The Anatomy of Melancholy

Avicenna therefore holds that both are impaired, and most Arab physicians agree. Aretaeus, Gorgonius, Guianerius and others maintain the same view. To settle the controversy: no one doubts that imagination is damaged and disordered here. As for reason, I agree with Albertinus Bottonus, a doctor of Padua: the disorder begins in imagination and afterwards reaches reason if the disease becomes established, according to how long it has lasted.

But this happens indirectly, as Hercules de Saxonia adds: belief, opinion, discursive thought and reasoning are all impaired as a consequence of the failure of imagination.

To the part affected I may here add the people affected. There will be a more suitable place to discuss them elsewhere; for now I merely identify them. Those whose birth charts show the Moon, Saturn or Mercury adversely placed; those who live in excessively cold or hot climates; those born to melancholic parents; those who mismanage the six non-natural things; those of a dark or strongly sanguine complexion; those with small heads, a hot heart, a moist brain, a hot liver and a cold stomach; those who have long been ill—

those who are solitary by nature, study intensely, devote themselves to contemplation and lead inactive lives are most subject to melancholy. It affects both sexes, though men more often; yet affected women are far more violent and severely troubled. Of the seasons, autumn is the most melancholy.

Of the stages of life, old age has natural melancholy as an almost inseparable accompaniment; but the acquired disease is more frequent in middle age. Some specify forty years, Gariopontus thirty. Joubert exempts neither young nor old from this acquired condition. Daniel Sennertus, drawing on common experience, includes people of every kind: “It prevails in absolutely every body, whatever its constitution.”

Aetius and Aretaeus include not only discontented, emotional and miserable people of dark or swarthy complexion, but also the merriest and most cheerful, mockers and people with ruddy faces. In general, says Rhazes, the keenest minds and noblest spirits are more susceptible to it than others.

I can exempt no constitution, condition, sex or age, except fools and Stoics, who, according to Synesius, are never disturbed by any emotion. Like Anacreon’s cicada, without blood or pain, they are almost like gods.

Erasmus releases fools from this melancholy catalogue because they generally have moist brains and light hearts. They are free from ambition, envy, shame and fear, neither troubled in conscience nor worn down by the cares to which our whole life is so subject.