in their patients' bodies, the diseases are generally entire and mixed. CHAPTER III. OF THE CAUSES OF MELANCHOLY. GALEN observes, that "it is in vain to speak of cures, or think of remedies, until the causes of a disease have been traced and considered;" and, indeed, common experience proves so generally, that those cures must be lame, imperfect, and to no purpose, wherein the sources of the disease have not been first searched, that Fernelius calls it primo artis curativa, and says, it is impossible, without this knowledge, to cure or prevent any manner of disease*. Empirics may by chance afford a patient temporary relief; but, from their ignorance of causes, cannot thoroughly eradicate the complaint. Sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus. It is only by removing the cause, that the effect is to be vanquished. To discern, however, the primary causes of the disease of melancholy, to shew of what they consist, and, amidst such a number of varying and frequently anomalous indications, to trace them to the spring from whence they flow, is certainly a task of almost insurmountable diffi * Rerum cognoscere causas, medicis imprimis necessarium, sine qua nec morbum curare, nec præcavere licet. culty*; and happy is he who can perform it rightt. Causes may be considered as either general or special. General causes are natural or supernatural. Supernatural causes are those which spring from God and his angels, or, by his permission, from the devil and his ministers; for the Almighty sometimes visits the sons of men with this direful disease, as a punishment for their manifold sins and wickedness, of which the holy scriptures furnish us with many instances, in the characters of Gehazi‡, Jehoram§, David, Saul, and Nebuchadnezzar**; but it more frequently proceeds from those natural *Tanta enim morbi varietas ac differentia ut non facile dignoscatur, unde initium morbus sumpserit. Melanelius è Galeno. + Montaigne, after commenting very pleasantly on the absurdity of pretending, amidst such an infinite number of indications, to discern the true sign of every disease, relates the celebrated fable from Æsop of the physician, who, having bought an Ethiopian slave, endeavoured to search for the true cause of the blackness of his complexion, and having persuaded himself that it was merely accidental, and owing to the ill usage he had received from his former masters, put him under a preparatory course of medicine, and then bathed and drenched him for a long time with cold water, in order to restore him to his true complexion; but the poor fellow retained his sable hue, and lost, irrecoverably, his health. But Montaigne entertained great prejudices against the useful science of medicine. + 2 Reg. v. 27. || 1 Par. xxi. Psalm xliv. 1. 1 Sam. xvi. 14. § 2 Chron. xxi. 15. Psalm xxxviii. 8. ** Daniel v. xxi. causes which are inbred with us, as consanguinity and old age; and more frequently still from those special causes, or outward adventitious circumstances, which happen to us subsequent to our birth, and especially from our inattention to, and abuse of, the six non-naturals; of, 1. Diet; 2. Retention and Evacuation; 3. Air; 4. Exercise; 5. Sleep; and 6. Perturbation of the Mind; so much spoken of among physicians, as the principal causes of this disease. Hippocrates*, therefore, would have a physician take special notice whether the disease come from a divine supernatural cause, or whether it follows the course of nature; for, according to Paracelsus, the spiritual disease (for so he calls that kind of melancholy which proceeds from supernatural causes,) must be spiritually cured, and not otherwise; ordinary means in such cases being of no avail: Non est reluctandum cum Deo. Hercules, the monster-taming hero, subdued every antagonist in the Olympic games, even Jupiter himself, when he wrestled with him in the human form; but when the god revealed himself, and reassumed celestial power, Hercules declined the conflict, and retired from the vain strife against the power of the supreme. The Almighty can make the proudest spirits stoop, and cry out with Julian the apostate, Vicisti Galilæo. Ordinary means in such cases * Lib. cap. 5. prog. But see Fran. Valesius, de Sacr. Philos. cap. 8. Fernelius Libri de abditis rerum causis ; and J. Cæsar Claudinus Rospons med. 12. resp. how this opinion of Hippocrates is to be understood. will not avail. The wound, like that which was inflicted by the spear of Achilles, can only be healed by the hand that gave it. Physicians and physic, in such cases, are equally ineffectual: man must submit to the almighty hand of God, bow down before him, and implore his mercy*. I shall, therefore, examine into those causes only which are within the reach of human power to mitigate or remove. Consanguinity is that general or partial temperature which we derive from our parents, and which Fernelius calls præter-naturalt; it being an hereditary disease; for the temperature of the parents is in general conferred upon the children; who are inheritors, not only of their parents' lands, but of their infirmities also. Where, therefore, the constitution of the original stock is corrupt, that of its offspring must needs be corrupt also ‡. The concurrent opinion of Paracelsus §, Crato, Bruno Seidelius T, Montaltus**, and Hippocrates††, confirm this fact; and Forestus ++, in his medicinal observations, illustrates this point with several examples of patients who have laboured under hereditary melancholy, which, wherever it prevails, sticks to the family, and follows it from generation to * 1 Peter v. 6. + Lib. i. cap. 2. Roger Bacon. § Ex pituitosis pituitosi; ex biliosis biliosi; ex lienosis et melancholicis melancholici. De Morb. Amentium, To. iv. Tr. 1. Epist. to Monavius, 174. ** Cap. ii. De Morbo incurab. ‡‡ Lib. x. Observ. 15. generation*. Its descent is neither certain nor régular; for it frequently passes by the father, and fixes on the son, or takes every other, and sometimes every third in lineal descent. The young children of aged parents seldom possess a strong and healthy temperament, and are therefore extremely subject to this disease; and foolish, weak, giddy, angry, peevish, and discontented women, generally produce a progeny like unto themselves. The mind and disposition of the mother, indeed, are, it is well known, strongly stamped on the character of the child; and every degree of grief, fear, apprehension, or alarm, which she may, during pregnancy, unfortunately feel, endangers its temperature, and sows the seeds of this hideous disease; of which Baptista Portat, among many other instances, gives a memorable example of one Thomas Nickell, born in the city of Brandenburgh, in the year 1551, who, all the days of his life, went reeling and staggering, as if he were falling to the ground, owing to his mother, while pregnant with him, having seen a drunken man reeling through the streets, and likely to fall. To which we may add, the instance of the girl that was brought from the neighbourhood of Pisa, and presented to the king of Bohemia, with hair upon her skin resembling that of a camel, which is said to have been occasioned by an alarm which her mother received on seeing that animal * See also Rodericus à Fonseca, Tom. i. Consul. 69. and Lodovicus Mercatus, a Spanish physician, Tom. ii. |