Why does no one talk about the «Sweating Sickness» anymore?
I’ve been reading about the outbreaks during Henry VII and Henry VIII’s reigns, and it sounds way more terrifying than the Black Death. It would literally kill healthy people within 24 hours - you’d wake up fine and be dead by dinner.
What’s even weirder is that it seemed to target the wealthy and the young more than the poor, which is the opposite of how most diseases work. Anne Boleyn almost died from it, and it basically cleared out half the court at one point.
And then… it just vanished in 1551 and never came back? No one even knows what it actually was (virus? bacteria?). Does anyone have a favorite theory on this? It feels like a plot point from a sci-fi movie that actually happened in 16th-century London.
u/MedTortureUSA — 4 days ago