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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 3. Classification of Diseases of the Head.

Subsection 3. Classification of diseases of the head.

These diseases of the mind, because their chief seat and organs are in the head, are commonly listed among diseases of the head, which are various and differ greatly according to their location. Just as the head has several parts, so it has various ailments. According to Heurnius’s classification, taken from Arculanus, these are internal or external—leaving aside all those affecting the eyes and ears, nostrils, gums, teeth, mouth, palate, tongue, windpipe, jaws, face and so on. Those belonging specifically to the brain include baldness, loss of hair, dandruff, lice and the like.

Internal diseases affect the membranes next to the brain, called the dura mater and pia mater, as do headaches and the like; or its ventricles, coverings, membranes, recesses and other parts, with their disorders, such as profound stupor, vertigo, nightmare oppression, apoplexy and the falling sickness. Diseases of the nerves include cramps, numbness, convulsions, tremor and paralysis. Others concern the brain’s waste matter: catarrhs, sneezing, rheums and dripping discharges. Still others affect the substance of the brain itself, where frenzy, lethargy, melancholy, madness, weak memory, sopor, coma vigilia and vigil coma are thought to arise.

From these I shall select those that specifically affect fantasy or imagination, or reason itself. Laurentius calls them diseases of the mind, and Hildesheim “diseases of impaired imagination or reason.” There are three or four: frenzy, madness, melancholy and mental impairment, with their varieties, such as hydrophobia, lycanthropy, St Vitus’s dance and demonic disorders. I shall touch briefly on these, concentrating on melancholy as the most prominent of them, and following all its kinds, causes, symptoms, prognoses and cures, as Lonicerus has done with apoplexy and many others with particular diseases.

I do not mean to find fault with earlier writers on this subject, such as Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, Montaltus, Timothy Bright and others. They have done very well in their different forms and methods. Yet what one omits another may happen to notice, and what one compresses another may expand. To conclude with Scribanius: what they neglected or treated superficially, we may examine more thoroughly; what they expressed obscurely, we may set out and develop clearly. In this way it may become more familiar and easier for everyone to understand, and serve the common good, which is the chief aim of my discourse.

1474.“Wesel” is the windpipe; “chops” the jaws; “furfaire” dandruff or scurf. The printed sentence begins awkwardly and calls even baldness and lice ailments belonging to the brain. Its general anatomical classification is preserved rather than silently rewritten to match current anatomy.

1476.The dura mater and pia mater are membranes covering the brain. Caules, kels and tunicles overlap in referring to coverings or membranes; “creeks” are recesses. Caro is a historical term for profound stupor; incubus for oppressive nightmare experiences; apoplexy for sudden disabling collapse; and falling sickness for epilepsy. These labels should not be assumed to map exactly onto present diagnostic categories.

1477.“Stupor” here can mean numbness or loss of sensation, distinct from its modern dominant sense. “Excrements” means material expelled or left over. Rheums and distillations belong to a theory in which humours drain down from the head; the translation retains that theory as Burton’s account.

1478.Sopor denotes a state of heavy sleep or stupor. Coma vigilia and vigil coma are retained as printed Latin labels for disturbed states of sleeping and waking; the terminology and its relation to later meanings of “coma” require caution. These are not supplied as modern diagnoses.

1480.“Fantasy” and “imagination” name mental faculties. Dotage is rendered according to context as mental impairment or confusion; it is not restricted to old age. “Prognosticks” concerns the anticipated course and outcome of disease. The following subsection explains the named conditions in Burton’s own terms.

1482.The marginal Latin says, more briefly, that others’ less accurate statements should be examined, judged and corrected. Burton’s English develops this into a programme of clarification and expansion. The cited edition of Scribanius remains to be collated; the name and abbreviated title are retained.