and in English for their better vnderstandynge to whome
I write, firste declare the beginnynge, name, nature, and signes
of the sweatynge sickenes. Next, the causes of the same. And
thirdly, how to preserue men from it, and remedy them when they
haue it.

[The beginnyng of the disease] In the yere of our Lorde God
M.CCCC.lxxxv. shortly after the vij. daye of august, at whiche
tyme kynge Henry the seuenth arriued at Milford in walles, out
of Fraunce, and in the firste yere of his reigne, ther chaunced
a disease among the people, lastyng the reste of that monethe &
all September, which for the soubdeine sharpenes and vnwont
cruelnes passed the pestilence. For this commonly geueth iij. or
iiij. often vij. sumtyme ix. as that firste at Athenes whiche
_Thucidides_ describeth in his seconde boke, sumtyme xj. and
sumtyme xiiij. dayes respecte, to whome it (9) vexeth. But 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 them 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. How, or
wyth what maner it toke them, with what grieffe, and accidentes
it helde theym, herafter then I wil declare, when I shal come to
shewe the signes therof. In the mene space, know that this
disease (because it most did stand in sweating from the
beginning vntil the endyng) was called here, the Sweating
sickenesse: and because it firste beganne in Englande, it was
named in other countries, the englishe sweat. Yet some
conjecture that it, or the like, hath bene before seene among
the Grekes in the siege of Troie. In themperor Octauius warres at
_Cantabria_, called nowe Biscaie, in Hispaine: and in the
Turkes, at the Rhodes. How true that is, let the aucthours loke:
how true thys is, the best of our Chronicles shewith, & of the
late begonne disease the freshe memorie yet confirmeth. But if
the name wer now to be geuen, and at my libertie to make the
same: I would of the maner and space of the disease (by cause
the same is no sweat only, as herafter I will declare, & in the
spirites) make the name _Ephem