The Anatomy of Melancholy

SUBSECTION 2. Diet corrected in quantity.

Human beings alone, says Cardan, eat and drink without appetite and indulge in every pleasure without need, “through a fault of the soul”; and many troubles come to them from this. For no food, however wholesome and good in itself, can be eaten at an unsuitable time or in excessive amounts, beyond what the stomach can comfortably bear, without producing indigestion and doing great harm.

Crato therefore advises his patient to eat only twice a day, at fixed mealtimes; never to eat without an appetite or on a full stomach; and to leave seven hours between dinner and supper. If we observed this rule in our colleges, it would be much better for our health. But that tyrant custom is so powerful that, contrary to all good order and the rules of medicine, we scarcely allow five.

If he has no appetite after waiting seven hours, he should postpone his meal, or eat very little at his usual mealtime. Prosper Calenus gave this very advice to Cardinal Caesius when he was suffering from this disease, and Plater prescribes it for a patient of his, to be observed with the utmost strictness. Guianerius allows three meals a day, but Montanus, consultation 23, for an Italian abbot, limits him strictly to two. And just as he must not eat too much, so he must not fast altogether: for, as Celsus argues in book 1, and Iacchinus, 15 on book 9 of Rhazes, overfilling and emptying the body can both do harm at their opposite extremes.

Moreover, whatever he eats must be chewed well, not hastily gobbled down, for that causes indigestion and wind; and he must take care to eat no more than he can properly digest. Some people think, says Trincavelius, book 11, chapter 29, On Treating the Parts of the Human Body, that the more they eat, the more they nourish themselves—“eat and live,” as the proverb says. They do not know that only what is properly digested restores a person, not whatever is swallowed.

Melancholy people generally have good appetites but poor digestion, and for that reason they must make sure to leave the table still hungry. What Socrates and Disarius, the physicians in Macrobius, so strongly recommend, Saint Jerome also enjoins on Rusticus: to eat and drink no more than will satisfy hunger and thirst.

Lessius the Jesuit considers twelve, thirteen or fourteen ounces of food, bread and so on—or at most sixteen in our northern countries—a suitable allowance for a whole day for all students, people in poor health, and those who lead an inactive, sedentary life; with the same amount, or a little more, to drink. Nothing burdens body and mind sooner than continual feeding: eating and gulping down food beyond all measure, as many do.

By overeating and continual feasting they smother nature and choke themselves up; whereas, if they had lived on coarse fare, or been tied to an oar like galley slaves, they might perhaps have prolonged their lives by many good years.