The disease lasted upon the whole almost half a year, namely, _from the 15th of April to the 30th of September_[736]; it thus passed but gradually from place to place, and we do not observe here, that it spread with that rapidity, which, in the autumn of 1529, had excited such great wonder in Germany. It is much to be regretted, that contemporary writers either gave no intelligence respecting the irruption or course of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in individual towns, or, if they did so, that this has not been made use of by subsequent writers. Doubtless, a very considerable diversity of circumstances would here present themselves, and the very peculiar manner in which the corruption of the atmosphere spread on this occasion, might perhaps have been estimated from certain facts, and not from mere suppositions. Thus the only fact that has been handed down is very remarkable; namely, that the Sweating Sickness required a whole quarter of a year to traverse the short distance from Shrewsbury to London; for it did not break out there until the 9th of July, and in a few days, according to its former mode, reached its height, so that the rapid increase of deaths excited terror throughout the whole city[737]. Yet the mortality was considerably less than at Shrewsbury, for there died in the whole of the first week only eight hundred inhabitants[738], and we may consider it decided, although all the contemporaries are silent on this very essential question, that the pestilence nowhere lasted longer than fifteen days, and perhaps in most places, as formerly, only five or six.