SUBSECT. 4. Causes of Hypocondriacall, or windie Melancholy.

In repeating of these causes, I must crambe bis coctam apponere, say that again which I have formerly said, in applying them to their proper Species. Hypocondriacall or flatuous Melancholy, is that which the Arabians call Myrachiall, and is in my judgement the most grievous and frequent, though Bruel and Laurentius make it least dangerous, and not so hard to be known or cured.

His causes are inward or outward. Inward from divers parts or organs, as Midriffe, Spleen, Stomack, Liver, Pylorus, Womb, Diaphragma, Meseraick veines, stopping of issues, &c.

Montaltus cap. 15. out of Galen recites heat and obstruction of those meseraicke veins, as an immediate cause, by which means the passage of the Chilus to the liver is detained, stopped or corrupted, and turned into rumbling & winde.

Montanus consil. 233. hath an evident demonstration, Trincavelius another, lib. 1. cap. 12. and Plater a third, observat. lib. 1. for a Doctour of the Law visited with this infirmity, from the said obstruction and heat of these Meseraick veines, and bowels: quoniam inter ventriculum & jecur venæ effervescunt, the veins are inflamed about the Liver and Stomack.

Sometimes those other parts are together misaffected; and concurre to the production of this malady: A hot liver and cold stomack or cold belly: look for instances in Hollerius, Victor Trincavelius, consil. 35. l. 3. Hildesheim Spicel. 2. fol. 132. Solenander consil. 9. pro cive Lugdunensi, Montanus consil. 229. for the Earl of Monfort in Germany, 1549. and Frisimelica in the 233 consultation of the said Montanus.

I. Cæsar Claudinus gives instance of a cold stomack & over-hot liver, almost in every consultation, con. 89. for a certain Count: & con. 106. for a Polonian Baron, by reason of heat the bloud is inflamed, and grosse vapours sent to the heart and brain.

Mercurialis subscribes to them cons. 89. the stomack being misaffected, which he cals the king of the belly, because if he be distempered, all the rest suffer with him, as being deprived of their nutriment or fed with bad nourishment, by means of which, come crudities, obstructions, winde, rumbling, griping, &c.

Hercules de Saxonia besides heat, will have the weaknesse of the liver and his obstruction a cause, facultatem debilem jecinoris, which he calls the minerall of melancholy. Laurentius assignes his reason, because the liver over-hot draws the meat undigested out of the stomack, and burneth the humours. Montanus cons. 244. proves that sometimes a cold liver may be a cause.

Laurentius c. 12. Trincavelius Lib. 12. consil. and Gualter Bruel seems to lay the greatest fault upon the Spleen; that doth not his duty in purging the Liver as he ought, being too great, or too little, in drawing too much bloud sometimes to it, and not expelling it, as P. Cnemiandrus in a consultation of his noted, tumorem lienis, he names it, and the fountain of melancholy.

Diocles supposed the ground of this kinde of Melancholy, to proceed from the inflammation of the Pylorus, which is the neather mouth of the Ventricle. Others assign the Mesenterium or Midriffe distempered by heat, the womb misaffected, stopping of Hemrods, with many such.

All which Laurentius cap. 12. reduceth to three, Mesentery, Liver, and Spleen, from whence he denominates Hepatick, Splenitick, and Meseraick Melancholy. Outward causes, are bad diet, care, griefes, discontents, and in a word all those six non-naturall things, as Montanus found by his experience, consil. 244.

Solenander consil. 9. for a Citizen of Lyons in France, gives his reader to understand, that he knew this mischief procured by a medicine of Cantharides, which an unskilfull Physician ministred his patient to drink ad venerem excitandam.

But most commonly fear, grief, and some sudden commotion, or perturbation of the minde begin it, in such bodies especially as are ill disposed. Melancthon. tract. 14. cap. 2. de animâ, will have it as common to men, as the mother to women, upon some grievous trouble, dislike, passion, or discontent.

For as Camerarius records in his life, Melancthon himself was much troubled with it, and therefore could speak out of experience. Montanus consil. 22. pro delirante Iudæo, confirms it, grievous symptomes of the minde brought him to it.

Randolotius relates of himself, that being one day very intent to write out a Physicians notes, molested by an occasion, he fell into an hypocondriacall fit, to avoid which he drank the decoction of wormwood, and was freed.

Melancthon (being the disease is so troublesome and frequent) holds it a most necessary and profitable study, for every man to know the accidents of it, and a dangerous thing to be ignorant, and would therefore have all men, in some sort to understand the causes, symptomes, and cures of it.