Subsect. 4. Retention and Evacuation a cause, and how.

Of Retention and Evacuation, there be divers kindes, which are either concomitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. Galen reduceth defect and abundance to this head; others, All that is separated, or remains. In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up Costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it often causeth other diseases, so this of Melancholy in particular.

Celsus, lib. 1. cap. 3. saith, It produceth inflammation of the head, dulness, cloudiness, headach, &c. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile, will have it distemper not the organ only, but the minde it self by troubling of it: And sometimes it is a sole cause of Madness, as you may read in the first Book of Skenkius his Medicinal Observations.

A young Merchant going to Nordeling Fair in Germany, for ten days space never went to stool; at his return he was grievously melancholy, thinking that he was robbed, and would not be perswaded, but that all his money was gone: His friends thought he had some Philtrum given him, but Cnelinus a Physitian being sent for, found his Costiveness alone to be the cause, and thereupon gave him a Clister, by which he was speedily recovered.

Trincavellius, consult. 35. lib. 1. saith as much of a melancholy Lawyer, to whom he administred Physick, and Rodericus à Fonseca consult. 85. Tom. 2. of a Patient of his, that for eight days was bound, and therefore melancholy affected. Other Retentions and Evacuations there are, not simply necessary, but at some times; as Fernelius accounts them, Path. lib. 1. cap. 15. as suppression of emrods, monthly issues in women, bleeding at nose, immoderate, or no use at all of Venus; or any other ordinary issues.

Detention of emrods, or monthly issues, Villanovanus Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rasis, Vittorius Faventinus, pract. mag. Tract. 2. cap. 15. Bruel, &c. put for ordinary causes. Fuchsius, l. 2. sect. 5. c. 30. goes farther, and saith, That many men unseasonably cured of the emrods, have been corrupted with melancholy, seeking to avoid Scylla, they fall into Charybdis.

Galen, l. de hum. commen. 3. ad text. 26. illustrates this by an example of Lucius Martius, whom he cured of madness, contracted by this means: And Skenkius hath two other instances of two melancholy and mad women, so caused from the suppression of their moneths. The same may be said of bleeding at the nose, if it be suddenly stopt, and have been formerly used, as Villanovanus urgeth: And Fuchsius, lib. 2. sect. 5. cap. 33. stifly maintains, That without great danger, such an issue may not be stayed.

Venus omitted, produceth like effects. Mathiolus, epist. 5. l. penult. avoucheth of his knowledg, that some through bashfulness abstained from Venery, and thereupon became very heavy and dull, and some others that were very timorous, melancholy, and beyond all measure sad. Oribasius, med. collect. l. 6. c. 37. speaks of some, That if they do not use carnal copulation, are continually troubled with heaviness and headach; and some in the same case by intermission of it.

Not use of it hurts many, Arculanus, c. 6. in 9. Rasis, and Magninus, part. 3. cap. 5. think, because it sends up poysoned vapors to the brain and heart. And so doth Galen himself hold, That if this natural seed be over-long kept (in some parties) it turns to poyson. Hieronymus Mercurialis in his Chapter of Melancholy, cites it for an especial cause of this malady, Priapismus, Satyriasis, &c. Haliabbas 5. Theor. c. 36. reckons up this and many other diseases.

Villanovanus Breviar. l. 1. c. 18. saith, He knew many Monks and Widows, grievously troubled with melancholy, and that from this sole cause. Lodovicus Mercatus l. 2. de mulierum affect. cap. 4. and Rodericus à Castro de morbis mulier. l. 2. c. 3. treat largely of this subject, and will have it produce a peculiar kinde of melancholy, in stale Maids, Nuns, and Widows, ob suppressionem mensium & venerem omissam, timidæ, mæstæ, anxiæ, verecundæ, suspitiosæ, languentes, consilii inopes, cum summa vitæ & rerum meliorum desperatione, &c. they are melancholy in the highest degree, and all for want of husbands.

Ælianus Montaltus, cap. 37. de melanchol. confirms as much out of Galen; so doth Wierus, Christoferus à Vega de art. med. lib. 3. c. 14. relates many such examples, of men, and women, that he had seen so melancholy.

Felix Plater in the first Book of his Observations, Tells a story of an ancient Gentleman in Alsatia, that married a young wife, and was not able to pay his debts in that kinde for a long time together, by reason of his several infirmities: But she because of this inhibition of Venus, fell into a horrible fury, and desired every one that came to see her, by words, looks, and gestures, to have to do with her, &c.

Bernardus Paternus a Physitian, saith, He knew a good honest godly Priest, that because he would neither willingly marry, nor make use of the stews, fell into grievous melancholy fits. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. hath such another example of an Italian melancholy Priest, in a consultation had Anno 1580. Jason Pratensis gives instance in a married man, that from his wives death abstaining, after marriage, became exceeding melancholy, Rodericus à Fonseca in a young man so affected, Tom. 2. consult. 85. To these you may adde, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so visited in like sort, and so cured, out of Poggius Florentinus.

Intemperate Venus is all out as bad in the other extream. Galen, l. 6. de morbis popular. sect. 5. text. 26. reckons up melancholy amongst those diseases which are exasperated by Venery: so doth Avicenna 2, 3. c. 11. Oribasius, loc. citat. Ficinus, lib. 2. de sanitate tuenda, Marsilius Cognatus, Montaltus, cap. 27. Guianerius, Tract. 3. cap. 2. Magninus, cap. 5. part 3. gives the reason, because it infrigidates and dries up the body, consumes the spirits; and would therefore have all such as are cold and dry, to take heed of, and to avoyd it as a mortal enemy.