A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of PlagueCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
But _morbus pauperum_ is not the only principle of infective disease.
There are pestilent infections which do not come readily under the law of
poor, uncleanly and negligent living, in any ordinary sense of the words;
and there are some communicable diseases which directly contradict the
principle that infection falls upon those who engender it by their mode of
life. Unwholesome conditions of living may be trusted to engender disease,
but it does not follow that the infection so engendered will fall upon
those who lead the unwholesome lives; sometimes it falls upon the class
who are farthest removed from them in social circumstances or domestic
habits, or who are widely separated from them in racial characters. This
principle I believe to be not only a necessary complement to the more
obvious rule, but to be itself one of wide application. It has been an
original theme of my own in former writings, to which I take leave to
refer in a note[529]; and, I have now to try here whether it may not suit
the rather paradoxical and certainly mysterious circumstances of the
sweating sickness on its first outbreak in the autumn of 1485.
If the insanitary state of London were insufficient to explain the
engendering of the disease, the next thing is to look for a foreign
source. Suspicion falls at once upon the foreign mercenaries who landed
with Henry Tudor at Milford Haven on the 6th of August. Who were these
mercenaries? Did they suffer from any contagious disease? Were they likely
to have engendered the sweat? Can the infection be traced, in matter of
fact, to them? In seeking an answer, it will be necessary to enter
somewhat fully into the history of the expedition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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