SECT. IV. MEMB. I.
Prognostics of Melancholy.
Prognostics, or signs of things to come, are either good or bad. If this malady be not hereditary, and taken at the beginning, there is good hope of cure, recens curationem non habet difficilem, saith Avicenna, l. 3, Fen. 1, Tract. 4, c. 18. That which is with laughter, of all others is most secure, gentle, and remiss, Hercules de Saxonia. [2716]“If that evacuation of haemorrhoids, or varices, which they call the water between the skin, shall happen to a melancholy man, his misery is ended,” Hippocrates Aphor. 6, 11. Galen l. 6, de morbis vulgar. com. 8, confirms the same; and to this aphorism of Hippocrates, all the Arabians, new and old Latins subscribe; Montaltus c. 25, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Vittorius Faventinus, &c. Skenkius, l. 1, observat. med. c. de Mania, illustrates this aphorism, with an example of one Daniel Federer a coppersmith that was long melancholy, and in the end mad about the 27th year of his age, these varices or water began to arise in his thighs, and he was freed from his madness. Marius the Roman was so cured, some, say, though with great pain. Skenkius hath some other instances of women that have been helped by flowing of their mouths, which before were stopped. That the opening of the haemorrhoids will do as much for men, all physicians jointly signify, so they be voluntary, some say, and not by compulsion. All melancholy are better after a quartan; [2717]Jobertus saith, scarce any man hath that ague twice; but whether it free him from this malady, 'tis a question; for many physicians ascribe all long agues for especial causes, and a quartan ague amongst the rest. [2718]Rhasis cont. lib. 1, tract. 9. “When melancholy gets out at the superficies of the skin, or settles breaking out in scabs, leprosy, morphew, or is purged by stools, or by the urine, or that the spleen is enlarged, and those varices appear, the disease is dissolved.” Guianerius, cap. 5, tract. 15, adds dropsy, jaundice, dysentery, leprosy, as good signs, to these scabs, morphews, and breaking out, and proves it out of the 6th of Hippocrates' Aphorisms.
Evil prognostics on the other part. Inveterata melancholia incurabilis, if it be inveterate, it is [2719]incurable, a common axiom, aut difficulter curabilis as they say that make the best, hardly cured. This Galen witnesseth, l. 3, de loc. affect. cap. 6, [2720]“be it in whom it will, or from what cause soever, it is ever long, wayward, tedious, and hard to be cured, if once it be habituated.” As Lucian said of the gout, she was [2721]“the queen of diseases, and inexorable,” may we say of melancholy. Yet Paracelsus will have all diseases whatsoever curable, and laughs at them which think otherwise, as T. Erastus par. 3, objects to him; although in another place, hereditary diseases he accounts incurable, and by no art to be removed. [2722]Hildesheim spicel. 2, de mel. holds it less dangerous if only [2723]“imagination be hurt, and not reason,” [2724]“the gentlest is from blood. Worse from choler adust, but the worst of all from melancholy putrefied.” [2725]Bruel esteems hypochondriacal least dangerous, and the other two species (opposite to Galen) hardest to be cured. [2726]The cure is hard in man, but much more difficult in women. And both men and women must take notice of that saying of Montanus consil. 230, pro Abate Italo, [2727]“This malady doth commonly accompany them to their grave; physicians may ease, and it may lie hid for a time, but they cannot quite cure it, but it will return again more violent and sharp than at first, and that upon every small occasion or error:” as in Mercury's weather-beaten statue, that was once all over gilt, the open parts were clean, yet there was in fimbriis aurum, in the chinks a remnant of gold: there will be some relics of melancholy left in the purest bodies (if once tainted) not so easily to be rooted out. [2728] Oftentimes it degenerates into epilepsy, apoplexy, convulsions, and blindness: by the authority of Hippocrates and Galen, [2729]all aver, if once it possess the ventricles of the brain, Frambesarius, and Salust. Salvianus adds, if it get into the optic nerves, blindness. Mercurialis, consil. 20, had a woman to his patient, that from melancholy became epileptic and blind. [2730]If it come from a cold cause, or so continue cold, or increase, epilepsy; convulsions follow, and blindness, or else in the end they are moped, sottish, and in all their actions, speeches, and gestures, ridiculous. [2731]If it come from a hot cause, they are more furious, and boisterous, and in conclusion mad. Calescentem melancholiam saepius sequitur mania. [2732]If it heat and increase, that is the common event, [2733]per circuitus, aut semper insanit, he is mad by fits, or altogether. For as [2734]Sennertus contends out of Crato, there is seminarius ignis in this humour, the very seeds of fire. If it come from melancholy natural adust, and in excess, they are often demoniacal, Montanus.
[2735]Seldom this malady procures death, except (which is the greatest, most grievous calamity, and the misery of all miseries,) they make away themselves, which is a frequent thing, and familiar amongst them. 'Tis [2736]Hippocrates' observation, Galen's sentence, Etsi mortem timent, tamen plerumque sibi ipsis mortem consciscunt, l. 3. de locis affec. cap. 7. The doom of all physicians. 'Tis [2737]Rabbi Moses' Aphorism, the prognosticon of Avicenna, Rhasis, Aetius, Gordonius, Valescus, Altomarus, Salust. Salvianus, Capivaccius, Mercatus, Hercules de Saxonia, Piso, Bruel, Fuchsius, all, &c.
[2738]Et saepe usque adeo mortis formidine vitae
Percipit infelix odium lucisque videndae,
Ut sibi consciscat maerenti pectore lethum.
And so far forth death's terror doth affright,
He makes away himself, and hates the light