Picardy sweat

The Picardy sweat was an infectious disease of unknown cause and one of the only diseases that bears resemblance to the English sweating sickness. The Picardy sweat is also known as the miliary fever, suette des Picards in French,^[1] and picard'scher Schweiß, picard'sches Schweissfieber, or Frieselfieber in German.^[2] It appeared in the northern French province of Picardy in 1718. The Picardy sweat was mainly confined to the northwest part of France, particularly in the provinces of Seine-et-Oise, Bas Rhin, and Oise.^[3] Although the Picardy sweat began in Northern France, outbreaks also occurred in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. Between 1718 and 1874, 194 epidemics of the Picardy sweat were recorded.^[3] The last extensive outbreak was in 1906, which a French commission attributed to fleas from field mice.^[4] A subsequent case was diagnosed in 1918 in a soldier in Picardy.^[5]

There were two types of the Picardy sweat, a benign form that was similar to nephropathia epidemica, or milder cases of hantavirus infection, and a more severe form that resembled the English sweating sickness. Similar to the English sweat, the Picardy sweat was characterized by intense sweating, but the symptoms were less often fatal. Other symptoms were high fever, rash, and bleeding from the nose.^{[citation needed]} More severe symptoms included intense sweating, headaches, suffocation, precordial pain, anxiety, and "passion of the heart" or palpitations.^[6] Unlike the English sweating sickness, a miliary rash followed by desquamation, or peeling of the skin, often appeared three to four days after infection.^[3] The rate of sickness was anywhere from 25% to 30% of the population and the mortality rate is estimated to have been between 0% and 20%.^[6]