preceding centuries, and consequently that the peaceful inhabitants of the towns and of the country at large were thereby exposed to much danger. SECT. 3.—SWEATING SICKNESS. Meantime Europe was frequently and very severely visited by the epidemics of the middle ages, the terrors of the constantly recurring plague being borne with gloomy resignation to the inevitable evil with which, as a merited chastisement, the anger of God, according to the notion of the times, afflicted the human race. Even the English were not exempt from this fearful visitation, which, in the year 1499, carried off 30,000 people in London alone, so that the king found it advisable to retire with all his court to Calais[408]. Thus the recollection of the Sweating Sickness of 1485 was gradually obliterated. No one thought of its possible return, and all the world was occupied with other matters, when the old enemy unexpectedly again raised his head in the summer of 1506, and scared away this comfortable state of false security. The renewed eruption of the epidemic was not, on this occasion, connected with any important occurrence, so that contemporaries have not even mentioned the month in which it began to rage. Towards the autumn it had again disappeared, and as no new symptoms were added to the disease, the form of which was identified by a reference to the old descriptions, it was immediately treated by the same means, the efficacy of which those who had witnessed the epidemic of 1485 lauded with so much reason[409]. Every exposure to heat or cold was, as at that time, avoided, and the malignant fever was left to the curative powers of nature, the patient being kept moderately warm in bed; and no powerful medicines being administered. The result was beyond all expectation favourable, for in few houses did any fatal cases occur. The victory over this dreaded enemy was now, by a pardonable error, attributed more to human skill than to the mildness of the malady on this occasion, which, even under a less judicious treatment of the sick, would certainly not have been marked by any considerable degree of severity. The disease broke out in London, but whether it penetrated to the west or not, contemporary writers, being soon convinced of its slight character, have left us no intelligence. However widely it may have spread, it certainly was confined to England, and nowhere occasioned any great mortality. SECT. 4.—ACCOMPANYING PHENOMENA.