The Anatomy of Melancholy

Arculanus, chapter 6 on book 9 of Rhazes, and Magninus, part 3, chapter 5, think that abstinence harms many people because it sends poisonous vapours up to the brain and heart. Galen himself likewise holds that if natural seed is retained too long, it turns to poison in some people. Girolamo Mercuriale, in his chapter on melancholy, cites this as a particular cause of the disease, of priapism, satyriasis and so forth. Haly Abbas, Theoretical Medicine, book 5, chapter 36, lists this and many other diseases.

Villanovanus, Abridgement, book 1, chapter 18, says he knew many monks and widows severely troubled with melancholy from this cause alone. Luis Mercado, On the Disorders of Women, book 2, chapter 4, and Rodrigo de Castro, On the Diseases of Women, book 2, chapter 3, discuss the subject at length. They hold that it produces a special kind of melancholy in ageing unmarried women, nuns and widows: “because of suppressed menstruation and abstinence from sex, they are fearful, sad, anxious, bashful, suspicious, languid and at a loss what to do, utterly despairing of life and any improvement,” and so forth. They are melancholy to the highest degree, and all for want of husbands.

Aelianus Montalto, On Melancholy, chapter 37, confirms as much from Galen, as does Weyer. Cristóbal de Vega, The Art of Medicine, book 3, chapter 14, relates many such examples of men and women whom he had seen in this melancholy state.

Felix Plater, in the first book of his Observations, tells the story of an elderly gentleman in Alsace who married a young wife and, because of his various ailments, could not pay his conjugal debts for a long time. Deprived of sex, she fell into a terrible frenzy and, with words, looks and gestures, begged everyone who came to see her to have intercourse with her, and so forth.

Bernardus Paternus, a physician, says he knew a good, honest, godly priest who, unwilling either to marry or to visit brothels, fell into severe fits of melancholy. Hildesheim, second collection, gives a similar case of a melancholy Italian priest in a consultation of 1580. Jason Pratensis gives the example of a married man who, abstaining after his wife’s death, became exceedingly melancholy after married life; Rodrigo da Fonseca gives one of a young man similarly affected, volume 2, consultation 85. To these you may add, if you please, that amusing tale in Poggio of Florence, of a Jew afflicted in the same way and thus cured.

Excessive sex is just as bad at the opposite extreme. Galen, On Epidemics, book 6, section 5, text 26, lists melancholy among the diseases aggravated by sexual intercourse. So do Avicenna, 2, 3, chapter 11; Oribasius in the passage cited; Ficino, On Preserving Health, book 2; Marsilius Cognatus; Montalto, chapter 27; and Guaineri, treatise 3, chapter 2. Magninus, part 3, chapter 5, gives the reason: it cools and dries the body and consumes the spirits. He therefore advises all those of a cold, dry constitution to beware of it and avoid it as a mortal enemy.