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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours

SUBSECTION 4 Remedies that divert the humours

Remedies that divert the humours and those that purge them must go together, since they all serve the same purpose: to divert this rebellious humour and turn it another way. In this category, enemas and suppositories claim a leading place, to draw this humour away from the brain and heart towards the less noble parts.

Some would have them used regularly, a few days apart, and prepared with boiled seeds of anise, fennel and safflower, hops, thyme, epithyme, mallows, fumitory, bugloss, polypody, senna, Diasena, Hamech’s confection, cassia, Diacatholicon, Hierologodium, oil of violets, sweet almonds and so on.

For there is no doubt that an enema used at the right time cannot fail to do much good in this disease, as in most others. “Enemas nourish”: sometimes enemas provide nourishment, depending on how they are prepared, as I learned not long ago from a scholarly lecture by our Reader in natural philosophy, who discussed the subject using other noted physicians.

Most recommend things that stimulate urination, but not sweating. Trincavelius, consultation 16, chapter 1, forbids the latter in head melancholy. P. Byarus and others approve rubbing the external parts and bathing them with warm water. Instead of ordinary rubbing, Cardan prescribes rubbing with nettles until they blister the skin, a practice that Basardus Visontinus likewise praises highly.

Remedies that provoke sneezing, preparations to chew, and nasal medicines are generally accepted. Montaltus, chapter 34, and Hildesheim, Gleanings 2, folios 136 and 138, give several recipes for all three. Hercules de Saxonia tells of an empiric in Venice who had a powerful medicinal water for purging through the mouth and nostrils, which he regularly used for head melancholy and would not sell for any amount of gold.

Restoring menstrual and haemorrhoidal bleeding is very good treatment if they have previously been stopped. Faventinus would have the flow restored with horse-leeches, as would Hercules de Saxonia. Julius Alexandrinus, consultation 185 in Scoltzius’ collection, considers aloes more suitable. Most approve of horse-leeches in this case, to be applied to the forehead, nostrils and other places.

Montaltus, chapter 29, drawing on Alexander and others, prescribes cupping glasses and issues in the left thigh. Aretaeus, book 7, chapter 5, Paulus Regolinus and Sylvius would have the cups applied without scarification to the shoulders and back, thighs and feet. Montaltus, chapter 34, directs that an issue be opened in the arm or back of the head.

Piso prescribes ligatures, rubbing, suppositories and cupping glasses, again without scarification, and the rest.

Cauteries and hot irons are to be used at the suture of the crown, and the burned or ulcerated place allowed to discharge for a considerable time. It is also advisable to bore through the skull with an instrument, to let out the sooty vapours.

Sallustius Salvianus, On Medicine, book 2, chapter 1, because this humour scarcely yields to other treatment, would have the leg cauterized, or the left leg below the knee, and the head bored in two or three places, because this greatly helps the vapours to escape.

“I saw,” he says, “a melancholic man at Rome whom no remedies could heal; but when he happened to suffer a head wound and a fractured skull, he was completely cured.” Another, to the astonishment of the onlookers, fractured his skull in a fall from a height and immediately recovered from his mental derangement.

Gordonius, chapter 13, part 2, would have these cauteries tried last, when no other treatment will work. “The head is to be shaved and bored to let out fumes, which will undoubtedly do much good. I saw a melancholic man wounded in the head with a sword, his skull fractured: as long as the wound remained open, he was well, but when it healed, his mental derangement returned.”

But Alexander Messaria, a professor at Padua, Practical Medicine, book 1, chapter 21, on melancholy, will allow no cauteries at all: in his view the humour is too resistant and too thick to be evaporated in this way.

Guianerius, chapter 8, treatise 15, cured a nobleman in Savoy by boring alone, leaving the hole open for a whole month; by this means the man was freed from two years of melancholy and madness. All approve of applying this remedy at the suture of the crown, but Arculanus would have the cautery made with gold.

These cauteries are prescribed for melancholic people in many other parts of the body: in the thighs, for example, by Mercurialis, consultation 86; in the arms and legs by the same author, consultations 6, 19 and 25, and Montanus, consultation 86; and “for hypochondriacal melancholy, in the right hip,” by Rodericus à Fonseca, volume 2, consultation 84, and so on. But they are prescribed chiefly in the head, if other treatment will do no good.

7833.“Averters” redirect humours away from the affected organs; purgatives evacuate them. The contrast between noble and less noble parts belongs to the hierarchical physiology of heart, brain and other organs. “Clysters” are enemas. This heading follows the end of Subsection 3.

7834.“Bastard saffron” is safflower. The list combines plants with named preparations already encountered. Diasena, Hamech’s confection, Diacatholicon and Hierologodium remain historical preparation names; their individual formulas have not been reconstructed. Epithyme remains distinct from thyme.

7836.A “Reader” is a university lecturer. Burton’s margin names Master D. Lapworth without expanding the initial. The Latin statement and Burton’s explanatory English are both retained, even though the modern rendering consequently repeats the claim that enemas may nourish.

7838.“Frictions” means rubbing. The ban on sweating is attributed specifically to Trincavelius in head melancholy. His consultation and chapter numbers, and the printed name Basardus Visontinus, are retained without conjectural correction. The body has P. Byarus, whereas a later margin on this page has P. Bayerus.

7840.“Masticatories” are medicines chewed to provoke salivation; “nasals” are preparations applied through the nose. An “empiric” practises from experience rather than the learned theoretical system. “Strong water” here is a potent liquid preparation, not necessarily ordinary drinking alcohol. The refusal to sell it emphasizes the claimed value of a secret remedy.

7844.“Months” refers to menstrual periods; the opening of haemorrhoids concerns inducing bleeding. The margin restricts the treatment to disease arising from suppressed bleeding. “Horse-leeches” is retained as the historical term, without assigning a modern species. The printed Scoltzii identifies the consultation collection.

7848.An “issue” is a deliberately maintained sore serving as an outlet for discharge. “Scarification” means making incisions in the skin; dry cupping omits them. The body’s left thigh and the margin’s left leg are retained independently. The source’s Aretaeus 7.5 remains uncollated against a specified edition.

7850.“Ligatures” are bindings or constricting bands. The marginal list includes baths, while the body includes suppositories and cupping. Both lists are retained, rather than made to correspond. The margin prints Baleni, apparently a transposition in balnei, baths.

7852.“Fuliginous” means sooty or smoke-like. The alleged escape of vapours explains the historical rationale for cautery and trepanning. The margin explicitly names the coronal suture, a joint between skull bones, and a trepan, an instrument for boring the skull. These are the procedures and claims of Burton’s authorities.

7855.The main text repeats “leg,” then specifies the left leg below the knee. The marginal Latin instead gives the crown of the head or the left leg. That discrepancy is preserved. The next margin specifies cauteries with perforation of the bone, whereas the body simply says that the head is bored.

7858.“Admiration” means astonishment; “dotage” here means disordered mental functioning rather than an affectionate infatuation or necessarily old age. Both stories are reported as testimony from Salvianus. The first margin specifies a sword wound, a detail omitted from the corresponding body sentence.

7860.The requirement to try these procedures last is part of the argument. The Latin margin says to shave the head and apply a cautery; the body says to shave and bore it. It also describes the returning disorder as mania. These variations are preserved without converting them into modern diagnostic claims.

7861.Messaria’s objection remains within the same humoral framework: he disputes whether the supposed material can escape by evaporation. Burton places disagreement immediately beside the success stories, rather than presenting a unanimous medical account.

7863.The margin adds that the boring reached the dura mater, the tough outer membrane around the brain. The body’s sweeping “all approve” follows Messaria’s explicit disagreement and is retained. A superscript y precedes Arculanus in the print, but no corresponding marginal container appears on the page; the marker remains in the original column without an invented note.

7864.The superscript z before the final qualification also lacks a corresponding marginal container. The condition “If other Physick will do no good” is retained in full. The scan reads Mercurialis consultation 86. “Pro hypocond.” refers to the hypochondriacal kind of melancholy; coxa dextra is the right hip.