean rid 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.640 of it, but that he might shortly relapse and fall 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:48.120 again into the same evil pit. Yeay again, and twice again, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.360 as many a one indeed did, which after the third 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:52.960 time died of the same. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:43.400 Huh. I was trying to like listen for clues. And 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.240 this is gonna be a fun episode, Aarin, It. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.760 Is gonna be a very fun episode. I am so excited. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.600 So that was a contemporary account of the sweating sickness. 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.800 I'm not sure actually which epidemic, but I found it 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.919 in a paper by flood from two thousand and three. Hi, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.480 I'm Aaron Welsh. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:05.840 And I'm Erin Ollman Updyke. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.120 And this is this podcast Will Kill You. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.640 And today we're talking about sweating sickness. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:18.160 Sweating sickness it is. I'm like so excited because a 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.640 lot of people have suggested this over the years as 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.880 we've been doing this podcast, and I was like, okay, yeah, 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.800 that sounds really interesting. And I was like, yeah, I 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.680 know about sweating sickness, like you know, people sweat and 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.560 they died and that was it. And then like I 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.600 started to read more about it and I was like, what, I'm. 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.480 Excited because I know literally nothing about it. Like when 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.680 people have suggested it, I've been like, okay, yeah, sure, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.640 I have no idea what it is. 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.320 I am very excited. So the way that we did 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.840 this episode, and I think it's like the way that 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.400 we did the dancing plague episode, Yeah, is where I 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.920 like research the historical epidemics. And by the way, sweating 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.560 sickness is a mystery, so this is like a mysterious 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:06.560 epidemic episode. 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.320 Right, It's going to be like our encephalitis lethargica and 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.560 our dancing plague episode. So a little different than tradition. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.839 Yeah, and so yeah, I did all the research for 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.839 like the history of it as usual, but instead of 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.560 of Aaron taking on, oh, this is the biological cause 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.120 and the epidemiology of it, I was like, hey, research 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:31.520 these five things that people think it was right, and. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.320 So then we'll go through them and look at the 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.080 biology of these you know, possible explanations and try and 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.159 figure out what we think. 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:45.600 Yeah, yeah, I mean I think this will kind of 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.440 be like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries where you're like, oh, 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:50.920 this is so exciting, like what's going to happen, what's 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.760 going to happen, and then ultimately like you're not really 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.800 going to get a very fully satisfying answer. 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.520 Do you mean you think that, like, because this has 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.120 been how many hundreds of years that we have yet 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.480 to figure out exactly what caused it? You don't think 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.719 we're gonna solve it on this podcast today? 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.840 We're not. I mean I feel like with some exhumations 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.240 of some royal bodies or something and then testing some DNA, 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:18.040 that is possible, but also yeah, that has like not 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.440 that has been tried, and no permission has ever been granted. 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.279 So well, yeah, all right, we'll do our best. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:31.159 We'll do our best, so Aaron, Yeah, it's a very 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:31.919 special time. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.880 It is. I checked, it is quarantin any time. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:41.720 It is quarantiny time. This week we are drinking sweat 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.599 it out, Sweat it out, and in sweat it out 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:47.760 is it's going to be like a little bit of 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.960 a spicy and smoky situation of course to. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.440 Like really give you that sheen exactly. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.599 We want you to. We want to see those beads 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:02.960 of perspiration on your dewey forehead. We have mes call 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:09.240 lime juice, Habanero, simple syrup, mango juice, and orange liqueur yum. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.560 And we will post the full recipe for that quarantini 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.560 as well as our non alcoholic place Brita on all 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.480 of our social media channels and this podcast will kill 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:19.080 you dot Com. 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:20.880 We will do. 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.599 We have any other business to talk about. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.560 We do have one small piece of business. We have 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:29.560 a correction. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.920 Actually yes we do so. 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.400 In our last episode, which was on Rubella, one of 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:40.200 the terms that we used was differently abled and a 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:41.960 bunch of people have reached out to let us know 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.720 that that is actually not the preferred term, and we 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.400 apologize for doing that, and we will do better in 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:50.919 the future. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.200 Yeah, and thank you, honestly, thank you for pointing that 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.440 out and people pointing it out in a way that 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.039 makes it easy for us to learn, and so now 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.080 we can teach everyone else too. So the preferred term 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.440 is disabled, not differently able. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.560 Yes, and we appreciate it. Do we have any other 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:09.800 business to take care of? 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:17.080 We have merch which is amazing created by incredible artists, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.360 available on this podcast We Kill You dot Com. Under merch, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.680 we have a bookshop link as well as a Goodreads 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.640 list if you're interested in finding or purchasing books that 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:30.960 we recommend on this podcast. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.280 Ooh, and we're getting transcripts yay. 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.680 So you can read more. Yes, we're very excited. These 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.640 have been very long awaited and we'll be available on 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.720 this podcast We Kill You dot Com. Just click on transcripts. 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.440 We're super excited. Heck yeah, I think that's enough business. 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.440 Well, should we dive into this episode? 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.120 Erin, I can't wait. I really like, I'm not kidding 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.400 when I say I know nothing about sweating sickness and 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.000 I want to learn all about it. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:06.360 Excellent, Well, I will dive right in right after this 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:39.600 break ready. Oh yeah, sweat go. 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:44.680 Oh erin. 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.600 I feel like planned and rehearse jokes are probably the best, right. 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.760 Definitely, yeah, absolutely, I mean I didn't see it coming. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:09:01.480 Suntana is overrated, quick wit, absolutely not, who needs it? Okay? 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:06.440 But for real? The English sweating sickness was basically a 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:11.720 series of five epidemics occurring in fourteen eighty five, fifteen 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:17.560 oh eight, fifteen seventeen, fifteen twenty eight, and fifteen fifty one, 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.520 primarily in England and only England. 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.480 Huh. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.920 Its entire history takes place within that not quite seventy 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:32.360 year timeframe. It caused nowhere near the same level of 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.400 population devastation that plague epidemics did. And and I'm not 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.240 talking just about the Black Death, but I mean the 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.760 outbreaks of plague that continued across England and the rest 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.200 of Europe for centuries after. And if it wasn't a 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.880 plague year, people were still no stranger to deadly illnesses 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.240 that would burn through a city or a village and 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.640 wipe out one side of a family tree within a 0:09:55.679 --> 0:10:00.320 matter of days. Life was precarious. Death was all always 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.720 hovering at the edge. Hence, like all the rad metal 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:10.360 art from that time, all the skeletons. So with, so 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:16.240 with these epidemics of plague, typhoid, malaria, influenza, smallpox, et cetera, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:21.120 constantly on rotation. What made sweating sickness so remarkable to 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.200 people in that time? What was it about sweating sickness 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.800 that led to such terror and panic that Henry the eighth, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.800 for example, fled with his members of court to avoid 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:37.480 the sickness somewhat in vain, I might add, And what 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.520 is it about this mysterious yet very isolated and short 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.199 lived illness that still leads people in the twenty first century, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.440 five hundred years later to talk about it, publish articles 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.199 about it, highlighted in novels and TV shows. 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:53.800 Let's find out, Yeah. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.240 England in fourteen eighty five was at a bit of 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.880 a turning point, the War of the Roses finally drawing 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.600 to a close, with Richard the Third losing his life 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.040 and his army defeated at the decisive Battle of bosworth Field, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.880 which led to Henry, Earl of Richmond taking the throne 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.880 as Henry the Seventh and kicking off a one hundred 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.800 and fifteen ish year rule by the House of Tudor 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.800 in England. Okay, and like all of that stuff about 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.280 the history of the English royal families and succession and 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.400 blah blah blah. I think is really interesting, but like 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:29.480 that's not what we do in this podcast. I'm not 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.160 equipped to do it, and so that's all I'm going 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.080 to say about that. But the reason that I mention 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.960 it is because the year fourteen eighty five was not 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.920 just this end of the War of the Roses. We 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.680 care about it because that's when we first see sweating sickness, 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.240 and the exact date within that year of the earliest 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.480 cases is a little bit controversial because some early chroniclers 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.360 claimed that it was brought over at the time of 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.120 the battle by Henry's French mercenaries, but that's actually unlikely 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.760 for a number of reasons, among them the fact that 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.360 there aren't any descriptions of this disease in France during 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.559 that time, and that there were sporadic cases reported elsewhere 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.720 in England prior to this battle, which took place in 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:23.080 late August August Okay, but where there may have been 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.440 scattered cases throughout England earlier in the summer of fourteen 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:31.199 eighty five. Later it had erupted into a full on outbreak. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.480 In early September, the mysterious sweating sickness had spread to Oxford. 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.439 By late September, it had reached London, and by October 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:41.800 it was in most of the western and southern counties. 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.800 One contemporary chronicler reported that it had killed fifteen thousand 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.880 people in London, which is surely an exaggeration because that 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.480 would have been about a third of London's population at 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:58.520 the time, But that does just further illustrate the impression 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.000 that it left on the people who were witnessing this 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.920 illness sweep through and with this impression was just of 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:11.440 total helplessness and devastation. But what were they seeing? Yeah, Okay, 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.680 so I guess maybe before I go through the next 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.880 few epidemics, I should probably describe sweating sickness a little 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:18.440 more detail. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.200 I am like on edge, right, you know, I can 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.559 tell you literally as you're talking, so that I can 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:25.880 try and figure out what's going on. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.559 Okay, Okay, this is great because I get to pretend 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:35.080 to be you in this In this episode, it starts 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:36.600 with a fever. 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:37.440 With a fever. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.280 Yes, I never get to say that, and it actually does. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.960 It actually starts with a fever okay, cool, and it 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.520 comes on quickly. One minute, you're doing whatever it is 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.120 people were doing in England in the fourteen hundreds and 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.440 fifteen hundreds, like maybe you were rolling out some rye dough, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.600 or you were tending to your crops, or you were 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.400 writing a sermon denounce it Martin Luther and his ninety 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.520 five THESS or whatever. Just casual, just cash stuff. And 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.400 the next minute you feel this slight fever coming on, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.720 and along with that fever an intense sweat. Okay, this 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.760 isn't any old, heavy after workout type sweat. This is unprecedented, 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.080 not only because of the volume of moisture leaking from 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.040 your armpits and beating up all of your skin, but 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:31.640 also from the vile stench accompanying it. What fetid, corrupt, putrid, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.080 loathsome These are just some of the words that contemporary 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.320 physicians or scholars use to describe this sweat. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.760 Okay, but can I already take a time out and 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.960 ask a question? Of course, this is a Roles reversed sarre, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:51.080 and now I know how you feel. Okay, are people stinking? 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.560 Like is it the sweat that is stinky or is 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.800 it just that like it's fourteen eighty five. People don't 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.400 have great hygiene, and so when you sweat, you smell yourself, 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.200 and so everyone's sweating, and so now they stink, Like 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.840 is it more stinky than other illness sweat? I'm confused. 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.240 Well, so I can't answer that except for the fact 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.840 that the horrible smell was noted in like all of 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.400 the descriptions, okay, which like would lead me to believe 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.720 that there is something special about this sweat, because how 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.680 do you avoid smelling yourself? Like you know, We'll bit. 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:25.080 I don't know. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.280 I'm just going through what you asked me to research, Aaron, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.640 and already I'm like, well, no idea. 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.280 I mean, maybe it is possible. Like so there are 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.280 some modern scholars that say, well, perhaps the excessive sweat 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.360 was due to anxiety, because the fever wasn't all that high, 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.880 it wasn't all that burning, or it didn't seem to 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.320 be It seemed like a slight fever, and so the 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.120 successive sweat seemed strange. But it also was incredibly notable, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:53.880 like it was it's in the name. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:54.640 It's in the name. 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.000 They called its sweating sickness. Yeah, so I can't answer 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.160 you about the smell part. But I would have to 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.600 believe that, like at a certain point you would have 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:08.280 gotten accustomed to how much you and everyone around you stank. 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.520 Right, and so then this is above and beyond fourteen 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:12.960 eighty five stink. 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.120 It seems to be. Okay, that's the sense I got 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:21.680 from this, right, Okay, Okay, So this sweating, which never 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:27.200 seems to cease, brings on an unquenchable thirst. Okay, your 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.160 heart starts racing, your back and arms and legs ache, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.000 You feel stabbing pains in your stomach and bowels, and 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.240 oh my god, does your head hurt so badly that 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.040 you're having a hard time keeping a grasp on reality. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.480 If you're lucky enough to have been close to home 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.520 when the symptoms began, you find yourself unable to crawl 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.440 out of bed. And if you weren't so lucky, you 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.840 lay on the ground where you stood when you first 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.880 felt the illness coming on. As you lay there, sweating 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:04.040 rancid sweat, guts oiling, body aching, head absolutely pounding, delirious, 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.679 your breathing starts to become more and more shallow, and 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.919 a great heaviness seems to settle on your chest. Maybe 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.600 you pile on more and more blankets or clothes to 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.760 try to keep the sweat in, which might have been 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:22.320 prescribed by your quote unquote doctor. Or you drink as 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.560 much lukewarm liquid as you can get down. But what 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.400 you really want to do, what your body really wants 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.080 you to do, is sleep, and so you close your 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.479 eyes and give in. But just like your insatiable thirst, 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.280 there never seems to be an amount of sleep that's 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.760 enough to make you feel rested. If you can endure 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.960 the first twenty four hours of this sweating, aching, burning, breathlessness, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.520 you're probably in the clear. The relapses leading to death 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:54.159 were common, but according to writings from the time, few 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.879 escape the illness, and most succumb to death within a 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.719 few hours. A few hours of symptom on the set. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.120 If you are well at lunch, you could be dead 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:08.120 by dinner quote But all alike died either as soon 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.919 as the fever began or not long after, so that 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.800 of all the persons infected, barely one in one hundred 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:20.240 escape death. Whoa The precise cause of death was unclear 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.399 still is unclear, but there are some isolated reports of 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.760 people recovering after being given an enema, which suggests along 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.879 with the list of symptoms, that severe dehydration may have 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:33.040 played a major role. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.160 Okay, okay, okay, yeah, okay. 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.520 So now, after hearing this description of sweating sickness, which 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.600 I based off of a few contemporary accounts by Thomas 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.760 Forrest Jeer and John Keyes who lived through the fourteen 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.920 eighty five and fifteen fifty one epidemics, respectively, I think 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.959 we can mostly answer my earlier question as to why 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.640 sweating sickness left such an a depression on people at 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.439 that time, even though you know, epidemics of sweating sickness 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.440 were nearly as widespread or devastating as something like the plague. 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.920 This was a terrifying, rap and rapid disease that would 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:16.440 kill you within a few hours. 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.640 Everyone's dying from it. I need to know more. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.480 Yeah, Okay, Well here we go. Okay, So what I'm 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:26.560 going to do is I'm going to talk first a 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.880 little bit about the characteristics of sweating sickness and then 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.800 sort of go through each of the epidemics, and then 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.600 I think, and then I want to hear from you 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.880 about the different diseases that you have, and we'll try 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.800 to like symptom match. Yeah, and then at the same time, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.040 like I have sort of at the end of my notes, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.320 like an epidemiological breakdown of things like who had affected, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.479 where it happened, when it happened, et cetera. Yeah, okay, 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.080 And the rapid thing I mean, like how quickly people died. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.400 It doesn't seem to be just you know, the exaggeration 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.560 or drama of the fourteen and fifteen hundreds, like one 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.879 of the authors or one of these scholars wrote that quote. 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.679 We saw two priests standing together and speaking together and 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.520 saw both of them die suddenly. Also in the last day, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.160 we see the wife of a tailor who suddenly died. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.520 Another young man walking by the street fell down suddenly 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.280 what immediately? Some were killed opening their windows, some in 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.760 playing with children in their street, some in one hour, 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.080 many and two. It destroyed as it found them. So 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.800 it took them, some in sleep, some in wake, some 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.000 in mirth, some in care, some fasting, and some full, 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:40.919 some busy, and some idol. 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.119 What Aaron, I know, I know, and what you're telling 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.199 me too, is like the number one symptom is the 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.440 fever and sweat fever. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.760 Sweat, rapid death. There's also seems to be difficulty breathing, so. 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.720 Okay, but how much of that is just because you've 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:01.760 been sweating so much and your heart rate is so 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:03.639 high that now you're just like to kipnik because your 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:05.840 body is like on overdrive, which is what it sounds like. 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:10.680 More than like that you're a veterinary. Any pulmonary issues, right, 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.080 there's no cough, there's no spuedum, there's no oh my gosh, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:15.600 airin it. 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:19.280 I mean, yeah, there doesn't seem to be a cough. 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:24.639 There's no rash like I no rash, Yeah, what I know, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:30.080 I know, Okay, Okay. The people living in England during 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.359 the time of the Sweat were no stranger to a 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.520 quick and unexpected death, but this was shocking, like even 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.320 to them. Yeah. And another reason that it may have 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.560 stood out was not just how rapidly it seemed to 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.119 descend on a village or town, but also how quickly 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.480 it left. So within let's say, like five days, you 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:51.760 might see the same number of burials you would normally 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.919 see in several months. It's just this big blip on 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:59.440 the radar, whereas outbreaks of plague and influenza and smallpox 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.199 and other infectious diseases would show up in more of 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.320 like this rolling wave fashion, slow build sustained intensity and 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.760 then a gradual decline, And sweating sickness was like a 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.080 rogue wave, just like boom right in the middle. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:13.640 Right. 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:20.199 And this character and this characteristic of sweating sickness is 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.920 also super useful for a present day analysis or investigation 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:28.120 into the disease because it allows researchers to identify likely 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:34.080 outbreaks of sweating sickness using parish registers which recorded baptisms, marriages, 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.920 and burials among other things. Okay, and so even if 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.679 a parish register didn't note that it was specifically the 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.520 sweat that was responsible for a burst of death, you 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:47.280 can use information from nearby registers to note likely outbreaks 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.040 and to estimate the impact that an epidemic of sweating 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.720 sickness had on a particular village or a town, and 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:58.919 to also study geographical variation in outbreaks. So not only 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.760 was the sweating sacness deadly and lightning fast, it also 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.560 appeared to be brand new and unknown outside of England, 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:09.560 at least at the time of the fourteen eighty five epidemic. 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.480 And so, like we heard in the first hand account, 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.359 a new kind of sickness came through the whole region, 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.480 which was so sore, so painful, and sharp that the 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:22.520 like was never heard of to any man's remembrance before 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:23.080 that time. 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:27.880 I'm really having a hard time with this. 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:34.080 I know, I love it. And this this newness also 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.360 played into the explanations put forth by scholars who lived 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.199 during that time. So remember, germ theory is hundreds of 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.160 years away at this point, and so superstition or meteorological 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.840 or celestial explanations really took kind of front and center. 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.399 Honestly, I'm not surprised, like I'm leading that way right now. 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:58.760 I know, I know. Maybe it was punishment for supporting 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:01.119 Henry the seventh, or maybe it was the way that 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.800 the planets were aligned, or maybe it was just bad air, 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:09.199 bad air. What did seem clear was that there seemed 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.959 to be no way to predict or control when it 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:15.560 emerged and when it disappeared, which it only did a 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.480 handful of times, never to be seen again. 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:22.440 Or was it I don't know, Erin you tell me. 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.520 Okay, So now I'm going to go through these sweating 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.840 sickness epidemics briefly, just finish up the timeline, and then 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:34.679 I want to hear from you, okay, all right, So 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.320 the fourteen eighty five epidemic of sweating sickness arrived in 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:40.919 mid to late summer and disappeared within a few months, 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:44.679 and it wasn't until fifteen oh eight that the sweat 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:47.439