Note 621 — Chapter II
Reading edition
The disease was known as the English plague or the sweating sickness. It is thus described by Hecker (Epidemics of the Middle Ages, p. 181): “It was violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short rigour, prostrated the powers as with a blow; and amidst painful oppression at the stomach, headache, and lethargic stupor, suffused the whole body with fœtid perspiration. All this took place within the course of a few hours, and the crisis was always over within the space of a day and a night. The internal heat that the patient suffered was intolerable, yet every refrigerant was death.”