The Anatomy of Melancholy

Whether these black vapours proceed from the black blood around the heart, as T. W., the Jesuit, thinks in his Treatise of the Passions of the Mind, or from the stomach, spleen, midriff or all the disordered parts together, makes no difference. They keep the mind in a perpetual dungeon and oppress it with continual fears, anxieties, sorrows and the like.

It is common for those who are well to laugh at this dejected faint-heartedness and the other symptoms of melancholy, to amuse themselves with them, and to marvel at such things as fancies and trifles that people could resist and withstand if only they chose. But let anyone who marvels in this way consider: if someone suddenly told him that some of his closest friends were dead, could he help grieving? Or if he were placed on a steep rock where he was in danger of falling, could he feel safe? His heart would tremble with fear and his head would be dizzy.

P. Byarus, in his Treatise on Plague, gives an example, as I have mentioned: suppose, he says, someone walks along a plank. If it lies on the ground, he can do so safely; but if the same plank is laid over deep water as a bridge, he is powerfully disturbed. It is nothing but his imagination, “the impression of falling,” which his other bodily parts and faculties obey.

Yes, but you argue that such people have a just cause for fear, a real object of fear. So too do melancholic people have an internal cause: a perpetual fume and darkness producing fear, grief and suspicion, which they carry with them. It is an object that cannot be removed, but clings as closely and inseparably as a shadow to a body—and who can drive away or outrun his shadow? Remove the heat of the liver, the cold stomach, the weak spleen; remove those scorched humours and the vapours rising from them, the black blood from the heart and all external disturbances. Take away the cause, and then tell them not to grieve or fear, or be heavy, dull and sluggish. Otherwise advice can do little good. You might as well tell someone suffering from an ague not to be thirsty, or someone wounded not to feel pain.

Suspicion follows close on the heels of fear and sorrow, arising from the same source. So Fracastorius thinks: fear causes suspicion, and they constantly suspect that some treachery or secret plot is being contrived against them; they always distrust. Restlessness proceeds from the same source; a variety of fumes makes them like and dislike things. Solitude, avoidance of light, weariness of life and hatred of the world arise from the same causes, for their spirits and humours are opposed to light. Fear makes them avoid company and keep away, lest they be mistreated or hissed at, or go too far themselves, as they constantly fear.

They are prone to sexual desire because of wind. An abundance of choler makes them angry, irritable and continually fretting, causing frightening dreams and violent disturbances both asleep and awake. Their supposition that they have no heads, that they fly or sink, that they are pots or glasses, and so on, comes from wind in their heads. Hercules de Saxonia ascribes this to the various movements of the animal spirits: their expansion, contraction, confusion, alteration, darkness, and disordered heat or cold, excluding all material humours.