Between the boundaries which have been indicated, only a few isolated towns and villages escaped, and there are probably few of the chronicles of that age, so prolific of great events, in which the dreadful scourge of the year 1529 is not expressly mentioned; yet the sweating fever, like other great epidemics, spread, doubtless, very unequally, and it is ascertained that the further south it extended, the milder it was upon the whole; and also that all those places where it broke out late suffered beyond comparison less than those which were visited early in September and in the latter part of August; for not to lay much stress on the sultry heat from the 24th of August, which probably did not last long, the chief cause of its great malignity at first was the violent method resorted to in the treatment of the sick, the inapplicability of which was fortunately soon perceived. Only one citizen was affected with the Sweating Sickness in Marburg, and even he recovered[595], whilst at Leipzig, the pestilence either never broke out at all, or very much later, perhaps in October or November; for the physicians of that place gave it clearly to be understood in their pamphlets, that they knew nothing of the disease from their own observations[596], and no sooner did the report get abroad that the dreaded enemy had not penetrated within the walls of this commercial city, than crowds of fugitives came thither from far and near in order to seek protection and security, although the place in itself was by no means fitted for a place of refuge, for the swampy atmosphere which rose from the city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and dark streets, many lingering diseases[597]. SECT. 6.—IN THE NETHERLANDS.