Now one might, either on the supposition of a progressive alteration in the atmosphere, such as occurs in the influenza, or on that of a communication of the disease from man to man, which, however, cannot be considered as a principal cause of this epidemic, have expected a gradual extension of the Sweating Sickness from Hamburgh and Lübeck to the surrounding country. This did not, however, in fact, take place; for the disease next broke out at Twickau, at the foot of the Erzgebirge, distant from Hamburgh fifty German miles, and without having previously visited the rich commercial city of Leipzig. By the 14th of August, nineteen persons who had died of it, were buried at Twickau; and on one of the following nights above a hundred[581] sickened, whence it is to be deduced that the pestilence was severe at that place. Possibly the great storm on the 10th of August may have given an impulse to the development of this very remarkable epidemic; for an highly electrical state of the atmosphere increases the susceptibility for diseases. It is likewise not to be overlooked, that on the 24th of August, while the sky was overcast, there came on an insufferable heat[582], which must have debilitated the body after such long-continued cold wet weather. At all events, in the beginning of September, we find that the Sweating Fever broke out at the same time at _Stettin_, _Dantzig_, and other Prussian cities; at _Augsburg_, far to the south on the other side of the Danube, at _Cologne_ on the Rhine, at _Strasbourg_, at _Frankfort_ on the Maine, at _Marburg_[583], at _Göttingen_, and at _Hanover_[584]. The position of these cities gives an impressive notion of the extent of country of which the English Sweating Sickness took possession, as it were by a magic stroke. It was like a violent conflagration, which spread in all directions; the flames, however, did not issue from one focus, but rose up everywhere, as if self-ignited; and whilst all this occurred in Germany and Prussia, the inhabitants of the other northern countries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, perhaps also Lithuania, Poland and Russia, were likewise visited by this violent disease. The malady appeared in Stettin on the 31st of August, among the servants of the Duke[585]. On the 1st of September, the Duchess herself sickened, in common with many people about the court, and burgesses in the city. A few days afterwards several thousands were affected by the disease, so that there was not a street from which some corpses were not daily carried out. This dreadful period of terror, however, did not last much longer than a week, for about the 8th of September the pestilence abated in its violence, so as no longer to be regarded with terror; and after this time only a few isolated cases occurred[586].