In the first place, the very great _susceptibility of those affected with the Sweating Fever to every change of temperature_—the decidedly great danger of chill. In no known disease does this irritability of the skin shew itself in so prominent a degree as in rheumatic fevers and in those non-febrile fluxes in which there even exists a very evident sensitiveness to _metallic_ action. Secondly, _The tendency of the rheumatic diathesis to come to a crisis through the medium of a profuse, sour and offensive perspiration_ without any assistance from art[725]. The English Sweating Sickness manifests this commotion of the organism in the most exquisite form hitherto known; for it admits of no kind of doubt that the sweat in this disease was of itself, and in itself, critical, in the fullest acceptation of the term. Thirdly, _The peculiar alteration in the fundamental composition of organic matter_ in rheumatic diseases, in consequence of which volatile acids of a strange odour are prevalent in the sweat, and urine, and animal excretions. The English Sweating Sickness exhibits also this result of morbid activity in a greater and more striking manner than any other disease. Nor can we regard the tendency to putridity, which has been observed, as any thing but an increased degree of this condition. Fourthly, _The shooting pains in the limbs_, the most decided sign of rheumatism, were not wanting in the English Sweating Sickness; nay, they became developed even to the extent of an incipient paralysis, and even the convulsions of those affected with this disease may not unjustly be attributed to the same source. Fifthly, _The tendency of rheumatism when it takes an unfavourable course to pass into regular dropsy_, which is a consequence of the peculiar decomposition, manifested itself in the Sweating Fever in so marked a manner that the dropsy itself gradually destroyed the patient. Should the sceptical still need another link in the comparison, we may adduce the miliary fever, a disease of decidedly rheumatic character. We must not, however, take as our standard the degenerate forms of miliary fever existing in modern times, but those grand and fully developed forms of the disease which occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in which we find a similar odour in the perspiration, the same oppression, and the same inexpressible anguish, with palpitation and restlessness. The arms became enfeebled as if seized with paralysis, violent pains of the limbs set in, and unpleasant pricking sensations in the fingers and toes, resembling in all these particulars the Sweating Sickness, only pursuing a more lengthened and irregular course, and becoming developed altogether in a different manner.