Some Anatomies of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Author:Robert Burton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141963334
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

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 Stygiæ monstrum conforme paludi, a monstrous drink, like the River Styx. But let them say as they list, to such as are accustomed unto it, ‘’tis a most wholesome’ (so Polydore Virgil calleth it) ‘and a pleasant drink,’ it is more subtile and better for the hop that rarefies it, hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, Fuchsius approves, lib. 2, sec. 3, Instit. cap. 11, and many others.

Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, such as come forth of pools and moats where hemp hath 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 foul distemperatures 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 are of opinion that such fat, standing waters make the best beer, and that seething doth defecate it, as Cardan holds, lib. 13 Subtil., ‘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 Jobertus truly justifieth out of Galen, Paradox. dec. 1, paradox. 5, that the seething of such impure waters doth not purge or purify them; Pliny, lib. 31, cap. 3, is of the same tenent, and P. Crescentius, Agricult. lib. 1 et lib. 4, cap. 11 et cap. 45. Pamphilius Herilachus, lib. 4 de nat. aquarum, such waters are naught, not to be used, and by the testimony of Galen, ‘breed agues, dropsies, pleurisies, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the eyes, cause a bad temperature and ill disposition of the whole body, with bad colour.’ This Jobertus stiffly maintains, Paradox. lib. 1, part. 5, 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 Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aliacmon, now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si potui ducas [if you take them to drink there]. J. Aubanus Bohemus refers that struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as Munster doth that of the Valesians in the Alps, and Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, 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.

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