The Anatomy of Melancholy

This judgment agrees with that of Heraclitus: a dry light makes a wise mind. Moderate heat and dryness are the chief causes of a good intellect. Therefore, says Aelian, the elephant is the wisest of all brute beasts, because its brain is driest, and “because of its abundance of black bile”; Cardan approves this explanation in On Subtlety, book 12. Giovanni Battista Silvatico, a physician of Milan, has discussed this question extensively in his first controversy; so have Rulandus in his Problems; Caelius Rhodiginus, book 17; Valleriola, sixth Medical Narrative; Hercules de Saxonia, posthumous Treatise on Melancholy, chapter 3; Lodovicus Mercatus, On the Treatment of Internal Diseases, book unspecified, chapter 17; Baptista Porta, Physiognomy, book 1, chapter 13; and many others.

Weeping, sighing, laughing, itching, trembling, sweating, blushing, hearing strange noises and seeing visions, wind and indigestion are bodily movements depending on these preceding movements of the mind. Tears are not affections but actions, as Scaliger holds. The voice of those who are afraid trembles because the heart is shaken (the Coimbra commentary, problem 6, section 3, On Sleep). Mercurialis and Montaltus, chapter 17, give similar explanations from Hippocrates for stuttering or faltering in speech: dryness makes the nerves of the tongue torpid. Rapid speech, a symptom in a few, Aetius attributes to abundant wind and quickness of imagination. Baldness comes from excessive dryness, hairiness from a dry constitution.

The cause of prolonged wakefulness is a dry brain, continual thought, discontent, fears and cares that give the mind no rest. Sexual incontinence comes from wind and a hot liver: Montanus, consultation 26. Rumbling in the bowels is caused by wind, and wind by poor digestion, weakness of natural heat, or disordered heat and cold. Palpitation of the heart comes from vapours, and heaviness and aching from the same cause. Wind causes the hardness of the belly and the jumping sensations in various parts. Redness of the face and itching, as though bitten by fleas or stung by ants, come from a sharp, subtle wind. Cold sweat comes from vapours rising from the hypochondria and settling on the skin; leanness, from lack of good nourishment.

Why their appetite is so great, Aetius answers: “The mouth of the stomach grows cold.” Cold in those internal parts, a cold belly and hot liver, causes indigestion; and tension proceeds from disturbances. Our soul, lacking spirits, cannot attend precisely to so many operations requiring concentration. Exhausted and overmastered by passion, she cannot consider the reasons that might dissuade her from such affections.

Bashfulness and blushing are a passion peculiar to human beings. They are not caused only by shame and disgrace, or by consciousness of some foul deed committed, but, as Fracastorius determines, “because of one’s own deficiency and fear”: from fear and an awareness of our defects. The face struggles and is troubled in the presence of someone who sees our defects; nature, seeking to help, sends heat there; heat draws the finest blood, and so we blush. The bold, arrogant and careless seldom or never blush; the fearful do.