Tag: Sweating sickness
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John Caius, the polymath who described the sweating sickness
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Imagine being a physician in a rural community in England in the mid-sixteenth century, always concerned with the reappearance of the Black Death. Late one summer you are faced with a new strange illness. It begins with cold shivers, headaches, and severe diffuse pains leading to exhaustion, and within a…
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“Some little show of nail”: The health of Anne Boleyn
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Of all the wives of England’s King Henry VIII, the most well known is Anne Boleyn. She is the woman who, one way or another, caused the split between Henry and Catherine of Aragon – and the split between England and the Catholic Church. She has been declared a martyr,…
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The sweating sickness in Tudor England: A plague of the Renaissance
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Introduction In the recent semi-fictional work by Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, which takes place in the early 16th century, the protagonist Thomas Cromwell, counsel and henchman of Henry VIII, awakens in the morning to find his wife sleeping, but the sheets are damp.1 “She is warm and flushed.” He…