thoughts crucify his soul, and in an instant he is moped or weary of
his life, he will kill himself. A fifth complains in his youth, a sixth
in his middle age, the last in his old age.
Generally thus much we may conclude of melancholy; that it is
[2604]most pleasant at first, I say, mentis gratissimus error, [2605]a
most delightsome humour, to be alone, dwell alone, walk alone,
meditate, lie in bed whole days, dreaming awake as it were, and frame a
thousand fantastical imaginations unto themselves. They are never
better pleased than when they are so doing, they are in paradise for
the time, and cannot well endure to be interrupt; with him in the poet,
[2606]pol me occidistis amici, non servastis ait? you have undone him,
he complains, if you trouble him: tell him what inconvenience will
follow, what will be the event, all is one, canis ad vomitum,
[2607]'tis so pleasant he cannot refrain. He may thus continue
peradventure many years by reason of a strong temperature, or some
mixture of business, which may divert his cogitations: but at the last
laesa imaginatio, his phantasy is crazed, and now habituated to such
toys, cannot but work still like a fate, the scene alters upon a
sudden, fear and sorrow supplant those pleasing thoughts, suspicion,
discontent, and perpetual anxiety succeed in their places; so by little
and little, by that shoeing-horn of idleness, and voluntary
solitariness, melancholy this feral fiend is drawn on, [2608]et quantum
vertice ad auras Aethereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit, extending
up, by its branches, so far towards Heaven, as, by its roots, it does
down towards Tartarus; it was not so delicious at first, as now it is
bitter and harsh; a cankered soul macerated with cares and discontents,
taedium vitae, impatience, agony, inconstancy, irresolution,
precipitate them unto unspeakable miseries. They cannot endure company,
light, or life itself, some unfit for action, and the like. [2609]Their
bodies are lean and dried up, withered, ugly, their looks harsh, very
dull, and their souls tormented, as they are more or less entangled, as
the humour hath been intended, or according to the continuance of time
they have been troubled.
To discern all which symptoms the better, [2610]Rhasis the Arabian
makes three degrees of them. The first is, falsa cogitatio, false
conceits and idle thoughts: to misconstrue and amplify, aggravating
everything they conceive or fear; the second is, falso cogitata loqui,
to talk to themselves, or to use inarticulate incondite voices,
speeches, obsolete gestures, and plainly to utter their minds and
conceits of their hearts, by their words and actions, as to laugh,
weep, to be silent, not to sleep, eat their meat, &c.: the third is to
put in practice [2611]that which they think or speak. Savanarola, Rub.
11. tract. 8. cap. 1. de aegritudine, confirms as much, [2612]when he
begins to express that in words, which he conceives in his heart, or
talks idly, or goes from one thing to another, which [2613]Gordonius
calls nec caput habentia, nec caudam, (having neither head nor tail,)
he is in the middle way: [2614] but when he begins to act it likewise,
and to put his fopperies in execution, he is then in the extent of
melancholy, or madness itself. This progress of melancholy you shall
easily observe in them that have been so affected, they go smiling to
themselves at first, at length they laugh out; at first solitary, at
last they can endure no company: or if they do, they are now dizzards,
past sense and shame, quite moped, they care not what they say or do,
all their actions, words, gestures, are furious or ridiculous. At first
his mind is troubled, he doth not attend what is said, if you tell him
a tale, he cries at last, what said you? but in the end he mutters to
himself, as old women do many times, or old men when they sit alone,
upon a sudden they laugh, whoop, halloo, or run away, and swear they
see or hear players, [2615]devils, hobgoblins, ghosts, strike, or
strut, &c., grow humorous in the end; like him in the poet, saepe
ducentos, saepe decem servos, (at one time followed by two hundred
servants, at another only by ten) he will dress himself, and undress,
careless at last, grows insensible, stupid, or mad. [2616]He howls like
a wolf, barks like a dog, and raves like Ajax and Orestes, hears music
and outcries, which no man else hears. As [2617]he did whom Amatus
Lusitanus mentioneth cent. 3, cura. 55, or that woman in
[2618]Springer, that spake many languages, and said she was possessed:
that farmer in [2619]Prosper Calenius, that disputed and discoursed
learnedly in philosophy and astronomy, with Alexander Achilles his
master, at Bologna, in Italy. But of these I have already spoken.
Who can sufficiently speak of these symptoms, or prescribe rules to
comprehend them? as Echo to the painter in Ausonius, vane quid
affectas, &c., foolish fellow; what wilt? if you must needs paint me,
paint a voice, et similem si vis pingere, pinge sonum; if you will
describe melancholy, describe a fantastical conceit, a corrupt
imagination, vain thoughts and different, which who can do? The four
and twenty letters make no more variety of words in diverse languages,
than melancholy conceits produce diversity of symptoms in several
persons. They are irregular, obscure, various, so infinite, Proteus
himself is not so diverse, you may as well make the moon a new coat, as
a true character of a melancholy man; as soon find the motion of a bird
in the air, as the heart of man, a melancholy man. They are so
confused, I say, diverse, intermixed with other diseases. As the
species be confounded (which [2620]I have showed) so are the symptoms;
sometimes with headache, cachexia, dropsy, stone; as you may perceive
by those several examples and illustrations, collected by [2621]
Hildesheim spicel. 2. Mercurialis consil. 118. cap. 6 and 11. with
headache, epilepsy, priapismus. Trincavelius consil. 12. lib. 1.
consil. 49. with gout: caninus appetitus. Montanus consil. 26, &c. 23,
234, 249, with falling-sickness, headache, vertigo, lycanthropia, &c.
J. Caesar Claudinus consult. 4. consult. 89 and 116. with gout, agues,
haemorrhoids, stone, &c., who can distinguish these melancholy symptoms
so intermixed with others, or apply them to their several kinds,
confine them into method? 'Tis hard I confess, yet I have disposed of
them as I could, and will descend to particularise them according to
their species. For hitherto I have expatiated in more general lists or
terms, speaking promiscuously of such ordinary signs, which occur
amongst writers. Not that they are all to be found in one man, for that
were to paint a monster or chimera, not a man: but some in one, some in
another, and that successively or at several times.
Which I have been the more curious to express and report; not to
upbraid any miserable man, or by way of derision, (I rather pity them,)
but the better to discern, to apply remedies unto them; and to show
that the best and soundest of us all is in great danger; how much we
ought to fear our own fickle estates, remember our miseries and
vanities, examine and humiliate ourselves, seek to God, and call to Him
for mercy, that needs not look for any rods to scourge ourselves, since
we carry them in our bowels, and that our souls are in a miserable
captivity, if the light of grace and heavenly truth doth not shine
continually upon us: and by our discretion to moderate ourselves, to be
more circumspect and wary in the midst of these dangers.
MEMB. II.
SUBSECT. I.—_Symptoms of Head-Melancholy_.
If [2622]no symptoms appear about the stomach, nor the blood be
misaffected, and fear and sorrow continue, it is to be thought the
brain itself is troubled, by reason of a melancholy juice bred in it,
or otherwise conveyed into it, and that evil juice is from the
distemperature of the part, or left after some inflammation, thus far
Piso. But this is not always true, for blood and hypochondries both are
often affected even in head-melancholy. [2623]Hercules de Saxonia
differs here from the common current of writers, putting peculiar signs
of head-melancholy, from the sole distemperature of spirits in the
brain, as they are hot, cold, dry, moist, all without matter from the
motion alone, and tenebrosity of spirits; of melancholy which proceeds
from humours by adustion, he treats apart, with their several symptoms
and cures. The common signs, if it be by essence in the head, are
ruddiness of face, high sanguine complexion, most part rubore saturato,
[2624]one calls it, a bluish, and sometimes full of pimples, with red
eyes. Avicenna l. 3, Fen. 2, Tract. 4, c. 18. Duretus and others out of
Galen, de affect. l. 3, c. 6. [2625]Hercules de Saxonia to this of
redness of face, adds heaviness of the head, fixed and hollow eyes.
[2626]If it proceed from dryness of the brain, then their heads will be
light, vertiginous, and they most apt to wake, and to continue whole
months together without sleep. Few excrements in their eyes and
nostrils, and often bald by reason of excess of dryness, Montaltus
adds, c. 17. If it proceed from moisture: dullness, drowsiness,
headache follows; and as Salust. Salvianus, c. 1, l. 2, out of his own
experience found, epileptical, with a multitude of humours in the head.
They are very bashful, if ruddy, apt to blush, and to be red upon all
occasions, praesertim si metus accesserit. But the chiefest symptom to
discern this species, as I have said, is this, that there be no notable
signs in the stomach, hypochondries, or elsewhere, digna, as [2627]
Montaltus terms them, or of greater note, because oftentimes the
passions of the stomach concur with them. Wind is common to all three
species, and is not excluded, only that of the hypochondries is
[2628]more windy than the rest, saith Hollerius. Aetius tetrab. l. 2,
sc. 2, c. 9 and 10, maintains the same, [2629]if there be more signs,
and more evident in the head than elsewhere, the brain is primarily
affected, and prescribes head-melancholy to be cured by meats amongst
the rest, void of wind, and good juice, not excluding wind, or corrupt
blood, even in head-melancholy itself: but these species are often
confounded, and so are their symptoms, as I have already proved. The
symptoms of the mind are superfluous and continual cogitations;
[2630]for when the head is heated, it scorcheth the blood, and from
thence proceed melancholy fumes, which trouble the mind, Avicenna. They
are very choleric, and soon hot, solitary, sad, often silent, watchful,
discontent, Montaltus, cap. 24. If anything trouble them, they cannot
sleep, but fret themselves still, till another object mitigate, or time
wear it out. They have grievous passions, and immoderate perturbations
of the mind, fear, sorrow, &c., yet not so continuate, but that they
are sometimes merry, apt to profuse laughter, which is more to be
wondered at, and that by the authority of [2631]Galen himself, by
reason of mixture of blood, praerubri jocosis delectantur, et irrisores
plerumque sunt, if they be ruddy, they are delighted in jests, and
oftentimes scoffers themselves, conceited: and as Rodericus a Vega
comments on that place of Galen, merry, witty, of a pleasant
disposition, and yet grievously melancholy anon after: omnia discunt
sine doctore, saith Aretus, they learn without a teacher: and as
[2632]Laurentius supposeth, those feral passions and symptoms of such
as think themselves glass, pitchers, feathers, &c., speak strange
languages, a colore cerebri (if it be in excess) from the brain's
distempered heat.
SUBSECT. II.—_Symptoms of windy Hypochondriacal Melancholy_.
In this hypochondriacal or flatuous melancholy, the symptoms are so
ambiguous, saith [2633]Crato in a counsel of his for a noblewoman, that
the most exquisite physicians cannot determine of the part affected.
Matthew Flaccius, consulted about a noble matron, confessed as much,
that in this malady he with Hollerius, Fracastorius, Falopius, and
others, being to give their sentence of a party labouring of
hypochondriacal melancholy, could not find out by the symptoms which
part was most especially affected; some said the womb, some heart, some
stomach, &c., and therefore Crato, consil. 24. lib. 1. boldly avers,
that in this diversity of symptoms, which commonly accompany this
disease, [2634]no physician can truly say what part is affected. Galen
lib. 3. de loc. affect., reckons up these ordinary symptoms, which all
the Neoterics repeat of Diocles; only this fault he finds with him,
that he puts not fear and sorrow amongst the other signs. Trincavelius
excuseth Diocles, lib. 3. consil. 35. because that oftentimes in a
strong head and constitution, a generous spirit, and a valiant, these
symptoms appear not, by reason of his valour and courage.
[2635]Hercules de Saxonia (to whom I subscribe) is of the same mind
(which I have before touched) that fear and sorrow are not general
symptoms; some fear and are not sad; some be sad and fear not; some
neither fear nor grieve. The rest are these, beside fear and sorrow,
[2636]sharp belchings, fulsome crudities, heat in the bowels, wind and
rumbling in the guts, vehement gripings, pain in the belly and stomach
sometimes, after meat that is hard of concoction, much watering of the
stomach, and moist spittle, cold sweat, importunus sudor, unseasonable
sweat all over the body, as Octavius Horatianus lib. 2. cap. 5. calls
it; cold joints, indigestion, [2637]they cannot endure their own
fulsome belchings, continual wind about their hypochondries, heat and
griping in their bowels, praecordia sursum convelluntur, midriff and
bowels are pulled up, the veins about their eyes look red, and swell
from vapours and wind. Their ears sing now and then, vertigo and
giddiness come by fits, turbulent dreams, dryness, leanness, apt they
are to sweat upon all occasions, of all colours and complexions. Many
of them are high-coloured especially after meals, which symptom
Cardinal Caecius was much troubled with, and of which he complained to
Prosper Calenus his physician, he could not eat, or drink a cup of
wine, but he was as red in the face as if he had been at a mayor's
feast. That symptom alone vexeth many. [2638]Some again are black,
pale, ruddy, sometimes their shoulders and shoulder blades ache, there
is a leaping all over their bodies, sudden trembling, a palpitation of
the heart, and that cardiaca passio, grief in the mouth of the stomach,
which maketh the patient think his heart itself acheth, and sometimes
suffocation, difficultas anhelitus, short breath, hard wind, strong
pulse, swooning. Montanus consil. 55. Trincavelius lib. 3. consil. 36.
et 37. Fernelius cons. 43. Frambesarius consult. lib. 1. consil. 17.
Hildesheim, Claudinus, &c., give instance of every particular. The
peculiar symptoms which properly belong to each part be these. If it
proceed from the stomach, saith [2639]Savanarola, 'tis full of pain
wind. Guianerius adds, vertigo, nausea, much spitting, &c. If from the
mirach, a swelling and wind in the hypochondries, a loathing, and
appetite to vomit, pulling upward. If from the heart, aching and
trembling of it, much heaviness. If from the liver, there is usually a
pain in the right hypochondry. If from the spleen, hardness and grief
in the left hypochondry, a rumbling, much appetite and small digestion,
Avicenna. If from the mesaraic veins and liver on the other side,
little or no appetite, Herc. de Saxonia. If from the hypochondries, a
rumbling inflation, concoction is hindered, often belching, &c. And
from these crudities, windy vapours ascend up to the brain which
trouble the imagination, and cause fear, sorrow, dullness, heaviness,
many terrible conceits and chimeras, as Lemnius well observes, l. 1. c.
16. as [2640]a black and thick cloud covers the sun, and intercepts his
beams and light, so doth this melancholy vapour obnubilate the mind,
enforce it to many absurd thoughts and imaginations, and compel good,
wise, honest, discreet men (arising to the brain from the [2641] lower
parts, as smoke out of a chimney) to dote, speak, and do that which
becomes them not, their persons, callings, wisdoms. One by reason of
those ascending vapours and gripings, rumbling beneath, will not be
persuaded but that he hath a serpent in his guts, a viper, another
frogs. Trallianus relates a story of a woman, that imagined she had
swallowed an eel, or a serpent, and Felix Platerus, observat. lib. 1.
hath a most memorable example of a countryman of his, that by chance,
falling into a pit where frogs and frogs' spawn was, and a little of
that water swallowed, began to suspect that he had likewise swallowed
frogs' spawn, and with that conceit and fear, his phantasy wrought so
far, that he verily thought he had young live frogs in his belly, qui
vivebant ex alimento suo, that lived by his nourishment, and was so
certainly persuaded of it, that for many years afterwards he could not
be rectified in his conceit: He studied physic seven years together to
cure himself, travelled into Italy, France and Germany to confer with
the best physicians about it, and A.D. 1609, asked his counsel amongst
the rest; he told him it was wind, his conceit, &c., but mordicus
contradicere, et ore, et scriptis probare nitebatur: no saying would
serve, it was no wind, but real frogs: and do you not hear them croak?
Platerus would have deceived him, by putting live frog's into his
excrements; but he, being a physician himself, would not be deceived,
vir prudens alias, et doctus a wise and learned man otherwise, a doctor
of physic, and after seven years' dotage in this kind, a phantasia
liberatus est, he was cured. Laurentius and Goulart have many such
examples, if you be desirous to read them. One commodity above the rest
which are melancholy, these windy flatuous have, lucidia intervalla,
their symptoms and pains are not usually so continuate as the rest, but
come by fits, fear and sorrow, and the rest: yet in another they exceed
all others; and that is, [2642]they are luxurious, incontinent, and
prone to venery, by reason of wind, et facile amant, et quamlibet fere
amant. (Jason Pratensis) [2643]Rhasis is of opinion, that Venus doth
many of them much good; the other symptoms of the mind be common with
the rest.
SUBSECT. III.—_Symptoms of Melancholy abounding in the whole body_.
Their bodies that are affected with this universal melancholy are most
part black, [2644]the melancholy juice is redundant all over, hirsute
they are, and lean, they have broad veins, their blood is gross and
thick [2645] Their spleen is weak, and a liver apt to engender the
humour; they have kept bad diet, or have had some evacuation stopped,
as haemorrhoids, or months in women, which [2646]Trallianus, in the
cure, would have carefully to be inquired, and withal to observe of
what complexion the party is of, black or red. For as Forrestus and
Hollerius contend, if [2647]they be black, it proceeds from abundance
of natural melancholy; if it proceed from cares, agony, discontents,
diet, exercise, &c., they may be as well of any other colour: red,
yellow, pale, as black, and yet their whole blood corrupt: praerubri
colore saepe sunt tales, saepe flavi, (saith [2648] Montaltus cap. 22.)
The best way to discern this species, is to let them bleed, if the
blood be corrupt, thick and black, and they withal free from those
hypochondriacal symptoms, and not so grievously troubled with them, or
those of the head, it argues they are melancholy, a toto corpore. The
fumes which arise from this corrupt blood, disturb the mind, and make
them fearful and sorrowful, heavy hearted, as the rest, dejected,
discontented, solitary, silent, weary of their lives, dull and heavy,
or merry, &c., and if far gone, that which Apuleius wished to his
enemy, by way of imprecation, is true in them; [2649]Dead men's bones,
hobgoblins, ghosts are ever in their minds, and meet them still in
every turn: all the bugbears of the night, and terrors, fairy-babes of
tombs, and graves are before their eyes, and in their thoughts, as to
women and children, if they be in the dark alone. If they hear, or
read, or see any tragical object, it sticks by them, they are afraid of
death, and yet weary of their lives, in their discontented humours they
quarrel with all the world, bitterly inveigh, tax satirically, and
because they cannot otherwise vent their passions or redress what is
amiss, as they mean, they will by violent death at last be revenged on
themselves.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Symptoms of Maids, Nuns, and Widows' Melancholy_.