The Tudor Sweating Sickness: A Killer Disease That Simply Vanished

Between 1485 and 1551, a strange disease appeared five times in England and northwest Europe. Patients sweat profusely. They became delirious. They either died within hours or recovered completely. Henry Tudor's army may have brought it from France in the summer of 1485. The disease killed thousands and then disappeared entirely after the 1551 outbreak. To this day no one knows what the pathogen actually was. Modern hypotheses include a hantavirus and a rodent-borne arenavirus. Episode six of the Plagues: How Disease Changed History series. Watch the next video: Episode 7 covers the Columbian Exchange, the disease catastrophe that reshaped two continents after 1492. ▶ Watch next: The Disease That Killed 90 Percent of the Americas, 1492 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vBTTit0OkQ 📺 Full playlist: Plagues — How Disease Changed History https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlIAFxS29648aq0TyVvsWh9HTO_qjDIGM Chapters: 0:00 Bosworth Field, August 1485 5:47 John Caius and the Twenty-Four Hour Clock 10:56 Five Outbreaks in Sixty-Six Years 16:47 Who Died, Who Fled, Who Survived 22:39 Hantavirus, Arenavirus, and the Unanswered Question 28:50 The Disappearance and What It Teaches Us Today 35:12 Quiz Time 36:53 Key Takeaways #explained #learn #2026 --- Disclosure The avatars and voices in this video are AI-generated. All content -- research, scripts, lesson design, and the custom video engine -- is created by a CISSP, CISM, and PMP certified professional with a Master's in Project Management, a B.S. in Information Technology, and a Doctorate in Business Administration in progress. This channel exists to make learning accessible and straightforward. Educational history-of-medicine series. This channel does not represent any medical institution, public health agency, or academic institution. Every named pathogen, dated outbreak, death-toll estimate, and quoted statistic is sourced from peer-reviewed epidemiology, primary historical documents, and CDC / WHO records. Where death tolls or interpretations are contested by modern scholars, the range is presented honestly. This series presents the historical record — not medical advice. Always consult licensed medical professionals for health decisions.