The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1917-01-04
POPULAR MEDICINE
BY DR.. HIRSHBERG
Intelligent Observation OF Rules
of Hygiene Will De-
crease Illness.
BY DIR. LEONARD n. HrRsHBERG.

N
During the days of King Henry VII
of England soldiers from central. Eu-
rope brought a strange malady into
London. Within five weeks "a won
derful number of persons succumbed
to a, strange sweating sickness"
Like poliomyeIitis last summer, u
spared neither poor nor rich The
medical profession was overwhelmed
by the new disease" according to DR..
Arpod G. Gerster, of New York. in the
Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin
land stood helpless in the face OF the
calamity"
In those days the flooring of the
houses was usually of beaten cay
spread with rushes. When fouleo'
these were not removed sometimes
for twenty years, but were covered
with additional layers of earth ana
mustv rushes. Was 1t any wonder
that an epidemic spread?
The "Schwitzende Seuche, Feoris-
sudatoris," or Sweat disease peelns
suddenly, sometimes with a chill fol-
lowed by excessive fever, headache,
and pains in the muscles and long
bones.
The Ancient .Cure."
All those at present in the trenches
of the old world who have had ex.
perience with this ailment agree that
after the lapse of twenty-four hours
an excessively profuse and nauseat-
ing sweat breaks out all over the SUI
ferer. .
The three great epidemics OF
sweating sickness" before the pres
ent one. occurred in 1885. in 1906, and
in 1917. In London alone 10000 per-
sons were said to have perished'
In 1923 the disease appeared
fourth time in northern Germany,
Scandinavia, and Holland, whence IL
again spread across the Enshsh
Channel
It was advised at that time that
"since the attack usually terminated
by a cuitcal sweat, profuss sweating
should be induced by smothering the
patient in heavy feather beds, stop
ping up all chinks and apertures OF
the bedroom. and a huge nre should
be started in the chimney. The pa
tient was also prevented from sleep
ing. Many were thus killed.
The Modern Treatment.
1t was the English physicians who
really discovered how to treat the
malady triumphantIy. They advised
cold water inside and out, fluid food,
sleep quiet, light, and fresh air. This
was very different from the method
OF the Dutch doctor, Urtius Damain-
us, who recommended that "if the or
binary means of preventing sleep Is
Intellectual. single hairs should be
plucked OF the patients head or
beard, his arms and legs forcibly and
painfully CONSTRUCTED, and, vinegar
poured into the eyelids-"
DIR. Gerster has come to the conclu-
sion that "the sweating sickness" is
a yirulent form of relapsing fever,
also known nowadays as "Medtter-
ranean fever" 1t Is n,infection car
ried by living parasites to human be-
ings crowded together in filthy
abodes. Dirt. exposure. and hunger
help to spread it.
The germ OF this malady is a wrig-
gly, corkscrew-like spirochaete ami
malcule which curly-cues its way
through the sufferers blood. 1t
reaches the human blood stream by
such carriers of microbes as ticks,
fieas, and other body insects.
In Europe the sweating sickness"
is today, as it must have been in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. a
disease of the unclean.
The way, then, to avoid this pesti-
Ience is to disinfect everything which
might harbor disease-spreading in
sects.
fr,on,,r,t 1915 nv Newspaper Feature Service }