The Anatomy of Melancholy

SUBSEC. 2. Division of the Body, Humours, Spirits.

Of the parts of the Body, there be many divisions: The most approved is that of Laurentius, out of Hippocrates: which is, into parts contained, or containing. Contained, are either Humors, or Spirits.

A humor is a liquid or fluent part of the body, comprehended in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or borne with us, or adventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call Cambium, and make those secundary humors of Ros and Gluten to maintaine it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary Humors, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the Liver, by which meanes Chylus is excluded.

Some divide them into profitable, and excrementitious. But Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juyces, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of Blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or diseased humors, as Melancthon calls them.

Bloud, is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humor, prepared in the Meseraicke veines, and made of the most temperate parts of the Chylus in the Liver, whose office is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, being dispersed by the veines, through every part of it. And from it Spirits are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards by the Arteries are communicated to the other parts.

Pituita, or Phlegme, is a cold and moist humor, begotten of the colder part of the Chylus, (or white juyce coming out of the meat digested in the stomack) in the Liver; his office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body, which as the tongue, are moved, that they be not over dry.

Choler, is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the Chylus, and gathered to the Gall: it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to the expelling of excrements.

Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sowre, begotten of the more fæculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, Bloud and Choler, preserving them in the Bloud, and nourishing the bones. These four humors have some analogy with the four Elements, and to the four ages in man.

To these humors you may adde Serum, which is the matter of Urine, and those excrementitious humors of the third Concoction, Sweat, and Teares.

Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud, & the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common tye or medium betwixt the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as Paracelsus, a fourth soul of it self. Melancthon holds the fountain of these spirits to be the Heart, begotten there; and afterward convayed to the Brain, they take another nature to them.