The Anatomy of Melancholy

In this catalogue, borage and bugloss may claim first place, whether as the plant itself, juice, roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, decoctions, distilled waters, extracts, oils and so on, for these herbs can be prepared in many ways. Bugloss is hot and moist, and is therefore rightly counted among the herbs that expel melancholy and cheer the heart: Galen, book 6, chapter 80, On Simple Medicines; Dioscorides, book 4, chapter 123. Pliny praises this plant highly. It can be used in various ways: in broth, wine, preserves, syrups and so on.

It is an excellent cordial and is very frequently prescribed for this disorder. Indeed, the herb is so powerful that Diodorus, Library, book 7; Pliny, book 25, chapter 2, and book 21, chapter 22; Plutarch, Table Talk, book 1, chapter 1; Dioscorides, book 5, chapter 40; and Caelius, book 19, chapter 3, suppose it to have been Homer’s famous nepenthe. Polydamna, the wife of Thon, then king of Thebes in Egypt, sent this to Helen as a gift. It had so extraordinary a power that, if you took it steeped in wine, you could neither grieve nor shed a tear even if your wife and children, father and mother, brother and sister, and all your dearest friends died before your eyes.

Whoever once has drunk that nepenthe mixed with wine in a bowl Will shed no tear, even if his dearest child, His beloved brother, mother or father Dies before his eyes, pierced by a cruel sword.

Helen’s celebrated bowl, which cheered the heart, contained no other ingredient than this borage, as most of our learned commentators conjecture.

Melissa, or balm, has a remarkable power to alter melancholy, whether steeped in our usual drink, extracted or taken in some other form. Cardano, book 8, greatly admires this herb. According to Heurnius, it heats and dries in the second degree, wonderfully strengthens the heart and purges all melancholic vapours from the spirits: Mattioli, on Dioscorides, book 3, chapter 10. They attribute other powers to it as well: “to aid digestion, cleanse the brain, banish all worried thoughts and anxious imaginings.” Much the same words occur in Avicenna, Pliny, Simeon Seth, Fuchs, L’Obel, Dalechamps and every herbalist. Nothing is better for a melancholy person than to steep this and borage in his usual drink.

In the fifth book of his Medical Letters, Mattioli lists scorzonera “not only against poison, epilepsy and vertigo, but for this disorder: its root, taken by itself, drives away sorrow and brings mirth and lightness of heart.”

Antonius Musa, that renowned physician to Caesar Augustus, praises betony wonderfully in chapter 6 of his book on its virtues: “it guards people’s souls and bodies and makes them secure from fear.” It preserves both body and mind from fears, cares and griefs, and cures epilepsy, this disorder and many other diseases. Galen agrees, in book 7, On Simple Medicines, as does Dioscorides, book 4, chapter 1, and others.

Marigold is highly esteemed against melancholy, and is therefore often used in our everyday broth, being considered good against this and many other diseases.