CAIUS. 21 purgh, between Luther and Zuinglius, about the Eucharist. The last appearance of the sweating sickness in Enghmd was in 1551, when in West- minster it carried off one liundred and twenty in a day, and the two sons of Charles Brandon, both Dukes of Suffolk, died of it. This is a short outline of the treatise of Caius upon this singular disease. It may be remarked, with reference to his statement, that it was pecu- liar to the natives of this country, that there seems to be some vulgar prejudice mixed up with that no- tion, as its first appearance was neither among Englishmen, nor in England, but amongst the foreign levies of the Earl of Richmond, who had either brought it with them, or more probably generated it in the crowded transport-vessels, on board of which they were embarked. This body of troops is described by a contemporary historian, Philip de Comines, as the most wretched he had ever beheld, collected, we may suppose, from jails and hospitals, squalid, and covered with filth. A highly malignant and contagious disease might readily be produced in such circumstances ; but why it should appear under so new and singular a form, why this should be renewed so many times at irregular intervals, and should at length entirely cease, are questions perhaps impossible to be solved. That the climate of England was not essential to the existence of that disease, is ren- dered manifest by its raging with great violence in Germany and the Low Countries in 1 529 and 1 530 ; and that the persons of foreigners were not secure in England, appears from the death of Ammonius, a learned Italian, and a particular friend of Eras- <
