 Section 25 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Vol. 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chris Caron. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Vol. 1 by Robert Burton, Section 25. Partition 1, Section 2, Member 1, Subsections 4-6. Stars, a cause. Signs from Physiognomy, Metatopscopy, Caromansi. Natural causes are either primary and universal or secondary and more particular. Primary causes are the heavens, planets, stars, etc., by their influence as our astrologers hold. Producing this and such like effects, I will not here stand to discuss obitur, whether stars be causes or signs, or to apologize for Judical Astrology. If either Sextus, Impericus, Picus, Morandula, Sextus, Ab, Herminga, Perarius, Arastus, Chambers, etc., have so far prevailed with any man that he will attribute no virtue at all to the heavens, or to sun or moon more than he doth to their signs. At an innkeeper's post, or tradesman's shop, or generally condemn all such astrological aphorisms approved by experience, I refer him to Beliantis Paravanus, Mara Scalarus, Goklinius, Sir Christopher Haydn, etc., if thou shalt ask me what I think I must answer. Nam et doctis, hische aerubulus, versatus sum, for I am conversant with these learned errors. They do incline, but not compel, so no necessity at all. Aguntnan kagguts, and so gently incline, that a wise man may resist them. Sapiens dominappitur estrus, they rule us, but God rules them. All this, me thinks, Johannis de indagine, hoth comprised, in brief. Quarius, in me, a quantum, in they do, but incline. And that so gently, that if we will be ruled by reason, they have no power over us. But if we follow our own nature, and be led by sense, they do as much in us as in brute beasts. And we are no better, so that I hope I may justly conclude with kajtan. Kollium est vehiculum divinae vertutis, etc., that the heaven is God's instrument, by meditation of which he governs, and disposeeth these elementary bodies, or a great book, whose letters are the stars, as one calls it. Wherein are written many strange things for such as can read, or an excellent harp made by an eminent workman, on which he sat, he that can but play, will make most admirable music, but to the purpose. Paracelsius is of opinion, that a physician without the knowledge of stars can neither understand the cause or cure of any disease, either of this or gout not so much as toothache, except he see the peculiar geniture and scheme of the party affected. And for this proper malady, he will have the principle and primary cause of it preceded from the heaven, ascribed more to the stars than humors. And that the consolation alone many times produced with melancholy all other causes set apart. He gives instance in lunatic persons that are deprived of their wits by the moon's motion, and in another place refers all to the excendent, who will have the true and chief cause of it to be thought from the stars. Neither is it his opinion only, but of many galanists and philosophers, though they do not so peremperatorily maintain as much. This variety of melancholy symptoms precedes from the stars. Seith Melanchion, the most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, and the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Libra, the bad as that of Calentines from the meeting of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio, Jovianus Pontanus in his tenth book, and thirteenth chapter Derebus Coelestibus discorseth to this purpose at large ex-altra biolvary generonture, morby, etc. The diseases proceed from black colar, as it shall be hot or cold, and through it be cold in its own nature. Yet it is apt to be heated, as water may be made to boil, and burn as bad as fire, or made cold as ice, and thence proceed such variety of symptoms, some mad, some solitary, some laugh, some rage, etc. The cause of all which is intemperence. He will have chiefly and primarily proceed from the heavens from the position of Mars, Saturn and Mercury. His aphorisms be these Mercury, in any geniture, if he shall be found in Virgo or Pisces, his opposite sign, and that in the horoscope, irritated by those quartile aspects of Saturn or Mars, the child shall be mad or melancholy, again, he that shall have Saturn and Mars, the one culminating, the other in the fourth house, and when he shall be born shall be melancholy, of which he shall be cured in time. If Mercury behold them, if the Moon be in conjunction or opposition at the birth time with the Sun, Saturn or Mars, or in a quartile aspect with them, Emelo coeli loco leovitus, adds, Many diseases are signified, especially the head and brain is like to be misaffected with pernicious humours, to be melancholy lunatic or mad, Carden adds, Quartaluna natus eclipses, earthquakes, Garseus and leovitus will have the chief judgment to be taken from the Lord of the geniture, or where there is an aspect between the Moon and Mercury, and neither behold the horoscope or Saturn and Mars shall be the Lord of the present conjuction or opposition in Sagittaris or Pisces, of the Sun or Moon. Such persons are commonly epileptic, dote, demonical, melancholy, but see more of these aphorisms in the above-named pontanus. Garseus shonar, which he has gathered out of polytomy, aborbiter, and some other Arabians, Junctine, Razvoius, and therefore partial judges, then hear the testimony of physicians, Galanists themselves, Cartoconfesseth, the influence of stars to have a great hand to this peculiar disease. Sodoth Jason Pratensis, Lachyn Cereus, Prifantium, the universal cause, the particular from parents, and the use of the six non-natural examples to convince the truth of those aphorisms are common amongst those astrologian treatises. Cardon, in his 37th Geniture, gives instance in Matthews Balogneus, Daniel Gehr, and others, but see Garseus, Lucas, Garichas, etc. The time of this melancholy is when the significators of any geniture are directed according to art as the whore, moon, hyalic, etc., to the hostile beams or terms of Saturn and Mars, especially or any fixed star of their nature, or if Saturn, by his revolution or transcedus, shall offend any of those radical promissors in the geniture. Other signs there are taken from physiognomy, metaposcopy, chyromancy, which be because Johannes, D. Igindagine, in Rotman, and Landgrave of Hesse, his mathematician, not long since his chyromancy, Baptista Porta, in his celestial physiognomy, have proved to hold great affinity with astrology to satisfy the curious. I am more willing to insert. The general notions the physiognomers give be these, black color argues natural melancholy, so doth leaness, hair stuteness, broad veins, much hair on the brows, said Gretana Arulis, capped seven, and a little head out of Aristotle, high sanguine, red color, shows head melancholy. They that stutter and are bald will be soonest melancholy, as Avincea supposeth, by reason of the dryness of their brains, but he that will know more of the several signs of humor and wits out of physiognomy let him consult with old Adamantus and Polymus, that comments, or rather, fair phrase, upon Aristotle's physiognomy, Baptista Porta's four pleasant books, Michael Scott, De Secretis Natre, John D. Adagin, Montaltus, Antony Zara, Anatomia, Ingeniorum, Section 1, Member 13, and Book 4. Chyromancy, hath these aphorism to foretell melancholy, and has near, Book 5, Chapter 2, who hath comprehended the sum of John D. Adagin, Tricasus, Corvinus, and others in the book. Thus hath it, the satterine line going from the Rescceda through the hand to Saturn's mount, and there intersected by certain little lines, argues melancholy, so if the vital and natural make an acute angle aphorism 100, the satterine hepatic and natural lines making a gross triangle in the hand, argue as much which Ga-Clenius, Chapter 5, Chariscopia repeats verbatim out of him. In general, they conclude all, that of Saturn's mount be full of many small lines and intersections, such men are most part melancholy, miserable and full of disquietness, care and trouble, continually vexed with anxious and bitter thoughts, always fearful, fearful, suspicious, they delight in husbandry, buildings, pools, marshes, springs, woods, walks, etc. Thedias Haggisius in his metapascopia, hath certain aphorisms derived from Saturn's lines in the forehead by which he collects a melancholy disposition, and Baptisa Porta makes observations from those other parts of the body. As if a spot be over the spleen or in the nails, if it appear black, the signaphith, much care, grief, contention, and melancholy, the reason he prefers to the humors and gives instance in himself, that for seven year space he had such black spots in his nails, and all that while was in perpetual lawsuits, controversies for his inheritance, fear, loss of honor, banishment, grief, care, etc., and when his miseries ended the black spots vanished. Carden, in his book Dilebris Proprius, tells such a story of his own person that a little before his son's death, he had a black spot which appeared in one of his nails and dilated itself as he came nearer to his end, but I am over Thedias in these toys, which howsoever, in some men's severe censures they may be held absurd and ridiculous I am the border to insert as not borrowed from Circumforanian, Rogues, and Gypsies but out of the writings of worthy philosophers and physicians yet living some of them and religious professors in famous universities who are able to patronize that which they have said and vindicate themselves from all cavaliers and ignorant persons subsection 5 old age, a cause secondary, peculiar cause is efficient, so called in respect of the other precedent are either congenitae, internae, inateae, as they term them inward innate, inbred, or else outward and adventitious which happen to us after we are born congenite, or born with us are either natural as old age or pretere, natruem as Fresnelius calls it that this temperature which we have from our parents need in being a hered, it being a hereditary disease the first of these which is natural to all and which no man living can avoid is old age which being cold and dry and of the same quality as melancholy is much needs cause it by diminution of spirits and increasing of a dust humours therefore, melanchthon averse out of Aristotle and an of doubted truth senus plerunche dolorace in senecta that old man familiar adote of atrambilim for black colar which is then superabonded in them and racis that Arabian physician in his continuous liber one chapter nine calls it a necessary and inseparable accident to all old and disrecept persons after seventy years as the palmness saith all is trouble and sorrow and common experience confirms the truth of it in weak and old persons especially such as have lived in action all their lives had great employment much business much command and many servants to oversee and leave off of rubto as Charles the fifth did to king phillip resign up all on a sudden they are overcome with melancholy in an instant or if they do continue in such courses they don't at last senex bis pure and are not able to manage their estates through common infirmities incident in their age full of ache sorrow and grief children again deserts they carl many times as they sit and talk to themselves they are angry washbish displeased with everything suspicious of all wayward convictuous hard saith tolly self-willed superstitious self-conceited braggers and admirers of themselves as Balth Castillo has truly noted of them this natural infirmity is most eminent in old woman and such as are poor solitary live in most base esteem and beggary or such as our witches and so much that wirus baptisa portra alricus molotor edwicus do refer all that witches are said to do to imagination alone and the sumer of melancholy and whereas it is controverted whether they can be witch cattle to death ride in the air upon a cow staff out of a chimney top transform themselves into cats dogs etc translate bodies from place to place meet in dance as they do or have carnal copulation with the devil they ascribe all to this redundant melancholy which domineers in them to some nefarious potions and natural causes the devil's policy non-landed omniau saith virus at quid marium fuck yunt dilamis book three chapter thirty six ut pututur salam vitae atam habient phatasium they do no such wonders at all only their brains are crazed they think they are witches and can do hurt but do not but this opinion bodin arrestus danayus scribanus sebastian mckelis campanella descentsu reiru book four chapter nine dandinus the jesuit book two the anime explode sikagna confutes at large that witches are melancholy they deny not but not out of corrupt fantasy alone so do delude themselves and others or to produce such effects subsection six parents a cause by propagation that other inward inbred cause of melancholy is our temperature in whole or part which we receive from our parents which furnelius calls parettor naritam or unnatural it being a hereditary disease for as he justifies quale parentum maximi patris semen obtirigret tails evandut similaris quincanque itiam morbo patre cum generat teneture cum simin transferts in prolem such as the temperature of the father is such as the suns and look what disease the father had when he begot him his son will have after him and is as well inheritor of his infirmities as of his lands and where the complexion and constitution of the father is corrupt there saith roger bacon becon the complexion and constitution of the son must needs be corrupt and so the corruption is derived from the father to the son now this doth not so much appear in the composition of the body according to that of Hippocrates in habit, proportion, scars and other liniments but in manners and conditions of the mind et patrim in natus abanut cum simin moris celuchus had an anchor on his die so had his posterity as tragus records book 15 lepidus in plinie book 7 chapter 17 was pure blind so was his son that famous family Aeneobarabi were known of old and so sure named from their red beards the australian lip and those indian flat noses are propagated the bavarian chin and goggle eyes amongst the jews as book storifus observes their voice, pace, gesture looks are likewise derived with all the rest of their conditions and infirmities such a mother, such a daughter their very effectuous lemnus contends to follow their seed and the malice and bad conditions of children are many times holy to be imputed to their parents a need not, therefore, make any doubt of melancholy but that is an inheritary disease paracelsius inexpress words affirms it libera dimorbis tome 4 tract 1 so doth creto in an epistle of his monveius so doth brunos seidaleus in his book dimorbo incuribile montaltus proves chapter 11 out of hypocrites and plutarch that such hereditary dispositions are frequent at hank incuit ferri ror ob participatam melancholicum intempereritum speaking of a patient i think he became so by participation of melancholy daniel's scenaritus book 1 part 2 chapter 9 will have his melancholy constitution derived not only from the father to the son but to the whole family sometimes quandoque totus femilius hereditativum forestus in his medicinial observations illustrates this point with an example of a merchant his patient that had this infirmity by inheritance so doth rada recuse afonseca tome 1 consultation 69 by an instance of a young man that was so affected ex-smatre melancholica had a melancholy mother at vectu melancholico and bad diet together ludoficus mersatus a spanish physician in that excellent tract which he has likely written of hereditary diseases tom2 book 5 reckons up leprosy as those galbots in gascony hereditary lepros pox, stone, gout, epilepsy et cetera among the rest this and madness are a set time comes to many which he calls a miraculous thing in nature it sticks forever to them as an incurable habit and that which is more to be wondered at it skips in some families the father and goes to the son or takes every other and sometimes every third in a lineal descent and doth not always produce the same but some like and a symbolizing disease these secondary causes hence derived and commonly so powerful that as wolfis holds sepe, mutant side room they do often alter the primary causes and decrees of the heavens for these reasons be like the hereditary diseases forbidding such marriages as are any wit allied and as mercadus adviseth all families to take such seferie poset quae maximae distant natura and to make choice of those that are most differing in complexion from them if they love their own and respect the common good and sure i think it heth been ordered by gods a special providence that all in ages there should be as usually there is once in six hundred years a transmigration of nations to amend and purify their blood as we alter seed upon our land and that there should be as it were inundation of those northern goths and vandals and many such like people which came out from the continent of scandia and sarmantia as some suppose and over ran as a deluge most part of europe and africa to alter for our good our complexions which were much defaced with hereditary infirmities which by our lust and temperance we had contracted a sound generation of strong and able men were sent among us as those northern men usually are sent and free from diseases to qualify and make us as those poor naked indians are generally at this day and those about brazil as a late writer observes in the isle of maragnen free thorn all hereditary diseases or other contagion whereas without help of physics they live commonly 120 years or more as in the oracidus and many other places such are the common effects of temperance and the intemperance but i will descend to particular and show by what means and by whom especially his infirmity is derived on to us philex cenobus nati rarosunt fermitemparamanti old men's children are seldom of a good temperament as galtzius suppose and therefore must apt to this disease and as levinus lemnus father adds old men beget most part wayward peevish, sad, melancholy sons and seldom marry he that begets a child on a full stomach will either have a sick child or a crazed son as carton thinks or if the parents be sick or have any great pain of the head or medrum headache heronimus wolfius and get a child it will never likely have a good brain as gilius argues book 12, chapter 1 ebri gignot ebrius one drunkard begets another seth plutarch whose sentence lemnus approves asarius cruteus macrobius avicenna and Aristotle himself foolish drunken or harebrained woman most part being fourth children morosos at langudius and so likewise he that lies with a monstrous woman intemperantia venerus quam innautis pretcertium insectator lemnus qui exorus annuit nula menstruae de carusus retoyne habitat-necked observato interlunio precipua cess noxia pernitosia concabitum hunk exitaleum idio ido et pesterfrium vocat rodero cus acastro lucanatus detestent ur ad unum omnes meditae tum et quartaluna conceptae plumeque et amites gjelere stalidi morbosi impiuri invaleidi tetra lu sordidi minamae vitale omnebus bonis corporus atque animi destituti et laborum natae cesenioris incuit estutatius et caculis et aleae judae maximae caculis et aleae judae maximae insectontur fodum hunk et immunendum apud christianus concabitum ut elicitum abhorrent et apud suos prohibient et pod christiani totis leprosii et pod christiani totis leprosii alementes tot morbili impegedinis alfi pessore dutis et facidi de colorationes tamalti morbi epidemis et serbi et venesgnosi sind in hunk et midium concabitum rejectiunt et crudelis impegnora vocaan quiquarta luna profluente ilviue concubitum hunk non prehorrescunt damnavit olem devina lex et morte malktavit funjomoli homnis leviticus 1820 et indae nati secui de formis et multipeter dilipatitus quiud non quaterniret et imiunda millire gregorius magnus petenti agastu nun dred apud britianos hujus moli concabitum toloraret severer prohibit virusus to mexere fominas inconsutisus menstruus et cetera I spare to english this which I have said another cause some give inordinate diet as if a man eat garlic onions fat over much study too hard be over sorrowful dull heavy dejected in mind perplexed in his thoughts fearful et cetera their children saith cardan desubtiliante ria rum book 18 will be much subject to madness and melancholy for if the spirits of the brain be fuzzled or misaffected by such means at such a time their children will be fuzzled in the brain may be fuzzled and be contented all their lives some are of opinion and maintain that of paradox or problem that wise men beget commonly fools sudius gives instance in aristarchus the grand married do us relecuit phileus aristarchum et aristochorum embos stultos and which Erasmus ergith in his moria fools beget wise men Subtilante, Rebrum Book 12, gives this cause. Cronium Spiritus Studium Resolavantior, et in Cerebrum Ventior Accordae, because their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned into animal drawn from the heart and those other parts of the brain, Lemnius subscribes to that of Cardon, and assigns this reason, quadprisolvant diabetum langide et abskintantir, unde fotus aparentum generositate desisit. They pay their debt, as Paul calls it, to their wives remissously, by which means their children are weakens, and many idiots and fools. Some other causes are given which properly pertain, and do proceed from the mother, if she be over dull, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and melancholy, not only at the same time of conception, but even all the while. She carries the child in her womb, safe for Nelius. Her son will be so likewise affected, and worse as Lemnius adds, Book 4, Chapter 7. If she grieve over much, be disquieted, or by any casualty, be affrighted and terrified by some fearful object. Harder seen, she endangers her child, and spoils the temperature of it, for the strange imagination of a woman works effectually upon her infant, that, as Baptiste supports, approves. Cicciognagmone, Solestius, Book 5, Chapter 2. She leaves a mark upon it, which is most especially seen in such, as prodigiously, long for such and such meets. The child will love those meets. Seth for Nelius, and be addicted to like-humors. If a great-bellied woman see a hair, her child will often have a hieralip, as we call it. Garchaeus did judiceus, genet turram, Chapter 33, hath a memorable example of one Thomas Nicholl, born in the city of Bradburg, 1551, that went reeling and staggering all the days of his life. As if he would fall to the ground, because his mother, being great with child, saw a drunken man reeling in the street. Such another I find in Martin, when reach use. Commentaries de Ortu monstrelrum, Chapter 17. I saw, Seth he, at Wittenberg in Germany, a citizen, that looked like a carcass. I asked him the chance, he replied. His mother, when she bore him, in her room, saw a carcass by chance, and was so sore afraid with it, that ex eofotus easimulatus, from a ghastly impression, the child was like it. So many, several ways, are we plagued and punished for our father's defaults. In so much, that as for Nelius, truly safe. It is the greatest part of our felicity to be well-born, and it were happy for humankind, if only such parents, as our sound of body and mind, should be suffered to marry. And husband man will so none but the best and choicest seed upon his land. He will not rare a bull or a horse, except he be right-shapen in all parts. Or permit him to cover a mare, except he be well assured of his breed. We make choice of the best rams for our sheep, rare the nightest keen. We keep the best dogs, quanto id, deligentius, impracrandis, liberis, observandum. And how careful, then, should we be, in beginning of our children? In former times some countries have been so chari in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked, or deformed in body or mind, they made him away. So did the Indians of old, by a relation of concertius. And many other, well-governed, commonwealths, according to the discipline of those times, here to fore, in Scotland, said Roweth Theus, if any were visited, with the falling sickness, madness, gout, leprosy, or any such dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son. He was instantly guided, a woman kept, from all company of men. And if by chance having some such disease he were found to be with child, she be with her brood, were buried alive. And this was done for the common good, lest the whole nation should be injured or corrupted, a severe doom, you will say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into than it is, for now by our too much facility in this kind in giving way for all to marry that will. Too much liberty and indulgence, in tolerating all sorts, there is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free from some gravest infirmity or other. When no choice is had, but still the eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race. Or if rich, be they fools or deserts, lame or maimed, unable, and temperate, dissolute, exhaust through riot, as he said, Jorah hereditario, Saphir Jobenture, they must be wise and able by inheritance. It comes to pass that our generation is corrupt. We have many weak persons, both in body and mind, many feral diseases raging among us, crazed families, parentis, peremptoris, our fathers bad, and we are like to be worse. I must now proceed to the outward and adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born. And those are either evident, remote, or inward, and descendant, and the nearest, continent causes, some call them. These outward, remote, precedent causes are subdivided again into necessary and not necessary. Necessary, because we cannot avoid them, but they will alter us, as they are used or abused, are those six non-natural things, so much spoken of amongst physicians, which are principal causes of this disease. For almost in every consultation, whereas they shall come to speak of the causes, the fault is found, and this most part objected to the patient. Pecavit Curca res sex non-naturalis. He hath still offended in one of those six. Montanas, consulted about a melancholy Jew, gives that sentence. So did Frisa Melica in the same place, and in his 244th council, censoring a melancholy soldier, assigns that reason of his malady. He offended in all those six non-natural things, which were the outward causes, from which came those inward obstructions, and so in the rest. These six non-natural things are diet, retention, and evacuation, which are more material than the other because they make new matter, or else are conversant in keeping or expelling it. The other four are air, exercise, sleeping, waking, and perturbations of the mind, which only alter the matter. The first of these is diet, which consists in meat and drink, and causes melancholy, as it offends in substance or accidents, that is, quantity, quality, or the like. And well it may be called a material cause. Since that, as Phonellius holds, it hath such a power in begetting of diseases, and yields the matter and sustenance of them, from neither air nor perturbations, nor any of those other evident causes take place, or work this effect, except the constitution of body, and preparation of humours, do concur. That a man may say, this diet is the mother of diseases, let the father be what he will, and from this alone melancholy and frequent other maladies arise. Many physicians, I confess, have written copious volumes of this one subject of the nature and qualities of all manner of meats, as, namely, Galen, Isaac the Jew, Haleabas, Avicenna, Meswe, also four Arabians, Gordonius, Villanavarnas, Weca, Johannes Bruerinas, Citologia de Esculentes et Porculentes, Michael Savanarola, Anthony Fomonellis, Fibre de Regimencenum, Curio in his comment on Scola Salerna, Godefridus Stechius, Marcellius Cognatus, Viquinas, Vanzovius, Fonseca, Lessius, Magninus, Fritagius, Hugo Fridevalius, etc., besides many other in English, and almost every peculiar physician discourses at large of all peculiar meats in his chapter of melancholy. Yet because these books are not at hand to every man, I will briefly touch what kind of meats engender this humour, through their several species, and which are to be avoided. How they alter and change the matter, spirits first, and after humours, by which we are preserved, and the constitution of our body, Phonelius and others will show you. I hasten to the thing itself, and first of such diet as offends in substance. Beef Beef, a strong and hearty meat, cold in the first degree, dry in the second, Seis Galen, Book III, Chapter I, the Alimentorum Facultatibus, is condemned by him and all succeeding authors, to breed gross melancholy blood. Good for such as our sound and of a strong constitution, for labouring men if ordered a right, corned, young, of an ox, for all gilded meats in every species are held best. All if old, such as have been tied out with labour, are preferred, for banis and sabelicus commend Portugal beef to be the most savoury, best and easiest of digestion. We commend ours, but all is rejected, and unfit for such as lead a resty life, any ways inclined to melancholy or dry of complexion. Talis, Galen thinks, de facile melancholicis egritudinibus capiuntor. Pork Pork of all meats is most nutritive in its own nature, but altogether unfit for such as live at ease, are, any ways unsound of body or mind, too moist, full of humours, and therefore noxia delicatis, seis of anorola, ex arum usul ut dubitetor, and febris quartana generetor, nought for queasy stomachs, in so much that frequent use of it may breed a quartan agu. Goat Sabunarola discumends goat's flesh, and so doth Breorinus, book 13, chapter 19, calling it a filthy beast and ramish, and therefore suppose that it will breed rank and filthy substance. Yet kid, such as our young and tender, Isaac accepts, Breorinus and Galen, book 1, chapter 1, the elementorum facultatibus. Heart and red deer hath an evil name. It yields gross nutriment, a strong and great-grained meat, next unto a horse, which altogether some countries eat, as tartars, and they of China, yet Galen, condemns. Young falls are as commonly eaten in Spain as red deer, and to furnish their navies, about malaga especially, often used, but such meats ask for long baking or seething to qualify them, and yet all will not serve. Old venison is melancholy and begets bad blood, a pleasant meat in great esteem with us, for we have more parks in England than there are in all Europe besides in our solemn feasts. Tis somewhat better hunted than otherwise, and well prepared by cookery, but generally bad and seldom to be used. Hair Hair, a black meat, melancholy, and hard of digestion, it breeds incubus, often eaten, and causes fearful dreams, so doth all venison, and is condemned by a jury of positions. Misaldus and some others say, that hair is a merry meat, and that it will make one fair, as Marshall's epigram testifies to Galea, but this is per accident, because of the good sport it makes, merry company and good discourse that is commonly at the eating of it, and not otherwise to be understood. Coneys Coneys are of the nature of hairs. Magninus compares them to beef, pig, and goat, yet young rabbits by all men are approved to be good. Generally all such meats, as our hard of digestion, breed melancholy. Aroteus, book 7, chapter 5, reckons up heads and feet, bowels, brains, entrails, marrow, fat, blood, skins, and those inward parts, as hearts, lungs, liver, spleen, etc. They are rejected by Isaac, book 2, part 3, Magninus, part 3, chapter 17, Bruinus, book 12, savanna-rola. Milk Milk and all that comes of milk, as butter and cheese, curds, etc., increase melancholy, way only accepted, which is most wholesome. Some accept asses milk. The rest, to such as our sound, is nutritive and good, especially for young children, but because soon turn to corruption, not good for those that have unclean stomachs, are subject to headache, or have green wounds, stone, etc. Of all cheeses, I take that kind which we call Banbury cheese to be the best, ex vertustus pessimus, the older, stronger, and harder, the worst, as languished is Corseth in his epistle to Melanchthon, cited by Mizaldus, Isaac, Galen III, Dikibis, Bonisuki, etc. Fowl Amongst fowl, peacocks, and pigeons, all fennifowl are forbidden, as ducks, geese, swans, herons, cranes, coots, didappas, water hens, with all those teals, curds, sheildrakes, and peckled fowls, that come hither in winter out of Scandia, Muscovy, Greenland, Friesland, which half the year are covered all over with snow and frozen up. Though these be fair in feathers, pleasant in taste, and have a good outside, like hypocrites, white in plumes and soft, their flesh is hard, black, unwholesome, dangerous, melancholy meat. Grovant et putref accient, Stomachum, saith Isaac, their young ones are more tolerable, but young pigeons he quite disapproves. Fishes Varsus and magninus discomend all fish, and say they breed Viscosities, slimy nutriment, little and humorous nourishment. Savonarola adds cold, moist, and phlegmatic, Isaac, and therefore unwholesome for all cold and melancholy conflections. Others making a difference, rejecting only amongst fresh waterfish, eel, tench, lamprey, crawfish, which bright approves Chapter 6, and such as are bred in muddy and standing waters, and have a taste of mud, as Francisca Sponsoretus poetically defines. Libus Nam piscus omnis, quistagna, lacus quae frequentant, semper plus succhi de terioris habent. All fish that standing pools and lakes frequent, do ever yield bad juice, and nourishment. Lamprey's, Paulus Jovius, Chapter 34. De piscus fluvialibus, highly magnifies and saith, none speak against them, but ineptae et scrupulusii, some scrupulous persons, but eels, Chapter 33, he abhorrath in all places at all times, all physicians to test them, especially about the solstice. Gomatius, Book 1, Chapter 22, de salli, doth immoderately extol sea-fish, which others as much vilify, and above the rest, dried, sauced, endured fish, as ling, firmardus, red herrings, spratts, stockfish, habadine, forjon, all shellfish. Tumissii bright accepts lobster and crab. Misarius commends salmon, which Breurinus contradicts, Book 22, Chapter 17. Magninus rejects conga, sturgeon, turbid, mackerel, skate. Carp is a fish of which I know not what to determine. Francisca Sponsoretus accounts it a muddy fish, Hippolytus salpianus, in his book De Piscium Natura et Preparatione, which was printed at Rome in Folio 1554, with most elegant pictures, esteem's carp no better than a slimy, watery meat. Paulus Jovius, on the other side, disallowing Tench, approves of it. So doth Dubravius in his books of fishponds. Fritagius extols it for an excellent wholesome meat, and puts it among the fishes of the best rank, and so do most of our country gentlemen that store their ponds almost with no other fish. But this controversy is easily decided in my judgment by Breurinus, Book 22, Chapter 13. The difference rises from the sight and nature of Paul's, sometimes muddy, sometimes sweet. They are in taste as the place is from whence they be taken. In like manner almost we may conclude of other fresh fish. But see more in Rondolatius, Bolognus, Oribaceus, Book 7, Chapter 22, Isaac, Book 1, especially Hippolytus salpianus, who is in star-omnium solace, etc. Howsoever they may be wholesome and approved, much use of them is not good. Forestus, in his medicinal observations, relates that Carthusian friars, whose living is most part fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other order, and that he found by experience being sometimes their physician ordinary at Delft in Holland. He exemplifies it with an instance of one Buscourtnaise, a Carthusian of a ruddy colour, and well-liking, that by solitary living and fish-eating became so misaffected. Herbs. Among herbs to be eaten I find gourds, cucumbers, colwards, melons, disallowed, but especially cabbage. It causes troublesome dreams, and sends up black vapours to the brain. Galen De Locus affectus, Book 3, Chapter 6. Of all herbs condemns cabbage, and Isaac, Book 2, Chapter 1, Anemai Gravitatum, fuck it. It brings heaviness to the soul. Some are of the opinion that all raw herbs and salads breed melancholy blood, except bugloss and lettuce. Gravitatum speaks against all herbs and words, except borage, bugloss, fennel, parsley, dill, balm, succary. Ragninus, omnace her by a simplicator malai, via kibi, all herbs are simply able to feed on, as he thinks. So did that scoffing cook in flautus hold. Non ego conum condio, ud alii coqui solent, qui mihi conditer frate in fratiness proferent, forves qui convivas vacuent, herbasqui agorant. Like other cooks I do not sap adress, that put whole meadows into a platter, and make no better of their guests than beaves, with herbs and grass to feed them fatter. Our Italians and Spaniards do make a whole dinner of herbs and salads, which are said flautus calls coines terrestris, hores coines sine sanguine, by which means as he follows it. Ick hominace tam brevam, vitam colant, qui herbasqui hojust modi in alvong sum congorant, for middolo sum dictu, non e sum modo, cos herbas pecodes non edant, hominace edant. Their lives that each such herbs must needs be short, and is a fearful thing for to report, that men should feed on such a kind of meat, which very Germans would refuse to eat. They are windy, and not fit therefore to be eaten of all men raw, though qualified with oil but in wroths, or otherwise. See more of these in every husband-man and herbalist. Roots Roots et si corandum gentium opae sint, seis drurinas. The wealth of some countries, and sole food, are windy and bad, or troublesome to the head, as onions, garlic, scallions, turnip, carrots, radishes, parsnips. Whoso disallows all roots, though some approve of parsnips and potatoes. Bagninas, ives of Kratos' opinion. They trouble the mind, sending gross fumes to the rain, make men mad, especially garlic, onions, if a man liberally feed on them a year together. Guionarius complains of all manner of roots, and so doth berorinas even parsnips themselves, which are the best. Book 9, Chapter 14. Fruits Pastinacorum usus succus gignit improbus. Cradle utterly forbids all manner of fruits, as pears, apples, plums, cherries, strawberries, nuts, medlers, serves, etc. Sanguinum inficunt, says Villanovanus. They infect the blood and putrefite, magninus holds, and must not therefore be taken, via kiwi, out quantitate magna, not to make a meal of, or in any great quantity. Sanguinum makes that a cause of their continual sickness at Fessa in Africa, because they live so much on fruits, eating them thrice a day. Laurentius approves of many fruits in his tract of melancholy, which others disallow, and amongst the rest apples, which some likewise commend, sweetings, pear-manes, pipins, as good against melancholy. But to him that is anyway inclined to or touched with this melody, Nicolás Piso in his practics forbids all fruits as windy, or to be sparingly eaten at least, and not raw. Amongst other fruits through arenas out of Galen, except grapes and figs, but I find them likewise rejected. Pulse All pulse are not, beans, peas, vetchers, etc. They fill the brain, saith Isaac, with gross fumes, breed black thick blood, and cause troublesome dreams. And therefore, that which Pythagoras said to his scholars of old, may be for ever applied to melancholy men, a fabbis abstinente. Eat no peas nor beans, yet to such as will needs eat them, I would give this counsel, to prepare them according to those rules that Arnoldus Villanovanus and Fray Tagius prescribe for eating and dressing, fruits, herbs, fruits, pulse, etc. Spices cause hot and head melancholy, and are for that cause forbidden by our physicians to such men as are inclined to this melody, as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, dates, etc., honey, and sugar. Some accept honey. To those that are cold it may be tolerable, but dulciase in bilum verdant, sweets turn into bile, they are obstructive. So therefore forbids all spice in a consultation of his, for a melancholy schoolmaster. Omnia aromatica ed quid quid sanguinem adurit. So doth fornelius guianarius mercurialis. To these I may add all sharp and sour things, luscious and oversweet, or fat, as oil, vinegar, verdues, mustard, salt, as sweet things are obstructive, so these are corrosive. So Maceus in his books de Salle, book 1, chapter 21, highly commends salt. So doth codroncus in his tract de Salle absinthei. Lemlius, book 3, chapter 9, de occultis naturimiraculis. Yet common experience finds salt, and salt meets to be great procurers of this disease, and for that cause be like those Egyptian priests abstained from salt, even so much as in their bread, utsine perturbatione anima eset, says mine author, that their souls might be free from perturbations. Bread Bread that is made of baser grain, as peas, beans, oats, rye, or over hard baked, crusty and black, is often spoken against as causing melancholy juice and wind. Joel Mayer, in the first book of his history of Scotland, contends much for the wholesomeness of oat and bread. It was objected to him then living in Paris, in France, that his countrymen fed on oats and based grain, as a disgrace, but he doth ingeniously confess, Scotland, Wales, and a third part of England did most part use that kind of bread, that it was as wholesome as any grain, and yielded as good nourishment. And yet Wecker, out of Galen, calls it horse-meat, and fitter for Germans than men to feed on. But read Galen himself, Book I, de Kibis, Bonnie, et Mali, Sookie, more largely discoursing of corn and bread. Wine All black wines over hot, compound, strong, thick drinks, as muscadine, mumsie, alicant, rumney, brown bastard, mesagland, and the like, of which they have thirty several kinds in muscaby. All such made drinks are hurtful in this case, to such as a hot, or of a sanguine colic complexion, young, or inclined to head melancholy. For many times the drinking of wine alone calls with it. Arculanus, Chapter 16 in 9 Rassus, puts in wine for great cause, especially if it be immoderately used. Guianarius tells a story of two Dutchmen, to whom he gave entertainment in his house, that in one month's space were both melancholy by drinking of wine. One did not but sing the other sigh. Galen decorses Morboreum, Chapter 3, Mathiolus on Dioscorides, and above all other Andreas Bacchus. Book 3, 18, 19, 20, have reckoned upon those inconveniences that come by wine, yet notwithstanding all this, to such as are cold or sluggish melancholy, a cup of wine is good physics, and so doth mercurialis grant, in that case, if the temperature be cold, as to most melancholy many it is, wine is much commended, if it be moderately used. Cider, Peri Cider and Peri are both cold and windy drinks, and for that cause to be neglected, and so are all those hot-spiced strong drinks. Beer Beer, if it be over new or over stale, over strong or not sodden, smell of the cask, sharp or sour, is most unwholesome, threats and gulls, etc. Henricus Aeureus, in a consultation of his, for one that laboured of hyperchondriacal melancholy, discommends beer, so doth creto, in that excellent council of his, as too windy, because of the hop. But he means be like that thick black Bohemian beer used in some other parts of Germany. Nilspecius illa, Dom Bibitor nilchlorius est domingitor, unde constat, quad multus ficus in corpore linquete. Nothing comes in so thick, nothing goes out so thin, it must needs follow, then, the dregs are left within. As that old poet scoffed, calling it, Stigii monstrum conforme paludii, a monstrous drink, like the river Styx. But let them say, as they list, to such as are accustomed unto it, it is a most wholesome, so Polydor Virgil calleth it, and a pleasant drink. It is more subtle and better, for the hop that rarefies it, hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, furetius approves, and many others. Waters. Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, such as come forth of pools and moats, where hemp has been steeped, or slimy fishes live, are most unwholesome, putrefied, and full of mites, creepers, slimy, muddy, unclean, corrupt, impure, by reason of the sun's heat, and still standing. They cause foulest temperatures in the body and mind of man, are unfit to make drink of, to dress meat with, or to be used about men inwardly or outwardly. They are good for many domestic uses, to wash horses, water cattle, etc., or in time of necessity, but not otherwise. Some of the opinion that such fat-standing waters make the best beer, and that seething doth defecate it, as carden-holes, book 13 desubtil etate verum. It mends the substance and savour of it, but it is a paradox. Such beer may be stronger, but not so wholesome as the other, as Gilberta's truly justifies out of Galen, that the seething of such impure waters does not purge or purify them. Book 31, Chapter 3, is of the same tenet, and Petrus Crescentius, the omnibus agricultore, partibus, Book 1 and Book 4, Chapter 11 and Chapter 45. Pamphilius herilarchus, such waters are not, not to be used, and by the testimony of Galen breed ause, dropsees, pleuroses, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the eyes, cause a bad temperature, and ill-disposition the whole body, with bad colour. This Gilberta's stiffly maintains that it causeth blear eyes, bad colour, and many loathsome diseases to such as use it. This which they say, stands with good reason, for as geographers relate, the water of astrocan breeds worms in such as drink it. Aixius, or as now called Verdiuri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aliakman, now Pelleca, and now the stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, see Poliri Dukas. El Orbanus Rohimus refers that struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as Munster does that of Valesians in the Alps, and Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania about Labdon to proceed from the same cause, and that the filth is derived from the water to their bodies. So that they that use filthy, standing, ill-coloured, thick, muddy water, must needs have muddy, ill-coloured, impure, and infirm bodies, and because the body works upon the mind, they shall have grosser understandings, dull, foggy, melancholy spirits, and be really subject to all manner of infirmities. With these noxious symbols, we may reduce an infinite number of compound, artificial, made dishes, of which our cooks afford us a great variety, as tailors do fashions in our apparel. Such are puddings stuffed with blood, or otherwise composed, baked meats, sourced endured meats, fried and broiled buttered meats, candied, powdered and overdried, full cakes, simnals, buns, crackles made with butter, spiced, etc., fritters, pancakes, pies, sausages, and those several sauces, sharp or over-sweet, of which Cientia popini, as Seneca calls it, have served those apichian tricks and perfumed dishes, which Adrian the Sixth Pope so much admired in the accounts of his predecessor, Leo Decimus, and which prodigious riot and prodigality have invented in this age. These do generally engender gross humours, fill the stomach with crudities, and all those inward parts with obstructions. Montanes gives instance, in a melancholy Jew, that by eating such tart sauces, made dishes and salt meats, with which he was over much delighted, became melancholy, and was evil affected. Such examples are familiar and common. Section 27 Partition 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection Quantity of diet or cause There is not so much harm proceeding from the substance itself of meat and quality of it, in ill dressing and preparing, as there is from the quantity, disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, in temperance, over much, or over little taking of it. A true saying is, pluris crapula quang gladius. This gluttony kills more than the sword, the omnivorentia edharmicudia gula, this all-devouring and murdering gut. And that of plinny is truer. Simple diet is the best, heaping up of several meats is pernicious, and sauce is worse, many dishes bring many diseases. Avocon cries out, that nothing is worse than to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats longer than ordinary. From thence proceed our infirmities, and tis the fountain of all diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross humours. Thence saethronelius, cum crudities, wind, opylations, cacochymia, plethora, cacexia, bradyopepsia, hinc subatae, mortes, adcuei intestata sinectus, sudden death, etc. and what not. As a lamp is choked, with a multitude of oil, or a little fire with over much wood quite extinguished, so is the natural heat with the moderate eating strangled in the body. Pernitiosa centina est abdomen insaturabile, one says. An insatiable paunch is a pernicious sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both of body and mind. Mercurialis will have it a peculiar cause of this private disease. Paul Inanda illustrates this of Mercurialis, with an example of one so melancholy, ab intempestivis commesatianubus, unseasable feasting. Crater confirms as much, in that often cited council, XXI, Book II, putting superfluous eating for a main cause. But what need I seek farther for proofs? Here Hippocrates himself, Book II, aphorism X, impure bodies the more they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is putrefied with vicious humours. And yet for all this harm, which apparently follows suppriting and drunkenness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kind. Read what Johannes Stuckius has written lately of this subject, in his great volume The Antiquorum convivius, and of our present age, Crum portentosae corenae, prodigious supprers, creedum invitent ad corainum efferent ad sepulchrum, what phagos, epicuris, apatios, heliogables are times afford. Neucullus's ghost walks still, and every man desires to sup in Apollo. Esop's costly dish is ordinarily served up. Magus illa duvant, quai pluris e mentor. The dearest cakes are best, and it is an ordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pounds on a dish, some thousand crowns upon a dinner. Mully Hammett, king of Fez and Morocco, spent three pounds on the source of a capon. It is nothing in our times. We scorn all that is cheap. We loathe the very light, some of us, as Seneca notes, because it comes free, and we are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy them not. This air we breathe is so common, we care not for it. Nothing pleaseth but what is dear. And if we be witty in anything, it is ad gulam. If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the pallet, and to satisfy the gut. A cooker old was a base-nave, as Livy complains, but now a great man in request. Cookery has become an art, a noble science. Cooks are gentlemen, Ventodeus. They wear their brains in their bellies, and their guts in their heads, as a gripper taxed some parasites of his time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a man should run upon the point of a sword, us quai dum wupanto comedant. They eat till they burst. All day, all night, let the physician say what he will, imminent danger, and feral diseases are now ready to seize upon them. That will eat till they vomit. Edunt ut vomant, vomut ut edant, saith Seneca, which Dion relates of Vitelius. Solo transitu cuborum nutiri tuticatus. His meat did pass through and away, or till they burst again. Trage animantium ventrim onorant, and rake over all the world, as so many slaves, belly gods, and land-serpents. Ed totus orbis ventri nimis angustus. The whole world cannot satisfy their appetite. Sea, land, rivers, lakes, etc., may not give content to their raging guts. To make up the mess, what a moderate drinking in every place. Venum portum portut tribut annus. How they flocked to the tavern, as if they were frugues consumere natae, born to no other end but to eat and drink, like Ophelia's Bibulus, that famous Roman parasite. Cridon vixit, out bibit, out minx it, as so many casques to hold wine, yea worse than a casque, that Mars wine, and itself is not marred by it. Yet these are brave men, Salanus ebrius was no braver. Quae furand vitia morae sunt, tis now the fashion of our times, an honour. Nunc vero res ista eo reddit, as Crisostomo, Sermol, 30, in 5 Ephesios comments. Ut effeminatae, ridendai quae ignaviae local habiator, nole inebriari, tis now come to pass that he is no gentleman, a very milk-soap, a clown of no bringing up, that will not drink. Fit for no company, he is your only gallant that plays it off finest. No disparagement now to stagger in the streets, real, rave, etc. But much to his fame and renown, as in like-case Epidicus told Thesprio, his fellow servant, in the poet, aide-apole faciness in probom. One urged, the other replied, at jam alie vercari idem, erit illi illa reis onoi, tis now no fault, there be so many brave examples to bear one out, tis a credit to have a strong brain and carry his liquor well, the soul-contention who can drink most, and fox his fellow the soonest. Tis the summum bonum of our tradesmen, their felicity, life and soul, tanta dulcadine affectant, sayeth Pliny, Book 14, Chapter 12, Ut magna pars non aliud vitae premium intelligat, their chief comfort, to be merry together in an alehouse or tavern, as our modern muscovites do in their mead-ins, and turks in their coffee-houses, which much resemble our taverns. They will labour hard all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni le boris, as St. Ambrose adds, in a tippling feast, convert day into night, as Seneca taxes summon his times, pervertant of vicia annuctis et lucis, when we rise they commonly go to bed, like our antipodes. Nosquay will be primus equis oriens aflavit annhelis, illis sera rubens ascended luminal vespa, so did Petronius in Tacitus, heliogavulus in Lampridius, noctis figillipat ad ipsum, vane di amtotum sterte bat, he drank the night away till rising dawn, then snored out all the day. Snimdiris the Sibirite never saw the sunrise or set so much as once in twenty years, Veris against whom Tully so much invades, in winter he never was extra tectum vix extra lectum, never almost out of bed, still wenching and drinking, so did he spend his time, and so do myriads in our days. They have gymnasia bibonum, schools and rendezvous. These centres and lapithae, toss pots and bowls, as so many bowls, invent new tricks as sausages, anchovies, tobacco, caviar, pickled oysters, herrings, frumados, etc. Innumerable salt meets to increase their appetite, and study how to hurt themselves by taking antidotes to carry their drink for better. And when nortel serves, they will go forth, or be conveyed out, to empty their gorge, that they may return to drink afresh. They make laws, in sun as leges, contra bibendi falakias, and brag of it when they have done, crowning that man that is soonest gone, as their drunken predecessors have done, quid egovideo, fiscum corona pseudolum ebrium tuum. And when they are dead, will have a can of wine with marons old woman to be engraven on their tombs, so they triumph in villainy, and justify their wickedness. With rabali, that French Lucian, drunkenness is better for the body than physic, because there be more old drunkards than old physicians. Many such frothy arguments they have, inviting and encouraging others to do as they do, and love them dearly for it, no glue like to that of good fellowship. But Alcibiades in Greece, Nero, Bronosus, Helio Gavalus in Rome, or Ale Gavalus rather, as he was styled of old, as Ignatius proves out of some old coins. So do many great men still, as Heras Bacchius observes, when a prince drinks till his eyes stare, like Bidius in the poet, Ile Impeger haus it, smomantum vino patorum. A thirsty soul, he took challenge and embraced the bowl, with pleasure swill the gold, and more seized to draw till he the bottom of the brimmer's soul. And comes off clearly, sound trumpets, fife and drums, the spectators will applaud him, the bishop himself, if he belie them not, with his chaplain will stand by and do as much. Odignum princape haus them, to us done like a prince. Our Dutchmen invite all comers with a pale and a dish, but at infundibula intergras obus exoriant, et in monstrosis populis, ipsi monstrosi monstrosius epotant, making bowels of their bellies, incredibly dictul, as one of their own countrymen complains, quantum licoris im modestissima gens capiat, etc. How they love a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it, hate him that will not fledge him, stab him, kill him, a most intolerable offence, and not be forgiven. He is a mortal enemy that will not drink with him, as Munster relates of the Saxons. So in Poland he is the best servitor, and the honestest fellow, as Alexander Gagrinus, that drinketh most health to the honour of his master, he shall be rewarded as a good servant, and held the bravest fellow that carries his liquor best, when a brewer's horse will bear much more than any sturdy drinker. Yet for his noble exploits in this kind he shall be accounted a most valiant man, for tam inter epilas fortis via ese portest ac in bello. As much bala is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good and prove it. Thus they many times wolfily pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts. Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads by two ceremonious and strict diet, being over precise, cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats, times, as that Medikina Statica prescribes. Just so many ounces at dinner, which Lessius enjoins, so much at supper, not a little more nor a little less of such meat, and at such hours, a diet drink in the morning, cock-broth, china-broth at dinner, plum-broth, a chicken, a rabbit, rib of a rack of mutton, wing of a capon, the merry thought of a hen, etc., to sound the bodies this is too nice and most absurd. Others offend in over much fasting, pining a daze, says Guianarius, and waking a knights, as many moors and toques in these are times do. Anchorites, monks, and the rest of that superstitious rank, as the same Guianarius witnesseth, that he hath often seen to have happened in his time, through immoderate fasting, have been frequently mad. Of such men be like Hippocrates speaks when, as he saith, they more offend into sparing diet, and are worse damnified than they that feed liberally, and are ready to surf it. End of Section 27. Section 28 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Morgan Scorpion. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1 by Robert Burton, Section 28. Partition 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsections 3 and 4. Custom of diet, delight, appetite, necessity, how they cause or hinder. No rule is so general, which admits not some exception. To this, therefore, which hath been hitherto said, for I shall otherwise put most men out of commons, and those inconveniences which proceed from the substance of meats, and intemperate or unseasonable use of them, customs somewhat detracts and qualifies, according to that of Hippocrates 2, Aphorisms 50. Such things as we have been long accustomed to, though they be evil in their own nature, yet they are less offensive. Otherwise it might well be objected that it were a mere tyranny to live after those strict rules of physics, for custom does alter nature itself, and to such as I use to them it makes bad meats wholesome and unseasonable times to cause no disorder. Cider and peri are windy drinks. So are all fruits windy in themselves, cold most part, yet in some shires of England, Normandy in France, grippers scour in Spain, tis their common drink, and they are no wit offended with it. In Spain, Italy and Africa they live most on roots, raw herbs, camels milk, and it agrees well with them, which to a stranger will cause much grievance. In Wales, Lactisinius Vescuntor, as Humphrey Lloyd confesseth, a cambrough Britain himself in his elegant epistle to Abraham Ortelius. They live most on white meats. In Holland on fish, roots, butter, and so at this day in Greece, as Bolognus observes, they had much rather feed on fish than flesh. With us Maxima pass Victus in Cannae consist it. We feed on flesh most part, saith Polydor Virgil, as all northern countries do, and it would be very offensive to us to live after their diet, or they to live after ours. We drink beer, they wine, they use oil, we butter, we in the north are great eaters, they most sparing in those hotter countries, and yet they and we, following our own customs, are well pleased. An Ethiopian of old, seeing an European eat bread, wandered, cormodus decoribus bescente vivirimus, how we could eat such kind of meats. So much differed his countrymen from ours in diet, that as mine author infers, see Chris Illorum, Victum apudnos aonulari velet. If any man should so feed with us, it would be all one to nourish, as Secuta aconitum or hellebore itself. At this day in China, the common people live in a manner altogether on roots and herbs, and to the wealthiest, horse, arse, mule, dogs, catflesh, is as delightsome as the rest. So Matthias Rickius, the Jesuit, relates, who lived many years amongst them. The Tatars eat raw meat, and most commonly horseflesh, drink milk and blood, as the nomadis of old, et lac concretum cum sangrine potat equino. They scoff at our Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, and horsemeat not fit for men, and yet Scalinger accounts them a sound and witty nation. Living a hundred years, even in the civilest country of them they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuit observed in his travels, from the great Mughals court by land to Peking, which Rickius contends to be the same with Camelu in Kataya. In Scandia their bread is usually dried fish, and so likewise in the Shedland Isles, and their other fare, as in Iceland, sayeth Distmarus Bleskenius, butter, cheese, and fish, their drink water, their lodging on the ground. In America in many places their bread is roots, their meat palmettoes, peanuts, potatoes, et cetera, and such fruits. There be of them, too, that familiarly drink salt sea water all their lives, eat raw meat, grass, and that with delight. In some fish, serpents, spiders, and in divers places they eat man's flesh, raw and roasted, even the emperor Montezuma himself. In some coasts again, one tree yields them coconuts, meat and drink, fire, fuel, a powerl, with his leaves, oil, vinegar, cover for houses, et cetera, and yet these men going naked, feeding course, live commonly a hundred years, are seldom or never sick, all which diet our physicians forbid. In Westphalia they feed most part on fat meats and words, knuckle deep, and call it cerebrum jovis. In the low countries with roots, in Italy frogs and snails are used. The turks, saith buspequeus, delight most in fried meats. In Muscovy garlic and onions are ordinary meat and sauce, which would be pernicious to such as are unaccustomed to them, delightsome to others, and all is because they have been brought up unto it. Husband men, and such as labour, can eat fat bacon, salt, gross meat, hard cheese, et cetera, or dura mesorum illa. Course bread at all times, go to bed and labour upon a full stomach, which to some idle persons would be present death, and is against the rules of physics, so that custom is all in all. Our travellers find this by common experience when they come in far countries and use their diet. They are suddenly offended, as are Hollanders and Englishmen, when they touch upon the coasts of Africa. Those Indian capes and islands are commonly molested with calentures, fluxes, and much distempered by reason of their fruits. Peregrina, esti suavio solent, beskentibus pertobationes, insignes at fere. Strange meats, though pleasant, cause notable alterations and distempers. On the other side, use or custom mitigates or makes all good again. Misredates, by often use, which Pliny Wondersat, was able to drink poison, and are made as courteous records, sent to Alexander from King Porus, was brought up with poison from her infancy. The Turks, safe Bologna's, Book III, Chapter 15, eat opium familiarly, a drama at once, and we dare not take ingrains. Garcia's abhorto writes of one whom he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten drams of opium in three days, and yet, consulto loque barter, spake understandingly, so much custom can do. Theophrastus speaks of a shepherd that could eat hellebor in substance, and therefore Cardon concludes out of Galen, consuretudinem, ut cunque furendam, nisi valde malum. Custom is, however, to be kept, except it be extremely bad. He advises all men to keep their old customs, and that by the authority of Hippocrates himself. Dandum aliquid tempore, etati radione, consuretudini, and therefore to continue as they began, be it diet, bath, exercise, et cetera, or whatsoever else. Another exception is delight or appetite to such and such meats, though they be hard of digestion, melancholy, yet as fuchsious accepts, the stomach doth readily digest and willingly entertain such meats we love most, and are pleasing to us. Abhors on the other side, such as we distaste, which Hippocrates confirms, aphorisms to thirty-eight. Some cannot endure cheese out of a secret antipathy, or to see a roasted duck, which to others is a delightsome meat. The last exception is necessity, poverty, want, hunger, which drives men many times to do that which otherwise they are loath, cannot endure, and thankfully to accept of it, as beverage in ships and in sieges of great cities, to feed on dogs, cats, rats, and men themselves. Three outlaws in Hector Boethius, being driven to their shifts, did eat war flesh, and flesh of such foul as they could catch, in one of the Hebrides for some few months. These things do mitigate, or disanal, that which has been said of melancholy meats, and make it more tolerable, but to such as are wealthy, live plentiously, at ease, may take their choice, and refrain if they will. These viands are to be foreborn, if they be inclined to, or suspect melancholy, as they tender their healths. Otherwise if they be intemperate, or disordered in their diet, at their peril be it, quimonet amat ave et cave. He who advises is your friend, farewell, and to your health attend. Four Retention and Evacuation A Cause and How Of retention and evacuation, there be diverse kinds, which are either concomitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. Galen reduces defect and abundance to this head, others, or that is separated, or remains. Costiveness In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it often causes other diseases, so this of melancholy in particular. Celsus Book I, Chapter III, saith, it produce with inflammation of the head, dullness, cloudiness, headache, et cetera. Prosper callanus, liber diatra bilae, will have it distemper not the organ only, but the mind itself by troubling of it, and sometimes it is a sole cause of madness, as you may read in the first book of Schenkeus' medicinal observations. A young merchant going to Nordling fair in Germany, for ten days' space never went to stall, at his return he was grievously melancholy, thinking that he was robbed, and would not be persuaded but that all his money was gone. His friends thought he had some filth from given him, but Cnelinas, a physician, being sent for, found his costiveness alone to be the cause, and thereupon gave him a clister, by which he was speedily recovered. Trincavelius saith as much of a melancholy lawyer to whom he administered physique, and Rodericus, up on Saka, of a patient of his, that for eight days was bound and therefore melancholy affected. Other retentions and evacuations there are, not simply necessary, but at some times, as Phonelius accounts them, as suppression of hemorrhoids, monthly issue in women, bleeding at nose, immoderate or no use at all of Venus, or any other ordinary issues. Detention of hemorrhoids or monthly issues, Vilanovanus, Arculanus, chapter 16 and 9, Vittorius Faventinas, Brewell, etc., put for ordinary causes. Fuchsius, book 2, section 5, chapter 30, goes farther and saith, that many men unseasonably cured of the hemorrhoids have been corrupted with melancholy, seeking to avoid Scylla, they fall into Caribdis. Galen illustrates this by example of Lucius Martius, whom he cured of madness, contracted by this means. And Schenkeus has two other instances of two melancholy and mad women, so caused from the suppression of their months. The same may be said of bleeding at the nose, if it be suddenly stopped, and have been formally used as Vilanovanus' urges. And Fuchsius, book 2, section 5, chapter 33, stiffly maintains, that without great danger such an issue may not be stayed. Massolius omitted produces-like effects. Massolius avoucheth of his knowledge, that some through bashfulness abstained from greenery, and thereupon became very heavy and dull, and some others that were very timorous, melancholy, and beyond all measure sad. Oribasius speaks of some, that if they do not use carnal copulation, are continually troubled with heaviness and headache, and some in the same case by intermission of it. Part use of it hurts many. Arculanus, chapter 6, in 9, rasis. Et magninus, part 3, chapter 5, think, because it sends up poisoned vapours to the brain and heart. And so does Galen himself hold. That if this natural seed be overlong kept in some parties, it turns to poison. Hironomus mercurialis, in his chapter of melancholy, cites it for an especial cause of this malady, priapismus, satiriasis, etc. Haliabus reckons up this and many other diseases. Phyllianovanus says, he knew many monks and widows grievously troubled with melancholy, and that from this sole cause. Ludovicus mercatus, book 2, Demiuliarum affectionibus, chapter 4, and Rodericus acastral, demorbus muriuliarum, book 2, chapter 3, treat largely of this subject, and will have it produce a peculiar kind of melancholy in stalemades, nuns, and widows. Ob suppressionum mensium advanerum om visum, timidae, moestae angciae, vericundae, suspiciosae, languentes, consilii inopais, consumavitae, et verum meliorum desperatione, etc. They are melancholy in the highest degree, and all for want of husbands. Elianus montaltus, cap 37, demelanchol, confirms as much out of Galem, so doth be erus. Christophorus Avega de Art, Med lib III, c. 14, relates many such examples of men and women that he had seen so melancholy. Felix Plata in the first book of his observations tells a story of an ancient gentleman in Alsatia that married a young wife and was not able to pay his debts in that kind for a long time together by reason of his several infirmities. But she, because of this inhibition of Venus, fell into a horrible fury, and desired every one that came to see her by words, looks, and gestures to have to do with her, etc. Theonardus paternus, a physician, says he knew a good honest godly priest that, because he would neither willingly marry, nor make use of the stews, fell into grievous melancholy fits. Hildesheim had such another example of an Italian melancholy priest in a consultation had Anno 1580. Jason Trotensis gives instance in a married man that, from his wife's death abstaining after marriage, became exceedingly melancholy. Roderica Saphonseca in a young man so misaffected. To these you may add, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so visited in like sort, and so cured, out of poggiest florentinus. Intemperate Venus is all but as bad in the other extreme. Galen reckons up melancholy amongst those diseases which are exasperated by Venus, so does Avicenna, 2, 3, chapter 11. Orobacius, quoted by Fakinas, book 2 de Sanitate to Enda, Marsilius Cognatus Montaltus, chapter 27, Rianarius Madninas, chapter 5, part 3, gives the reason, because it invigidates and dries up the body, consumes the spirits, and would therefore have all such as are cold and dry, to take heed of it, and to avoid it as a mortal enemy. Jacquinas, in 9 Russes, chapter 15, ascribes the same cause, and instances in a patient of his, that married a young wife in a hot summer, and so dried himself with chamber-work that he became, in short space, from melancholy, mad. He cured him by a moistening remedies. The like-example I find in Laelius Afonte Eugubinus, of a gentlemen of Venus, that upon the same occasion was first melancholy afterwards mad. In him the story at large. Any other evacuation stopped will cause it, as well as these above named, be it vile, ulcer, issue, etc. Hercules de Saxonia, book 1, chapter 16, and Gordonius verify this out of their experience. They saw one wounded in the head, who as long as the saw was open, Lucida Haberit Mentis Intervala was well, but when it was stopped, adhered to melancholia, his melancholy fit seized on him again. Artificial evacuations are much like, in effect, as hot houses, baths, bloodletting, purging, unseasonably and immodently used. Baths dry too much, if used in excess, be they natural or artificial, and offend extreme hot or cold. One dries, the other refrigerates over much. Montanasseith they overheat the liver. Astrucius contends that if one stay longer than ordinary at the bath, go in too oft, or at unseasable times, he putrefies the humours in his body. To this purpose writes Magninus, book 3, chapter 5. Guinarius, tract 15, chapter 21, utterly disallows all hot baths in melancholy adust. I saw, saith he, a man that laboured of the gout, who to be freed of this melancholy, came to the bath, and was instantly cured of his disease, but got another worse, and that was Magnus. But this judgement varies as the humour doth, in hot or cold. Baths may be good for one melancholy man, bad for another. That which will cure it in this party, may cause it in a second. Phlebotomy. Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humours and melancholy blood, and when these humours heat and boil, if this be not used in time, the parties affected, so inflamed, are in great danger to be mad. But if it be unadvisably, importunately, immodently used, it doth as much harm by refrigerating the body, dulling the spirits, and consuming them. As Johannes Curio in his tenth chapter well reprehends, such kind of letting blood doth more hurt than good. The humours rage much more when they did before, it is so far from avoiding melancholy, that it increases it, and weakeneth the sight. Prosper Calanus observes as much of all Phlebotomy, except they keep a very good diet after it. Yea, and as Leonidas Jacinas speaks out of his own experience. The blood is much blacker to many men after their letting of blood than it was at first. For this cause, be like Solestius Solvinianus, book two, chapter one, will admit or hear of no blood letting at all in this disease, and it be manifest it proceed from blood. He was, it appears, by his own words in that place, master of an hospital of madmen, and found by long experience that this kind of evacuation, either in head, arm, or any other part, did more harm than good. To this opinion of his, Felix Plata is quite opposite, though some win cut, disallow, and quite contradict all Phlebotomy in melancholy, yet by long experience I have found innumerable so saved, after they had been twenty, nay, sixty times let blood, and to live happily after it. It was an ordinary thing of old in Gaelum's time to take at once from such men six pounds of blood, which now we dare scarce take in answers. Said Vidorint Medici, great books are written of this subject. Purging upward and downward in abundance of bad humours omitted may be for the worst. So likewise as in the precedent, if over much, too frequent or violent, it weakeneth their strength, say, futures, or if they be strong or able to endure physique, yet it brings them to an ill habit. They make their bodies no better than apothecaries' shops. This and such like infirmities must needs follow. Section 29 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1 This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit the Librevox.org. Recording by Morgan Scorpion. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1 by Robert Burton, Section 29 Partition 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection 5 Bad Air a Cause of Melancholy Air is a cause of great moment in producing this or any other disease, being that it is still taken into our bodies by respiration and our more inner parts. If it be impure and foggy, it dejects the spirits and causes diseases by infection of the heart as Paul of Hathet, Book 1, Chapter 49 of Aberkenna, Book 1, Galen, De Sanitate to Ender, Mercurialis, Montaltis, etc. Phonelius says, A thick air thickeneth the blood and humours. Phonelius reckons up two main things most profitable and most pernicious to our bodies, air and diet. And this particular disease, nothing sooner causeth, Jobertus holds, than the air wherein we breathe and live. Such as is the air, such be our spirits, and as our spirits such are our humours. It offends commonly if it be too hot and dry, thick, polygenous, cloudy, blustering, or tempestuous air. Being in his fifth book of his method of history proves that hot countries are most troubled with melancholy, and that there are therefore in Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor great numbers of madmen, in so much that they are compelled in all cities of note to build peculiar hospitals for them. Leo Affer, Book 3, Defesa Urbe, Ortelius and Zwinga confirm as much. They are ordinarily so caloric in their speeches that scarce two words pass without railing or chiding in common talk, and often quarreling in their streets. Gordonius will have every man take notice of it. Note this, saith he, that in hot countries it is far more familiar than in cold. Although this we have now said be not continually so, for as a costa truly seeth, under the equator itself is a most temperate habitation, wholesome air, a paradise of pleasure, the leaves evergreen, cooling showers. But it holds in such as are intemperately hot, as Johannes and Meghan found in Cyprus, others in Malta, or Puglia and the Holy Land, where at some seasons of the air is nothing but dust, their rivers dried up, their air scorching hot, and earth inflamed. In so much that many pilgrims going barefoot for devotion's sake, from Joppa to Jerusalem upon the hot sands, often run mad, or else quite overwhelmed with sand, for fundus arenis, as in many parts of Africa, Arabia deserter, Bactrianer, now Carasan, when the west wind blows, involuti arenis transuntis necantor. Hercules de Saxonia, a professor in Venice, gives this cause why so many Venetian women are melancholy, quod du subsole degant, they tarry too long in the sun. Montanus amongst other causes assigns this. Why that dew his patient was mad, quod tam multum exposuit siccalori et frigori. He exposed himself so much to heat and cold, and for that reason in Venice there is little stirring in those brick-paved streets in summer about noon. They are most part then asleep, as they are likewise in the great moguls' countries, and all over the East Indies. At Aden in Arabia, as Ludovicus v. Manus relates in his travels, they keep their markets in the night to avoid extremity of heat, and in Ormus, like cattle in a pasture, people of all sorts lie up to the chin in water all day long. At Braga in Portugal, Burgos in Castile, Messina in Sicily, all over Spain and Italy, their streets are most part narrow to avoid the sunbeams. The Turks wear great turbans at Ferganta Solis Radios, to refract the sunbeams, and much inconvenience that hot air of bantam in Java yields to our men that sojourn there for traffic, where it is so hot that they that are sick of the pox lie commonly bleaching in the sun to dry up their sores. Such a complaint I read of those isles of Cape Verde, fourteen degrees from the equator, they do male or dire, one calls them the unhealthiest climb of the world for fluxes, fevers, frenzies, calentures, which commonly sees on seafaring men that touch at them, and all by reason of a hotest temperature of the air. The hardiest men are offended with this heat, and the stiffest clowns cannot resist it as constant time affirms. They that are naturally born in such air may not endure it, as Nigga recalls of some parts of Mesopotamia, now called Diabeca. Krabustum in Locus Seveienti estui adios subjecta est, ut pleracue animalia favore solis edcoreli extinguanto. To so hot there in some places that men of the country and cattle are killed with it, and adrecomious of Arabia Felix by reason of myrrh, frankincense, and hot spices there growing, the air is so obnoxious to their brains that the very inhabitants that sometimes cannot abide it, much less weaklings and strangers. Amatus Lucetanus reports of a young maid that was one Vincent, a courier's daughter, some thirteen years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day in July, and so let it dry in the sun to make it yellow, but by that means, towering too long in the heat, she inflamed her head and made herself mad. Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so does Montaltas' esteem of it, Chapter 11, if it be dry with all. In those northern countries the people are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many witches which, as I have before quoted, Saxo-Gromaticus, Olas, Baptista Porta ascribed to melancholy. But these cold climes are more subject to natural melancholy, not this artificial, which is cold and dry, for which cause mercurious Britannicus, be like, puts melancholy men to inhabit just under the pole. The worst of the three is a thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens, moorish grounds, lake, muck-hills, draughts, sinks, where any carcasses or carrion lies, or from wents, any stinking, fulsome smell comes. Galen Avikenna, mercurialis, new and old positions, hogs that such air is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy, plagues, and what-not. Alexandreta and Haventown in the Mediterranean Sea, St. John de Allora, and Haven in Nova Hispania, are much condemned for a bad air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lissuania, Dittmarsh, Pomtenipa, Ludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Verara, etc., Romney Marsh with us, the hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Jardin Dererum Varietate, book 17, chapter 96, finds fault with the sight of those rich and most popular cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Gaunt, Amsterdam, Leiden, Retrekt, etc. The air is bad, and so at Stockholm in Sweden, Regium in Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn. They may be commodious for navigation, this new kind of fortification, and many other good necessary uses, but are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath descended from the hills to the valley, tis the sight of most of our new cities, and held best to build in plains, to take the opportunity of rivers. Leander-Albertus pleads hard for the air and sight of Venice, though the black moorish lands appear at every low water, the sea, fire, and smoke, as he thinks, qualify the air, and some suppose that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them of Pisa in Italy and Arkandon, out of Plato, commends the sight of Cambridge, because it is so near the fens, but let the sight of such places be as it may, how can they be excused at have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and all that nature can afford, and yet through their own venous and slottishness, immond and sordic manner of life, suffer their air to putrify, and themselves to be chalked up. Many cities in Turkey do mali odire in this kind, Constantinople itself, where commonly carrion lies in the street. Some find the same fault in Spain, even in Madrid, the king's seat, a most excellent air, a pleasant sight, but the inhabitants are Slovens, and the streets uncleanly kept. A troublesome tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough, and foul weather, impetuous winds, cloudy dark days, as it is commonly with us, Crelum visofidum, Polydor calls it a filthy sky, et in qualfacule gern nirantor nubes, as Tully's brother Quintus wrote to him in Rome, being then Christa in Britain. In a thick and cloudy air, saith Lemnus, men are tetric, sad and peevish, and if the western winds blow, and that there be a calm or a fair sunshine day, there is a kind of alacrity in men's minds, it cheers up men and beasts, but if it be a turbulent, rough, cloudy, stormy weather, men are sad, lumpish, and much dejected, angry, waspish, dull, and melancholy. This was Virgil's experiment of old. Verum ubi tempestus et quaeli mobilius humor, mutavore viques et Jupiter humidus astor, Vertunto speccheis animorum et pectore motus concipiunt alios. But when the face of heaven changed is, to tempest's reign from season fair, our minds are altered, and in our breasts forthwith some new conceits appear. And who is not weather-wise against such and such conjunctions of planets, moved in foul weather, dull and heavy in such tempestuous seasons? In contristat aquarius annum, the time requires, and the autumn breeds it. Winter is like unto it, ugly, foul, squalid. The air works on all men, more or less, but especially on such as our melancholy, or inclined to it, as lemlius holds. They are most moved with it, and those which are already mad rave downright, either in or against the tempest. Besides, the devil many times takes his opportunity of such storms, and when the humours by the air be stirred, he goes in with them, exagitates our spirits, and vexeth our souls, as the sea waves, so are the spirits and humours in our bodies tossed with tempestuous winds and storms. To such as our melancholy, therefore, montanus will have tempestuous and rough air to be avoided, and all night air, and would not have them to walk abroad but in a pleasant day. Lemlius, Book III, Chapter III, discomends the south and eastern winds, commends the north. Montanus will not any windows to be opened in the night. He discomends especially the south wind and nocturnal air, so doth Plutarch. The night and darkness makes men sad, the like do all subterranean vaults, dark houses in caves and rocks, desert places cause melancholy in an instant, especially such as have not been used to it, or otherwise accustomed. Read more of air in Hippocrates, Aetius, Oribaceus, Aberkenna, etc. End of Section 29