Death and disease have never been strangers to humans. But for a brief period around the 1500s, there was a particular disease that was brutally destructive and completely incomprehensible to doctors at the time. The disease was known as the sweating sickness, and even today, scientists still don’t know where it came from, why it seemed to suddenly disappear, and whether it would return.
many things we know sweating sickness From the writings of John Caius, an English physician who was at ground zero for the last major outbreak in Shrewsbury, England, in 1551. A major sweating sickness epidemic was first recorded in 1485. also argued There may have been two smaller epidemics in 1578 and 1802.
killer sweats
The intense sweating experienced by victims apparently led to the disease’s name, also known as diaphoresis. But sweating is often preceded by chills, headache, severe fatigue, and pain around the limbs and shoulders. A striking feature is the rapidity with which people become ill, with sweating appearing to appear within hours of the first symptoms.
All but one documented epidemic had a high mortality rate, with up to 50% of victims dying. If people make it through the first day of sweating, they usually survive, but even this doesn’t provide complete relief, as some people are unfortunate enough to get infected multiple times. The disease does appear to have its limits, as outbreaks often sweep through entire regions and end within weeks.
To add to the mystery, there were also outbreaks of sweating across France in the 18th and 19th centuries, which were blamed on a disease called dysphoria. Picardy Sweat. The initial outbreak of the Sweating Sickness never reached this part of Europe, and the symptoms described for the Picardy Sweat were not entirely consistent with the Sweating Sickness, which tended to be milder and usually manifested as a rash that could last up to a week. So it’s unclear whether the two diseases are related.
origin debate
It took several more centuries before scientists widely accepted the existence of microorganisms and acknowledged that they could cause infectious diseases such as the sweating sickness (Caius blamed dirt). But while we have been able to specifically link many past epidemics to now-known bacteria such as the plague, typhus, and influenza, to this day we have still been unable to identify the Sweating Sickness and the Picardy Sweat.
Scientists have suggested a range of possible culprits for sweating. These include the following species Borrelia burgdorferi Bacteria spread by ticks and lice may cause relapsing fever; Hantavirus (often spread by rodents), or even inhaled form Bacterial disease anthrax. But the established description of sweat, particularly its rapid worsening progression and rapid disappearance from the affected area, doesn’t exactly fit with any one bacterium—at least not enough to declare a clear case based on circumstantial evidence alone.
In a 2022 paper, virologist Antoinette C. van der Kuyl speculative As for another possible suspect: an unknown species of rhabdovirus, which belongs to the same family as the rabies virus. Vanderkool also offers a possible solution to the mystery of the sweating sickness once and for all.
Digging someone to death?
She noted that Caius’s account of the 1551 epidemic attributed the deaths of 15-year-old Henry Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his brother Charles to the sweating sickness. Since their graves still exist, their “remains may be subject to ancient DNA analysis,” she wrote. But even if such a dig were possible now, it might not be wise yet. Van der Kuyl said current techniques are not optimized enough to effectively analyze samples of ancient RNA viruses from bones and teeth, including most but not necessarily all potential rhabdoviruses that may have lingered in the Brandon brothers’ bodies.
For now, the origins of the sweating sickness remain a mystery, giving scientists and medical historians much to think about. Hopefully, the sweating sickness will continue to be a historical curiosity and no longer a modern health threat. The recent covid-19 pandemic has certainly shown us that even in the age of modern medicine, infectious diseases remain an ongoing danger. The last thing we need is the reappearance of a fast-killing mysterious disease from the distant past.
more: A mysterious disease outbreak that has never been solved
