The Anatomy of Melancholy

Beef, a strong and substantial food—cold in the first degree and dry in the second, says Galen in On the Powers of Foods, book 3, chapter 1—is condemned by him and all subsequent authors as producing thick, melancholic blood. It is good for healthy people with strong constitutions and for labourers, if properly prepared: salted, from a young animal, and from an ox, since in every species the meat of castrated animals is considered best. If the animal is old, those worn out by work are preferred.

Aubanus and Sabellicus praise Portuguese beef as the tastiest, best and easiest to digest; we praise our own. But all beef is rejected as unsuitable for those who lead an inactive life, have any inclination towards melancholy or have a dry temperament. “Such people,” Galen thinks, “easily fall prey to melancholic illnesses.”

Pork is by nature the most nourishing of all meats, but wholly unsuitable for people who live at ease or are in any way unsound in body or mind. It is too moist, full of humours, and therefore “harmful to the delicate,” says Savonarola, “so that one may suspect that eating it produces a quartan fever.” It is bad for queasy stomachs, so much so that frequent use may produce a quartan ague.

Savonarola advises against goat meat, as does Bruyérin, book 13, chapter 19. He calls the animal filthy and rank-smelling, and therefore supposes its meat will produce rank and filthy matter. Yet Isaac approves young, tender kid, as do Bruyérin and Galen, On the Powers of Foods, book 1, chapter 1.

Hart and red deer have a bad reputation: they yield coarse nourishment, a strong and coarsely textured meat, next to horseflesh. Although some peoples eat horse—the Tartars and the Chinese, for example—Galen condemns it.

Young foals are as commonly eaten in Spain as red deer, and are often used to provision their fleets, especially around Málaga. But such meats require long baking or boiling to temper their qualities, and even that will not suffice.

All venison produces melancholy and bad blood. It is a pleasant food, highly prized at our ceremonial feasts—for we have more deer parks in England than in all the rest of Europe. It is somewhat better when the animal has been hunted and the meat is well prepared by cooking; but it is generally bad and should seldom be eaten.

Hare is a dark meat, productive of melancholy and hard to digest. Frequently eaten, it brings on the nightmare and causes terrifying dreams, as does all venison; a whole jury of physicians condemns it. Mizaldus and some others say that hare is a cheerful food and will make a person good-looking, as Martial’s epigram to Gellia attests. But this is incidental: it comes from the good sport it provides, the merry company and the pleasant conversation that usually accompany eating it, and must be understood in no other way.

Conies are similar in nature to hares. Magninus compares them to beef, pork and goat in his Regimen of Health, part 3, chapter 17. Yet everyone approves young rabbits as good.

Generally, all foods that are difficult to digest produce melancholy. Aretaeus, book 7, chapter 5, lists heads and feet, bowels, brains, entrails, marrow, fat, blood, skins, and internal organs such as the heart, lungs, liver and spleen. These are rejected by Isaac, book 2, part 3; Magninus, part 3, chapter 17; Bruyérin, book 12; and Savonarola, rubric 32, tract 2.