The Sweating Sickness: The Tudor Plague That Killed in Hours and Then Vanished
It announced itself with a sudden dread, then a violent cold shiver, headache and aching limbs. Within a few hours came the drenching, foul-smelling sweat that gave the disease its name, along with a racing heart, gasping breath and an overwhelming urge to sleep that was often the prelude to death. A person could feel perfectly well in the morning and be dead by nightfall. Contemporaries captured the horror in a single grim observation: some were merry at dinner and dead by supper.
The English sweating sickness struck in five distinct epidemics. The first swept the country in the summer of 1485, arriving around the time Henry VII took the throne, and further waves followed in 1508, 1517, 1528 and 1551. Each burned through the population with terrifying speed and then subsided within weeks, only to lie silent for years before returning.
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