The “English Sweating Sickness” killed 15,000 people in the country within six weeks and mysteriously disappeared in the 16th century.
The disease progressed rapidly, causing victims to die within a day, sometimes two hours, of experiencing the first symptoms. Scientists called it the “English sweating sickness”.
The disease first appeared during the Tudor period, disappearing in 1551 after causing five devastating outbreaks. Contemporary accounts describe patients presenting with severe headaches, flu-like chills, and aching limbs. This was followed by a raging fever, an irregular pulse, and a rapid heartbeat. Eventually, patients died of dehydration and exhaustion.
The October 1485 plague killed 15,000 Londoners in six weeks, forcing King Henry Tudor to postpone his coronation for fear of contracting the dreaded disease himself. Further outbreaks occurred in 1507, 1517, and the most severe in 1528. The disease then reappeared in late 1551 and disappeared completely.
This led historians and scientists to ask the important question: “What exactly was the sweating sickness?”. A small academic discipline developed to speculate about the nature of the disease.
Because the “English Sweat” has few specific symptoms other than a high fever, experts have little to go on. They have looked at common illnesses such as influenza, scarlet fever, anthrax, typhus, and similar intestinal viruses, but have come up empty.
In 1993, a similar outbreak occurred in Gallup, New Mexico, with patients showing symptoms similar to those of the English in 1485. Scientists called it the Four Corners outbreak after the area of the American Southwest where it occurred. They also noticed the virus that caused the disease, called Sin Nombre. It was a branch of the hantavirus that had been circulating in Europe and caused kidney failure. Hantavirus is also a relative of some insect-borne tropical fever viruses.
Illustration of the English sweating sickness that caused King Henry Tudor to postpone his coronation for fear he would also contract it. Photo: BBC
The disease in New Mexico was later named hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). Experts pointed out the similarities between the symptoms of sweating sickness and HPS, and they noted that wealthy people in the Tudor period were more likely to have the English sweating sickness.
According to historians, after the end of the Wars of the Roses, English cities experienced a housing boom. Many middle- and upper-class households built large kitchens filled with food, creating conditions for rats to live in.
Rather than trying to get rid of the rodents, many Tudor housekeepers carefully brushed away their droppings. Scientists believe this released dust containing hantavirus, causing the sweating sickness to spread across England.
Sweating sickness, despite its horror, disappeared by the end of the Elizabethan period, which lasted less than a century. Scientists think the virus may have mutated into a less virulent form. Perhaps in the process, it circulated through the population like a benign flu. A second theory is that the disease went backwards in evolution, returning to its rodent host, reducing the number of rats around humans, and thus disappearing. A third possibility is that changes in the species’ ecosystem in response to colder weather conditions in Europe from the late Middle Ages left the virus with nowhere to live.