#sweating sickness

These Questions are the result of suggestions a the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

What exactly happened in late March 1502/April 1502 and was it Sweating Sickness which killed prince Arthur? And what exactly was Sweating Sickness? Let’s find out.

 In late March 1502, Catherine and Arthur both became sick.

Arthur never recovered, and died few days later on 2nd of April. But neither was seriously sick before. I know, I know, Dona Elvira and some others in Catherine’s household later claimed Arthur was very sick right at beginning of the marriage. But that was not the case-as far as i am concerned there are big reasons to doubt credibility of those claims. (I voiced my opinions about other reasons for not consumating in previous posts.)

Also Dona Elvira was in middle of fight with Henry VII over her wage when she said Arthur was impotent and she was overall deceitful person.

As possible cause of Arthur’s death many different diseases were discussed and even other possible reasons. Some more ridiculous than the others.

Poison- Pope Alexander and his son were poisoned in 1503. While son recovered, pope died. There’d certainly be reasons why somebody would wish to assasinate prince of Wales, and his wife could have been just colateral damage, due to sharing eviroment and food with him. This theory is not utterly outrageous, as de la Pole already fled England in 1501 and other logical step for him to get throne would be to get rid of Tudors.(One at the time.) We cannot rule this out as possibility, however royals had tasters, and nobody at time of Arthur’s death thought it was poisoning. Hence they found no signs which would make them suspicious of poison or they knew exactly what else killed him. However the notion that Henry VII killed his heir to get his widow(when he was married himself at the time) or that future Henry VIII(ten at the time) had his brother poisoned to become heir are utter bullshit.

Food poisoning-again they had tasters and food poisoning was known at the time. It also is way more likely to happen in summer than March.

Tuberculosis-doesn’t fit, because it is very lenghtly disease, takes weeks or months to kill person and their health slowly detoriates. Since Arthur died suddenly, everybody was surprised by it  and wasn’t seriously sick before, it is impossible. It’s solely due to false testimonies by Catherine’s household that this is being brought up(again and again), despite strong evidence against it.

Testicular cancer-is not contagious disease, such theory ignores that Catherine too became seriously sick. Utter nonsense.

Plague-while possible, it is unlikely because Arthur’s funeral was large, and with plague they tended to do very small funerals. Even for royalty.

Catherine after Arthur’s death was swiftly removed from Ludlow, despite being still very weak(and would continue to be for weeks that fallowed.)

Catherine’s parents were also relieved that she was removed from the unhealthy place-yet Ludlow at the time was fairly comfortable residence.

So could they mean that place was unhealthy because there was outbreak of disease? 

Most evidence points to it being a disease, including contemporary report:

[Arthur suffered from] the most pitiful disease and sickness that with so sore and great violence had battled and driven in the singular parts of him inward; that cruel and fervent enemy of nature, the deadly corruption, did utterly vanquish and overcome the pure and friendful blood, without all manner of physical help and remedy.

Translation: A violent course of disease has killed him, killed this pure, friendly prince, and there was nothing that people could do to help him.

So could it be the famous Sweating Sickness? Yes. It fits very much. Including that Catherine was removed fast. Of course her household didn’t wish to wait around to catch it, and it wasn’t as if they could just leave her there.

Yet at same time it wasn’t as extremely contagious as Plague(even back then they realised it), so that explains larger funeral.

But how could it be so feared, if it was less contagious? 

The answer lie in how Sweating Sickness acted. 

Up to this day we don’t know what the disease was, what was the cause, exactly how it spread and actually not even how it affected inner organs(nobody did autopsies). It doesn’t show up on bones either.

There is even not agreed date when it first appeared in England. Some say it came to England in 1485 with Henry VII’s troops. But lord Stanley initially excused himself from battle of Bosworth due to Sweating Sickness being in the era. Meaning at least he has seen it before and feared it. 

Now, it might be proof that Stanley had been in touch with Henry VII and might have even personally met him and seen what the disease can do.

Or disease already occured in England before.  If it was case and disease really originated in England, Henry VII’s troops having it would indicate Henry VII met some Englishmen before he embarked for England. We know he did, several English nobles joined his ranks. Besides how could Stanley excuse himself upon disease Richard never seen before? Seems to not fallow common sense.

But back to what the disease did.

I am no expert upon Sweating sickess, I found disertation work of Mr Edwin Del Wollert about Sweating Sickness, and I am taking a lot of details about this disease from his work. (if anybody is interested look it up) 

I had to google some words he used(as i didn’t understand half of those medical terms), so I updated his list for you

-the full list of symptoms include:

·         Sudden onset and violent course of disease

·         Sweating, great thirst and great weakness, including fainting

·         Fever, pains in limbs, head and belly

·         Rapid pulse, rapid breathing, quick heartbeat, flushing

·         Vomiting, bleeding and diarhea

·         Neurological symptoms-confusion, irritation, paranoia

·         Signs of organ failure-resulting in death.

Chills or cold shivers also happened ( likely as last stage of dehydration, signalling body is about to give up.)

Truly unpleasant way to go, and truly violent course of disease+ the sudden onset was why it was so feared(alongside death-rate). It struck often out of nowhere, but struck hard.

Many of those symptoms are signs of severe dehydration, and they occured even before strong sweating began(which was usually 2nd stage). As if person was cooking up from inside right from beginning. (Those are my observations not Mr Wollert’s.) 

If so, the recommended methods of treathing the sick of the time, had actually contributed to patients’ deaths.

Because they recomended to wrap them in warm clothing and not give them anything to drink. (Nor eat, but the drink part is more important here.). 

Which is exact oposite of how we recommend to treat severe dehydration, by giving person plenty of fluids and by keeping them cool.

That might have been why the disease was so deadly in England. 

Wrong treatment!

Idk if cooking of the organs could explain why Arthur’s stomach was collapsing inwards. If you cook meat, it shrinks a bit...so maybe his organs shrunk? But true to be told it could be something else disease did to his organs, creating same effect on outside. While yes, that can also happen during cancer, it would still be impossible for cancer to become contagious and for Arthur’s spouse to catch it. So I am standing behind my statement that it is utter nonsense. 

Mr Wollert also mentions that sweating crisis when person is very weak could last 3-14 days(not hours). I believe he is not saying that is how long one would be severely sick, but how long it took for symtoms to go away. 

(Though I can be mistaken.)

(With flu also you have several days where you feel really sick and then few days, when you’re still bit sick but don’t feel like dying-i believe he means this stage, and then if your disease was bad case, you can still feel weak even after this.)

However the disease could kill you as quickly as in couple of hours, or in just few days(which was case in Arthur.)

Another very important trait of Sweating Sickness was that you could get it more than once! Living through it, didn’t give you imunity to it!

Also, some people even after they survived could suffer long-term consequences. 

That thankfully wasn’t the case with Catherine. But after Arthur died Catherine spent weeks recovering. She probably wasn’t still well when Henry VII started to inquire if she was with child or not. Hence her not being to able to tell him outright, that there was no hope of a child. 

When she was well enough to join the court, negotiations for match with new prince of Wales have already started. 

I hope you have enjoyed it. Please be polite in comments or rebloging.

Update: As I said before people later testified stating Arthur was sick. Either that at beginning of marriage or upon coming to Ludlow he supposedly became sick.

Majority of these were former or current members of Catherine’s household or people who met them-claiming they heard them say something.

+ some English people also voiced something of the sort around same time.

Two problems I have with these reports:

A)They appeared during Great Matter. During that time, truth didn’t matter that much to either side. It’s time of half-truths, half-lies. 50% of truth and you don’t know which 50%. 

B)Some of these are not even from  primary source(person who was there), but secondary. They heard it from somebody. Or claim to heard it. 

Hearsay is not very credible! 

I am not sure because it has been long since I read up upon this stuff, but I vaguely recall that Catherine’s former physican was dead during Great Matter and instead of him testifying, somebody who met him testified instead. Hence that 2nd person could completely be making stuff up.

(But perhaps my recall is wrong. I am human I do mistakes.)

The primary person was dead already. And it gets misquoted, as if that person himself testified.

I’d  also very much caution against using Suffolk as credible source for Arthur being sick since February. Because credibility of Suffolk is imo 0. He was overall very immoral person and very ambitious. Look up his first marriages, and how he tried to make Margaret of Austria to marry him! How he swore to not marry Mary Rose, and then he did it anyway!

He was exact oposite of honourable and trust-worthy!

That he wouldn’t have reason to lie because he was king’s friend? 

He was married to King’s sister, younger sister true, but if King didn’t have a son and wasn’t allowed to remarry, then perhaps English lords could be persuaded to reject Margaret and her Scottish son, in favour of Suffolk and his wife!

He was certainly ambitious enough for me to believe he’d lie for the throne!

It could also be the case that Arthur caught something very minor during late winter 1502, and while still not 100% recovered, he was unfortunate enough to catch Sweating Sickness, which then killed him. And later people overexagerated his minor sickness to give their version of story more credibility.

In 1528, Henry VIII slept in a different bed every night—and not in the way you might think.

He did have a mistress, his wife’s lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. It was fear of disease that drove him to move almost daily that summer.

The king was terrified of sweating sickness, a deadly epidemic that is nearly forgotten today.

Scientists are still fascinated by the mysterious disease, which swept through Europe multiple times during the Tudor period.

Beginning in 1485, five epidemics plagued England, Germany and other European countries. But the epidemic’s origins and even the identity of the disease are still murky.

There was good reason to be scared of sweating sickness. It came on without any warning and did not seem preventable.

People would feel a sudden sense of dread then be overtaken with headache, neck pains, weakness and a cold sweat that covered the entire body.

Fever, heart palpitations and dehydration followed. Within three to 18 hours, 30 to 50 percent of people afflicted with the illness were dead.

It’s unclear who first contracted sweating sickness, but some historians believe it was brought to England by the mercenaries Henry’s father hired to seize England’s throne for him and his son.

The controversial move ended the War of the Roses in 1487, but questions about Henry VII’s legitimate claim to the throne—and whether the foreign soldiers he imported to England to fight on his behalf brought sweating sickness with them—persist to this day.

Regardless of who contracted it first, sweating sickness soon became a regional epidemic.

It was “a new kind of sickness,” wrote Richard Grafton, the king’s printer, “which was so sore, so painful, and sharp, that the like was never heard of to any man’s remembrance before that time.”

That wasn’t exactly true. England had already survived history’s most fearful epidemic.

Between 1346 and 1353, the Black Death—an unprecedented wave of bubonic plague—wiped out as much as 60 percent of the world’s population and killed over 20 million people in Europe alone.

However, sweating sickness does not seem to have been related to plague.

It had no skin symptoms. It popped up randomly in different locations, always after a period of extended rainfall or flooding, and usually in the very rich or the very poor.

In a time before modern medicine, people had no way of knowing whether sweating sickness would strike or how it spread.

That didn’t stop doctors from trying to find out, though, and the epidemic made an unlikely celebrity out of a man named John Kays.

He saw the disease as an opportunity—especially because it seemed to strike rich noblemen.

He gave himself the more impressive-sounding moniker Johannus Caius and began to treat wealthy Englishmen who, like their monarch, were paranoid of the disease.

Caius figured out another way to profit from sweating sickness: writing about it.

In 1552, he publishedThe Sweating Sickness: A boke or counseill against the disease commonly called the sweate or sweatyng sicknesse.

Now considered a medical classic, it lays out the doctor’s observations of the disease’s symptoms, prevention and cure.

Reflecting the medical knowledge of his time, Caius advised people to avoid evil mists, rotten fruit and to exercise frequently.

He recommended that people who were afflicted with the sickness drink herbal concoctions, sweat as much as possible and avoid going outdoors.

Not that his advice worked:

“Despite most of Caius’s patients still ending up dead, he was eventually rich enough to make a splendid endowment to his old Cambridge college,” writes biomedical researcher Derek Gatherer.

A college at Cambridge still bears Caius’ name today.

Caius and other doctors were unable to explain or stop the disease. The fact that royals flocked to physicians for help speaks to the impact of the epidemics.

Henry VIII remained scared of it throughout his entire reign. Members of his court were stricken, including Henry’s advisor Cardinal Wolsey, who survived multiple bouts of sweating sickness.

Henry’s older brother Arthur is suspected to have died from it.

“One is safer on the battlefield than in the city,” wrote Henry VIII’s advisor Thomas More.

(Given that he was eventually executed for refusing to recognize Henry’s divorce, that may not have been true.)

Sweating sickness stopped as quickly as it started.

The last epidemic was in 1551.

About 150 years later, a seeming variant called the Picardy Sweat popped up in France, but neither strain has reappeared.

That makes it difficult for modern-day scientists and historians to study.

They must rely on accounts of the time and primitive public health information to reconstruct the epidemics.

Though it’s clear thousands died overall, the exact figure is uncertain due to spotty record keeping and lost data.

The jury’s still out on what sweating sickness actually was.

Some scientists think it was a form of hantavirus, a rare disease also known as Seoul virus.

Others wonder if flu, food poisoning or a condition called relapsing fever were to blame.

No matter what its cause, sweating sickness left its mark.

When William Shakespeare wrote Henry IV, Part 2 in 1600, a half-century after the last English epidemic, he had one of his most famous characters, Falstaff, die of “a sweat.”

Did the bard mean a sexually transmitted infection or sweating sickness?

That’s another longstanding historic debate—but the fact that it’s still being argued is a testament to the lasting horror of the still-mysterious disease.

John Caius (born John Kays, 6 October 1510 – 29 July 1573), also known as Johannes Caius and Ioannes Caius, was an English physician, and second founder of the present Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.