Аuthor: Isabayeva Madina
Unknown sweating sickness
Today, with the help of modern medicine, people can cure almost any disease. However, during the middle Ages, doctors were impotent even in the face of the most innocent diseases. In that distant era, the epidemic was not inferior to the number of deaths from war or famine and continued to take tens of thousands of lives. Not always the cause of mass death was the plague, which is known to everyone, people often died from simple, incurable, and unknown infections. I want to tell you about one of them.
Sweating is a disease of the skin, which manifests itself in the form of dermatitis due to increased sweating. The rash is small red bubbles, which are accompanied by swelling. This kind of rash occurs as a result of impaired sweat evaporation from the surface of the skin. Sweating usually accompanies heart disease, endocrine disorders, which may occur because of obesity. Also, her constant companion was always fever. Therefore, this disease was called the English sweating, fever, it was repeated in England as much as 5 times, taking with it new lives.
The onset of the disease was quick and without any warning. Sometimes cramps were observed. It became unpleasant for people around to be near the patient because of the stench. First, a bad smell came from the mouth, and then the smell of sweat covered the whole body of a person. In most cases, the heart simply could not withstand a load, but if a person infected by prickly heat managed to survive in the first 24 hours, then a rash appeared on his body. The most dangerous thing during the illness was the appearance of drowsiness. The patient was not allowed to fall asleep, because if he falls asleep, then he will not wake up anymore.
Treatment of sweating in medieval England seemed possible, however, the method was far from medical. Doctors of that time insisted that the room should have a moderate and constant temperature that the patient should be dressed according to the weather, he should not be cold or hot, only this way could increase the chances of recovery. It is worth noting that immunity was not developed, the recovered person could get sick repeatedly and more than once. In this case, he was doomed - the affected immune system was no longer restored.
There is a high probability that in ancient times the main sources of infections and epidemics were total unsanitary conditions. Already in the middle of the century, the air in England had been contaminated with toxic fumes, due to neglect of the environment, even the water in the wells was unusable. For a long time, people wore sweat-soaked clothing or shoes that had poor contact with the air. Naturally, such conditions could cause many serious diseases and not just sweating.
The fact was found that the outbreaks were invariably preceded by a period of prolonged rains and, in some areas of severe flooding. This led to the assumption that the cause could be arbovirus (transmitted by ticks or mosquitoes), which may explain why the higher and colder parts of the British Isles remained without changes. On the tick hypothesis, more dangerous Russian spring-summer encephalitis and Omsk hemorrhagic fever were proposed. Finally, in 1997 it was suggested that English sweat was caused by the medieval ancestor of the Hantavirus species, which had recently appeared in North America and provoked Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). However, if the sweating in England was caused by a Hantavirus, at least isolated cases would be recorded in England over time, and that would not be the case.
Unfortunately, there was no additional evidence for any of the hypotheses, and all authors concluded that the true reason lies in the depths of the centuries. What hypothesis do you follow?
I would like to note the words of the French philosopher Emil Littre, who wrote in his books: “Suddenly, a deadly infection comes from an unknown depth and cuts off human generations with its destructive breath, like a reaper cuts ear. The reasons are unknown, the action is terrible and the spread is immeasurable: nothing can cause more alarm. Miraculously, that mortality will be unlimited, the devastation will be endless, and that the outbreak of fire will stop only due to a lack of food.”
Doesn’t this situation remind you of anything?
01/06/2020
