Page:A litil boke the whiche traytied and reherced many gode thinges necessaries for the infirmite a grete sekeness called Pestilence.djvu/18

 victims in London does not seem clear, but the suddenness of the attacks must have been not the least terrible feature of them. We have a vivid picture of this characteristic of the disease in the manuscript treatise of Forestier. "We saw" (he says) "two prestys standing togeder and speaking togeder, and we saw both of them dye sodenly. Also … we se the wyf of a taylour taken and sodenly dyed. Another yonge man walking by the street fell down sodenly. Also another gentylman ryding out of the cyte dyed." The terms in which he describes the symptoms correspond closely with other accounts: "And this sickness cometh with a grete swetyng and stynkyng, with rednesse of the face and of all the body, and a contynual thurst, with a grete hete and hedache because of the fumes and venoms." It is no cause for wonder that to a superstitious age the outbreak of such a disease augured ill for the peace of Henry's reign.

The disease soon made its way from London into the country. Definite notices of it are scanty, but we know that the abbot of Croyland succumbed to an attack on the 1 4th of October. Its prevalence at Oxford is well attested; although it lasted but a few weeks its stay was long enough to exact a heavy toll among the scholars of the University. Though records of its presence are but few, the statements of historians as to the extent of its ravages may presumably be accepted without reservation.

This disease that broke out in 1485 was generally believed to differ in character from any of the epidemics that had preceded it; hence the assignment of a new name