Meaning & Analysis
A euphemistic expression for undergoing the painful medical treatment for syphilis (the 'French Pox'). This treatment involved sitting in a heated 'sweating tub' (often while inhaling mercury fumes) to sweat out the infection.
Insights
The Geography of Vice
The phrase treats the consequences of debauchery as a foreign destination. Just as one might travel to France or Spain, the libertine travels to 'Sweatland'—a punitive territory of physical suffering located within their own body.
A Twisted Rite of Passage
As suggested by the 1659 citation, surviving this treatment was ironically viewed as a badge of honor or maturity for a courtier. Visiting 'Sweatland' marked the transition from innocent youth to the scarred, 'compleat' gentleman of the world.
The Cage of Consequences
The 'tub' represents a prison of one's own making. To 'go into' it is to be confined by the direct results of unrestrained sexual freedom.
The Mercury Cure
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the standard cure for syphilis was the 'salivation' or 'sweating' cure. Patients were placed in a wooden tub (Cornelius' tub) in a hot room and dosed with mercury. The goal was to induce profuse sweating and salivation to purge the 'venom.' The treatment was agonizing and often as lethal as the disease.
The Pun on Sweden
‘Sweatland’ is a pun on ‘Swethland’ or ‘Sweathland,’ the archaic English names for Sweden. This fits the era’s penchant for mapping the body onto the globe (e.g., the 'Low Countries' for genitalia). It turns a medical quarantine into a mock-heroic voyage.
The Cult of St. Cornelius
St. Cornelius was the patron saint of cattle (hence 'horns'). In popular culture, he became the patron saint of cuckolds (who 'wore the horns'). The 'Cornelius tub' creates a grim association: the same patron who oversees sexual humiliation (cuckoldry) also oversees the punishment for sexual excess (syphilis). The name links two forms of sexual misfortune.
Social Ubiquity
The citations reveal how common syphilis was among the upper classes. Howell's remark that a man isn't a 'compleat gentleman' without five trips to the tub satirizes the normalization of venereal disease in courtly life.
Rhetorical Devices
Paronomasia (Pun)
The play on words between 'Sweatland' (the condition of sweating) and 'Swethland' (Sweden) adds a layer of dark humor to a horrific medical procedure.
Euphemism
Using terms like 'Cornelius' tub' or 'Sweatland' allows the speaker to discuss a taboo, disfiguring disease without naming it directly, maintaining social decorum while signaling insider knowledge.
Metonymy
The 'tub' stands in for the entire grueling regimen of mercury treatment and isolation.
Transcription
Quotations
I doubt your younge wife will mark you I wott how With Saint Cornelius badge.
He is no compleat gentleman who hath not made five voyages to Swetland, viz. to Cornelius tub.
To take Physick for the French Pox; the French say . . to go into Sweat-land, jingling with Sweathland, or into Cornelius his Tub.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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