The Anatomy of Melancholy

by Robert Burton

SECT. I. MEMB. II.

SUBSECT. I.—Digression of Anatomy.

Before I proceed to define the disease of melancholy, what it is, or to discourse farther of it, I hold it not impertinent to make a brief digression of the anatomy of the body and faculties of the soul, for the better understanding of that which is to follow; because many hard words will often occur, as mirach, hypocondries, emerods, &c., imagination, reason, humours, spirits, vital, natural, animal, nerves, veins, arteries, chylus, pituita; which by the vulgar will not so easily be perceived, what they are, how cited, and to what end they serve. And besides, it may peradventure give occasion to some men to examine more accurately, search further into this most excellent subject, and thereupon with that royal [944]prophet to praise God, (“for a man is fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought”) that have time and leisure enough, and are sufficiently informed in all other worldly businesses, as to make a good bargain, buy and sell, to keep and make choice of a fair hawk, hound, horse, &c. But for such matters as concern the knowledge of themselves, they are wholly ignorant and careless; they know not what this body and soul are, how combined, of what parts and faculties they consist, or how a man differs from a dog. And what can be more ignominious and filthy (as [945]Melancthon well inveighs) “than for a man not to know the structure and composition of his own body, especially since the knowledge of it tends so much to the preservation, of his health, and information of his manners?” To stir them up therefore to this study, to peruse those elaborate works of [946]Galen, Bauhines, Plater, Vesalius, Falopius, Laurentius, Remelinus, &c., which have written copiously in Latin; or that which some of our industrious countrymen have done in our mother tongue, not long since, as that translation of [947]Columbus and [948] Microcosmographia, in thirteen books, I have made this brief digression. Also because [949]Wecker, [950]Melancthon, [951]Fernelius, [952] Fuschius, and those tedious Tracts de Anima (which have more compendiously handled and written of this matter,) are not at all times ready to be had, to give them some small taste, or notice of the rest, let this epitome suffice.

SUBSECT. II.—Division of the Body, Humours, Spirits.

Of the parts of the body there may be many divisions: the most approved is that of [953]Laurentius, out of Hippocrates: which is, into parts contained, or containing. Contained, are either humours or spirits.

Humours.] A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body, comprehended in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or born with us, or adventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros and gluten to maintain it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by which means chylus is excluded. Some divide them into profitable and excrementitious. But [954]Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juice, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or [955]diseased humours, as Melancthon calls them.

Blood.] Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humour, prepared in the mesaraic veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus in the liver, whose office is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, being dispersed by the veins through every part of it. And from it spirits are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards by the arteries are communicated to the other parts.

Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part of the chylus (or white juice coming out of the meat digested in the stomach,) in the liver; his office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body, which as the tongue are moved, that they be not over dry.

Choler, is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the gall: it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to the expelling of excrements.

Melancholy.] Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. These four humours have some analogy with the four elements, and to the four ages in man.