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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against…

SUBSECTION 6 Remedies for accompanying symptoms: to bring sleep, and against fearful dreams, redness and so on

When you have used all the good means and assistance offered by alteratives, remedies that divert the humours, and mild purgatives, there will still be certain accompanying symptoms to correct and relieve: sleeplessness, fearful dreams, flushing of the face to a degree of redness, and so on.

Sleeplessness, caused by their continual cares, fears and sorrows, and by dry brains, is a symptom that greatly torments melancholic people. It must therefore be relieved quickly, and sleep procured by every means; sometimes it is a sufficient remedy in itself, without any other treatment. Schenck, in his Observations, gives an example of a woman cured in this way. The means of bringing sleep are internal or external.

Those taken internally are simple or compound medicines. Simple medicines include poppy, water lily, violets, roses, lettuce, mandrake, henbane, nightshade or solanum, saffron, hempseed, nutmegs and willows, with their seeds, juices, decoctions, distilled waters and so on. Compounds include syrups or opiate preparations, syrup of poppy, violets and mullein, which are commonly taken with distilled waters.

Take one ounce of diacodium, half a dram of diascordium, and three and a half ounces of lettuce water. Mix to make a draught to be taken at bedtime.

Nicholas’s Rest, Roman Philonium, the great Triphera, hound’s-tongue pills, Discordium, Paracelsus’ laudanum and opium are in use, and so on. Country people commonly make a posset with hempseed, which Fuchs condemns so strongly in his herbal; yet I have seen its good effect, and it may be used where better medicines are unavailable.

Paracelsus’ laudanum is prescribed in doses of two or three grains, with a dram of Discordium, which Oswald Croll recommends. Opium itself is used mostly externally, in a ball to be smelled, though the Turks commonly take it in the same quantity as a cordial; at Goa in the Indies the dose is forty or fifty grains.

Ruland calls Nicholas’s Rest “the last resort,” the final refuge; but for specific recipes for this and the others, consult Victorius Faventinus, the chapter on frenzy; Heurnius, the chapter on mania; Hildesheim, Gleanings 4, on sleep and waking; and so on.

Among those used externally are oil of nutmegs, obtained by extraction or pressing, with rosewater to anoint the temples, and oils of poppy, water lily, mandrake, purslane and violets, all for the same purpose.

Montanus, consultations 24 and 25, highly recommends aromatic preparations of opium, vinegar and rosewater. Laurentius, chapter 9, prescribes pomanders and small sachets; see his recipes. Codronchus prescribes wormwood to smell.

Alablastritum ointment and poplar ointment are used to anoint the temples and nostrils; or, if these are too weak, saffron and opium are mixed in. Take a grain or two of opium and dissolve it in a spoon with three or four drops of rosewater; then mix in a nut-sized quantity of poplar ointment and use it as before.

Alternatively, take half a dram of opium; half an ounce each of poplar ointment, oil of water lily, rosewater and rose vinegar; and a nut-sized quantity of virgin wax. Anoint your temples with some of it at bedtime.

Cardan and Mizaldus mention bags of wormwood, mandrake, henbane and roses, made into pillows and placed under the patient’s head; anointing the soles of the feet with dormouse fat, and the teeth with a dog’s earwax; swine’s gall, hares’ ears; charms and so on.

Forehead dressings are well known to every housewife: rosewater and vinegar with a little woman’s milk, and nutmegs grated onto a rose cake, applied to both temples.

For a plaster, take one and a half drams of castoreum and half a scruple of opium; mix them with a little distilled spirit, make two small plasters from the mixture, and apply them to the temples.

Ruland, first hundred cases, cure 17, and third hundred, cure 94, prescribes liquid dressings and washes for the head made from a decoction of water lily flowers, violet leaves, mandrake roots, henbane and white poppy. Hercules de Saxonia prescribes “drip applications,” or droppings, and so on. Washing the feet with preparations of these herbs is very beneficial. By these means, says Laurentius, I think you may bring sleep to the most melancholic man in the world. Some use horse-leeches behind the ears and apply opium to the spot.

Bayerus, book 2, chapter 13, sets out some remedies against fearful dreams and for people who walk and talk in their sleep. To bring pleasant dreams and peaceful rest, Baptista Porta, Natural Magic, book 2, chapter 6, would have you take hippoglossa, or the herb horse-tongue, and balm, using them or their distilled waters after supper, and so on.

Such people must not eat beans, peas, garlic, onions, cabbage, venison or hare, drink dark wines, or have any food that is hard to digest at supper; nor should they lie on their backs, and so on.

“Rustic shyness,” bashfulness, flushing of the face, a high colour and redness are common afflictions that greatly torment many melancholic people. When they meet someone, or find themselves among their social superiors or strangers, after a meal, or after drinking a cup of wine or strong drink, they become as red and flushed, and sweat as much, as if they had been at a mayor’s banquet. “Especially if fear is added,” it becomes excessive. They think everyone observes it and takes notice; fear alone will bring it on, mere suspicion without any other cause.

7980.Accidents are accompanying symptoms, not mishaps. Alteratives change the humoral condition, averters divert humours, and diminutives gently reduce their quantity. The phrase to some ruddiness is preserved in sense as a degree of redness; it is not rewritten as “in some people.”

7982.Waking is persistent wakefulness or sleeplessness, and crucifies means torments. Dryness of the brain is one of Burton’s humoral explanations. His claim for sleep alone is supported here by Schenck’s reported case, not by an independently established diagnosis.

7983.Simples are single medicinal substances; compounds combine ingredients. Nymphæa and nenuphar mean water lily, while verbasco denotes mullein. The list includes seeds, juices, boiled preparations and distilled waters; the wording does not specify an identical preparation for every plant.

7984.Diacodium is a poppy preparation; diascordium is a compound medicine named for scordium. The printed measures are read as ℥ j (one ounce), ʒ ß (half a dram), and ℥ iij ß (three and a half ounces). The second weight sign is worn in the scan and is provisionally read as a dram; that unit is less secure than the clearly printed lettuce-water amount. The historical units are retained without conversion.

7985.Requies Nicholai literally means “Nicholas’s Rest”; the other Latin names designate recognized compound preparations. Cynoglossa means hound’s-tongue. The body prints Discordium here and below, whereas the recipe has diascordii: the difference is preserved. A posset is a warm milk drink, commonly curdled with ale or wine. Fuchs’ objection is followed by Burton’s own reported experience.

7987.Paracelsian laudanum was a named compound whose formulation must not be assumed identical to a later tincture sold under that name. Burton contrasts smelling opium with taking it internally, then gives a much larger amount at Goa. His quantities and the somewhat compressed “same quantity” reference are preserved, without harmonizing them.

7988.Requiem is the inflected form of Requies. The Latin ultimum refugium and Burton’s separate English gloss are both represented. Phrenesis denotes frenzy or an acute delirious state in historical medicine; these chapter titles do not map exactly onto present-day diagnostic categories.

7989.Expression means pressing the oil out. Purslan is purslane, and nenuphar water lily. The preparation methods and external application belong to the text’s historical prescriptions.

7991.Pomanders are aromatic balls, often carried or held in containers; nodules are small tied bundles or sachets of medicinal material. The wormwood margin specifically attributes the supposed effect to smelling it.

7992.The source prints Alablastritum; that form is retained, rather than silently corrected to Alabastrinum. Populeum names poplar ointment. The comparison to a nut gives an approximate size, not a precise weight.

7993.Virgin wax is wax before use or admixture, rather than a modern product specification. Ad horam somni means at bedtime. Half a dram applies to opium; half an ounce of each applies to the four following ingredients.

7997.The margin specifies fresh henbane underneath the pillow, while the body lists pillow-like sacks. Cardan’s Latin expresses disbelief about the dog’s earwax even as it records the claim. The final disconnected items and “charms” remain part of Burton’s catalogue; they are not supplied with invented instructions.

7998.A frontlet is a dressing or band applied to the forehead or temples. Good wife means a housewife or woman managing a household. Rose cake here is a medicinal cake of rose material, not a modern baked cake.

7999.Castoreum is the animal substance historically obtained from beavers’ castor sacs. Water of life is aqua vitae, a distilled alcoholic spirit. The quantities are retained in the historical units.

8000.Centuria designates a collection of a hundred cases or cures. Stillicidia means liquids applied by dripping; Burton also supplies “droppings,” which is retained. Horse-leeches denotes the leeches used in this therapeutic tradition.

8002.The margin prints Veni mecum, literally “Come with me,” and is not silently corrected to the more familiar vade mecum, “Go with me.” Hippoglossa and horse-tongue are preserved as Burton’s plant names without imposing a modern species identification. Porta’s precise book-and-chapter reference remains to be checked.

8003.Black wines means dark-coloured wines. Burton closes this part of the discussion with dietary and sleeping-position rules. The next paragraph begins Rusticus pudor, on bashfulness and blushing.

8006.“Flect” remains provisionally “flushed”; “Major” means mayor. Margin b prints Statius. Compare Stasinus in Plato, Euthyphro 12a–c, where Socrates disputes fear’s necessarily implying shame. Luís’s De pudore, in Guimarães Pinto’s 2013 edition, p. 140, has a close Latin parallel, with quoque where Burton has simul. Burton cites Luís next, making him a possible intermediary; direct dependence and the early edition remain unproved.