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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Melancholy: Consider Its Different Meanings: As a Disposition, in a Figurative…

Melancholy: consider Its different meanings: as a disposition, in a figurative sense, etc. Subsection 5.

Sections: 1.1.1.5.

Member 2. To explain it, a digression on anatomy, considering the constituent parts. Subsection 1. The body has parts. Subsection 2.

Sections: 1.1.2.1; 1.1.2.2.

Parts contained within it: The four humours: blood, phlegm, etc. The spirits: vital, natural, animal.

Sections: 1.1.2.2.

Or parts that contain them: Uniform parts: those formed from seed, or flesh, bones, nerves, etc. Subsection 3. Composite parts: brain, heart, liver, etc. Subsection 4.

Sections: 1.1.2.3; 1.1.2.4.

Or the soul and its faculties: Nutritive and reproductive. Subsection 5. Sensitive. Subsections 6, 7, 8. Rational. Subsections 9, 10, 11.

Sections: 1.1.2.5; 1.1.2.6; 1.1.2.7; 1.1.2.8; 1.1.2.9; 1.1.2.10; 1.1.2.11.

Member 3. Its definition, name, and distinguishing characteristics. Subsection 1. The part and persons affected; the condition itself, etc. Subsection 2. The material of melancholy, natural and unnatural, etc. Subsection 3.

Sections: 1.1.3.1; 1.1.3.2; 1.1.3.3.

Its species, or kinds. Subsection 4: Those associated with bodily regions: Melancholy of the head alone; hypochondriacal, or windy, melancholy; melancholy of the whole body. Each has its own causes, symptoms, prognoses, and cures. Or those not restricted in this way, such as love melancholy, the subject of the Third Partition.

Sections: 1.1.3.4; 3.

Its causes in general. Section 2: A. Its symptoms or signs. Section 3: B. Its prognoses or indications. Section 4: C. Its cures: the subject of the Second Partition.

Sections: 1.2; 1.3; 1.4; 2.

1329.The humours are the bodily fluids of humoral physiology: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. The three kinds of “spirits” are subtle bodily agents associated with life, nutrition, sensation and movement, not the supernatural spirits listed later.

1330.“Similar” parts are uniform in substance, while “dissimilar” parts are organs composed of differing tissues. “Spermatical” denotes parts thought to originate from generative seed. The synopsis compresses these categories awkwardly; the modern column preserves that compression. The body places parts contained within the body in 1.1.2.2, uniform parts in 1.1.2.3 and composite parts in 1.1.2.4. The modern outline corrects the repeated 1 and supplies the omitted 3 accordingly.

1331.The traditional hierarchy distinguishes the functions of nutrition, growth and reproduction; sensation and associated powers; and reason. “Animal” spirits above refers to the soul or animate functions, not specifically to nonhuman animals.

1332.The synopsis prints Subsection 4 for “the matter of melancholy”; the body heading is 1.1.3.3, followed by species in 1.1.3.4. The modern outline follows those headings, while the original preserves 4. “Matter” is the bodily substance held to produce the condition.

1333.Hypochondriacal melancholy concerns the upper abdominal organs beneath the ribs; “windy” refers to wind or vapours. It is not silently converted into the modern meaning of anxiety about illness.

1334.The source prints “Sect. 4. 4.” The second 4 is rendered C, matching the synopsis’s final heading “C. Prognosticks of melancholy.”