On Melancholy by Robert Burton

Author:Robert Burton [Nicholas Robins]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781780942186
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The outward symptoms of melancholy

Hippocrates, in his book On Insanity and Melancholy, reckons up these signs, that they are lean, withered, hollow-eyed, look old, wrinkled, harsh, much troubled with wind, and a griping in their bellies, or belly-ache, belch often, dry bellies and hard, dejected looks, flaggy beards, singing of the ears, vertigo, lightheaded, little or no sleep, and that interrupt, terrible and fearful dreams, – Sister Anne, what dreams be these that confound and appal me! The same symptoms are repeated by Melanelius (in his Book of Melancholy, collected out of Galen, Ruffus, Aëtius,) by Rhasis, Gordonius, and all the Juniors, continual, sharp and stinking belchings, as if the meat in their stomack were putrefied, or that they had eaten fish, dry bellies, absurd and interrupt dreams, and many phantastical visions about their eyes, vertiginous, apt to tremble, and prone to Venery. Some add palpitation of the heart, cold sweat, as usual symptoms, and a leaping in many parts of the body, a kind of itching, saith Laurentius, on the superfices of the skin, like a flea-biting sometimes. Montaltus puts fixed eyes and much twinkling of their eyes for a sign; and so doth Avicenna, they are very red-faced, etc.; they stutter most part, which he took out of Hippocrates’ Aphorisms. Rhasis makes headache and a binding heaviness for a principal token, much leaping of wind about the skin, as well as stutting, or tripping in speech, etc., hollow eyes, gross veins and broad lips. To some too, if they be far gone, mimical gestures are too familiar, laughing, grinning, fleering22, murmuring, talking to themselves, with strange mouths and faces, inarticulate voices, exclamations, etc.. And although they be commonly lean, hirsute, uncheerful in countenance, withered, and not so pleasant to behold, by reason of those continual fears, griefs, and vexations, dull, heavy, lazy, restless, unapt to go about any business: yet their memories are most part good, they have happy wits, and excellent apprehensions. Their hot and dry brains make them they cannot sleep, they have mighty and often watchings, sometimes waking for a month, a year, together.

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