Edit page | Page history | Printable version

sweating

From sweat, Sweating bath, a bath producing sensible sweat; a stove or sudatory. Sweating house, a house for sweating persons in sickness. Sweating iron, a kind of knife, or a piece of iron, used to scrape off sweat, especially from horses; a horse scraper. Sweating room. A room for sweating persons.

(Science: medicine) A febrile epidemic disease which prevailed in some countries of Europe, but particularly in England, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, characterised by profuse sweating. Death often occured in a few hours.