What is "sweating sickness"

Sweating \Sweat"ing\, a. & n. from Sweat, v. Sweating bath, a bath producing sensible sweat; a stove or sudatory. Sweating house, a house for sweating persons in sickness. Sweating iron, a kind of knife, or a piece of iron, used to scrape off sweat, especially from horses; a horse scraper. Sweating room.

1. A room for sweating persons.

2. (Dairying) A room for sweating cheese and carrying off the superfluous juices.

   Sweating sickness (Med.), a febrile epidemic disease which prevailed in some countries of Europe, but particularly in England, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, characterized by profuse sweating. Death often occured in a few hours.

n. An unidentified, highly virulent disease with aches and sweating, the cause of a series of epidemics in England and Europe between 1485 and 1551.

1. n. a disease of cattle (especially calves)

2. epidemic in the 15th and 16th centuries and characterized by profuse sweating and high mortality [syn: miliary fever]

Sweating sickness, also known as "English sweating sickness" or "English sweate" , was a mysterious and highly contagious disease that struck England, and later continental Europe, in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. The last outbreak occurred in 1551, after which the disease apparently vanished. The onset of symptoms was dramatic and sudden, with death often occurring within hours. Though its cause remains unknown, it has been suggested that an unknown species of hantavirus was responsible for the outbreak.

Sweating sickness is "an acute, febrile, tickborne toxicosis characterized mainly by a profuse, moist eczema and hyperemia of the skin and visible mucous membranes." It affects cattle, mainly calves, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. It is caused by toxins that develop in some ticks of the Hyalomma truncatum species.