The Sweatyng Sicknesse by John Caius

This is an essay by an English physician about a disease that (according to author) mostly only appeared in England. Ppl who caught it would die within a day. It could be a type of influenza. The essay is around 13,000 words.

"It begins with cold shivers, headaches, and severe diffuse pains leading to exhaustion, and within a few hours to sudden sweating, tachycardia, and delirium. It is clearly not plague since no buboes or eruptions are noted but within hours sleep occurs and then death, usually more rapidly even than with plague."

This is a great example of the type of thing I'm most interested in reading -- most of the essay is not super interesting & a lot of things mentioned go over my head although I can follow most of it. There are parts where the author will talk about something weird like "dampes out of the earth" that "kil ye birdes flieg ouer them" & it fills my head with cool ideas. It feels kind of like looking through $1 records in the hopes of finding something weird & forgotten. I'm really into weird & forgotten things in 2024.

• ...this disease is almoste peculiar vnto vs Englishe men, and not common to all men, folowyng vs, as the shadowe the body, in all countries, albeit not at al times.
• ...that immediatly killed some in opening theire windowes, some in plaieng with children in their strete dores, some in one hour, many in two it destroyed, & at the longest, to thẽ that merilye dined, it gaue a sorowful Supper. As it founde them so it toke them, some in sleape some in wake, some in mirthe some in care, some fasting & some ful, some busy and some idle, and in one house sometyme three sometime fiue, sometyme seuen sometyme eyght, sometyme more some tyme all, of the whyche, if the haulfe in euerye Towne escaped, it was thoughte great fauour. 
• ...if nature be strõg & able to thrust out the poisõ by sweat (not otherwise letted) ye persõ escapeth: if not, it dieth.
• ...at the first entring of the euell aire...
• Wherupon also foloweth a marueilous heauinesse, (the fifthe token of this disease,) and a desire to sleape, neuer contented, the senses in al partes beynge as they were bounde or closed vp, the partes therfore left heuy, vnliuishe, and dulle. 
• Thẽ by dampes out of the earth, as out of Galenes Barathrũ, or the poetes auernũ, or aornũ, the dampes wherof be such, that thei kil ye birdes fliẽg ouer them. Of like dampes, I heard in the north coũtry in cole pits, wherby the laboring mẽ be streight killed, except before the houre of coming therof (which thei know by ye flame of their cãdle) thei auoid the groũd. Thirdly by putrefactiõ or rot in groũdes aftre great flouddes, in carions, & in dead men. After great fluddes, as happened in ye time of Gallien thẽperor at rome, in Achaia & Libia, wher the seas sodeinly did ouerflow ye cities nigh to yt same.
• In cariõs or dead bodies, as fortuned here in Englande vpon the sea banckes in the tyme of King Alured, or Alfrede; (as some Chroniclers write) but in the time of king Ethelred after Sabellicus, by occasion of drowned Locustes cast vp by the Sea, which by a wynde were driuen oute of Fraunce 15thether. This locust is a flie in bignes of a mãnes thumbe, in colour broune, in shape somewhat like a greshopper, hauing vi. fiete, so many wynges, two tiethe, & an hedde like a horse, and therfore called in Italy Caualleto, where ouer ye city of Padoa, in the yeare m.d.xlij. (as I remembre,) I, with manye more did see a swarme of theim, whose passage ouer the citie, did laste two hours, in breadth inestimable to euery man there. 
• ...it stirreth and draweth out of the erthe euill exhalations and mistes, to th infection of the aier...
• Here at large to ronne out vntill my breth wer spent...
• Take awaye the causes we maye, in damnyng diches, auoidynge cariõs, lettyng in open aire, shunning suche euil mistes as before I spake of, not openynge or sturrynge euill brethynge places, landynge muddy and rottẽ groundes, burieng dede bodyes, kepyng canelles cleane, sinkes & easyng places sweat, remouynge dongehilles, boxe and euil sauouryng thynges, enhabitynge high & open places, close towarde the sowthe, shutte toward the winde...
• ...after euacuation or auoiding of humors, the pores of the skinne remaine close, and ye sweating excrement in the fleshe continueth grosse (whiche thinge howe to know, hereafter I will declare) then rubbe you the person meanly at home, & bathe him in faire water sodden with Fenel, Chamemil, Rosemarye, Mallowes, & Lauendre, & last of al, powre water half colde ouer al his body, and so dry him, & clothe him. Al these be to be don a litle before ye end of ye spring, that the humours may be seatled, and at rest, before the time of the sweting, whiche cometh comonly in somer, if it cometh at al.
•  alwayes takynge hede not to putte any colde thynge in their mouthe to cole and moiste them with, nor any colde water, rose water, or colde vinegre to their face duryng the sweat and one daie after at the leaste, but alwaies vse warmeth accordynge to nature, neuer contrariyng thesame so nighe as may be. If they raue or be phrenetike, putte to their nose thesame odour of rose water & vinegre, to lette the vapoures from the headde. If they slepe, vse theim as in the case of faintyng I said, with betyng theim and callynge theim, pullyng theim by the eares, nose, or here, suffering them in no wise to slepe vntil suche tyme as they haue no luste to slepe, except to a learned mã in phisicke the case appere to beare the contrary. For otherwise the venime in slepe continually runneth inward to ye hart.