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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On

SUBSECTION 2 Corrective medicines to expel wind. Against constipation, and so on

In this kind of melancholy one of the most troublesome symptoms is wind, which needs to be corrected and expelled here just as in the other kinds.

Medicines to expel it are taken internally or applied externally. Internal medicines for expelling wind are simple or compound. Simple medicines are herbs, roots and the like: galangal, gentian, angelica, elecampane, sweet flag, valerian, zedoary, iris, preserved ginger, birthwort, cyclamen, China root, dittander, pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay berries and bay leaves, betony, rosemary, hyssop, savin, centaury, mint, camomile, French lavender, chaste tree, broom flowers, oregano, orange peel, and so on.

Spices include saffron, cinnamon, bezoar stone, myrrh, mace, nutmegs, pepper, cloves and ginger; seeds of anise, fennel, ammi, caraway, nettle and rue; juniper berries and grains of paradise. Compounds include dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, diacalaminth, electuary of bay berries, benedicta laxativa, powder against wind from the Florentine Antidotary, carminative powder, aromaticum rosatum, theriac, mithridate, and so on.

This one caution from Walter Bruel must be observed when administering these hot and dry medicines: in trying to expel wind, do not inflame the blood and increase the disease. Sometimes, as he says, medicines must tend more towards heat, sometimes more towards cold, as circumstances require and according to the person’s tendency towards heat or cold.

External applications to expel wind include oils of camomile, rue and bay; warm applications to the regions beneath the ribs, using decoctions of dill, pennyroyal, rue, bay leaves and cumin; sachets of camomile flowers, aniseed, cumin, bay, rue and wormwood; and ointments of spikenard, wormwood or rue oil, and the like. Aretaeus prescribes poultices of camomile flowers, fennel, aniseed, cumin, rosemary, wormwood leaves and so on.

Cupping glasses applied beneath the ribs, without scarification, disperse wind wonderfully. Fernel, consultation 43, strongly approves of applying them to the lower belly. Lod. Mercatus calls them a powerful remedy and further testifies from his own knowledge how many people he has seen suddenly relieved by them. Julius Caesar Claudinus, Medical Responses, response 33, admires these cupping glasses, calling them, after Galen, a kind of enchantment: so immediate is the relief they bring.

Empirical practitioners have countless remedies, such as swallowing a lead bullet, which I deliberately omit. Amatus Lusitanus, fourth hundred of cases, treatment 54, prescribes a strange remedy for a person with hypochondriacal melancholy who was severely tormented by wind. Put the end of a pair of bellows into an enema pipe; insert it into the anus, open the bowels, and so draw out the wind: “Nature does not permit a vacuum.”

He boasts that he was the first to invent this remedy and that by its means he quickly relieved a melancholic man. For further treatment of this flatulent melancholy, read Fienus, On Wind, chapter 26 and elsewhere throughout the work.

For headache, dizziness and vapours that rise from the stomach to trouble the head, read Hercules de Saxonia and others.

If constipation causes trouble in this or either of the other two kinds, it is to be corrected with suppositories, enemas or gentle laxatives, senna powder, preserved prunes and the like.

Take one ounce each of lenitive electuary and the electuary made from rose juice; mix.

Take an amount the size of a nutmeg at a time, half an hour before dinner or supper; or one dram of mastic pills divided into six pills, one or two pills at a time. See further in Montanus, consultation 229, and Hildesheim, Gleanings 2. P. Cnemander and Montanus recommend Cyprian turpentine, which they would have taken regularly, in an amount the size of a small nut, two or three hours before dinner and supper, twice or three times a week if necessary. Besides keeping the bowels loose, it clears the stomach, opens obstructions, cleanses the liver and promotes urination.

These, in brief, are the ordinary medicines used to treat melancholy, which, if properly used, may undoubtedly do much good. “Well-chosen specific remedies can at least alleviate, if they cannot remove, the trouble,” says Bessardus: a good selection of particular recipes must bring relief, even if it does not completely cure—not one alone, but all or most, as circumstances require.

And remedies that do no good singly may help in numbers.

8098.The lists are retained in full. Printed Zeodoti is interpreted as zedoary, Cicliminus as cyclamen, and Orange pills as orange peel. Dittander is pepperwort; savin is a juniper. These historical plant names should not be assumed to identify every modern botanical preparation precisely.

8099.The source places bezoar stone among “spices,” and that grouping is retained. Amni and Cary are interpreted as ammi and caraway. The compound names remain recognisable pharmaceutical labels; “carminative” means intended to expel wind. Antid. Florent. is the abbreviated Florentine Antidotary reference.

8101.The margin extends the warning to food as well as medicine and names rumbling among the symptoms. Burton’s principle is to balance the remedy against the individual constitution, not merely against one symptom.

8103.“Bags” are medicinal sachets; “cataplasms” are poultices. The Aretaeus book/chapter reference is reproduced as printed and remains for collation.

8107.“Present help” means immediate relief. “Enchantment” is a comparison for the alleged speed of the effect, not an additional instruction to use a charm.

8108.“Empyricks” are practitioners relying on experience, often contrasted with formally learned physicians. The scan prints “open the bowels,” although opening the bellows is suggested by the proposed mechanism; the printed wording is retained. Natura non admittit vacuum expresses the traditional principle that nature does not allow empty space.

8109.“Vants” means boasts. Passim alias means elsewhere throughout the work. The claim to invention and rapid success is Amatus’ claim as reported by Burton.

8110.“Costiveness” is constipation; “lenitives” are gentle laxatives. The three kinds are the forms treated in this section: melancholy of the head, throughout the body, and of the hypochondriacal region.

8111.The recipe occurs within the running paragraph and is set apart here for clarity. Ana, “of each,” supports reading the abbreviated prescription as two electuaries: lenitive electuary and electuary of rose juice. The omitted second noun is supplied in the modern rendering; the compressed Latin remains on the left.

8113.Mastic is the named resin in the pills; Cyprian turpentine is the historical medicinal resin preparation. The body permits two or three hours and twice or three times weekly; the margin specifies three hours, dinner or supper, and three times weekly. These differences remain visible.

8114.Burton’s Latin maxim and separate English paraphrase are both retained. Levando means removing the trouble, contrasted with soothing it. Bessardus probably denotes Jean Baptiste Besard, whose Antrum philosophicum is catalogued in a 1617 printing; compare Bassardus Visontinus in Block 105. This is a probable identification, not verification of the maxim’s exact source or location.

8115.Ovid, Remedies for Love 420. The standard Latin text begins Sed, “But”; Burton prints Et, “And,” which is retained in translation. The maxim endorses the combined effect of smaller remedies and also anticipates the next partition’s subject, love.