The Anatomy of Melancholy

Oribasius, an ancient physician, wrote at great length about it and approves its use “in conditions that can scarcely be cured otherwise.” Heurnius, in his Medical Practice, book 2, on emetics, would use it “only with great caution because of its strength, and when antimony does no good.” This led Hermophilus to compare it to a valiant captain—as Codroncus observes in chapter 7 of his Commentary on Hellebore—who sees all his soldiers go before him and comes “behind the front ranks,” like the boasting soldier, last himself. When other remedies fail in long-established melancholy, in a desperate case, this emetic is to be taken.

Yet, for all this, if properly prepared, it may safely be given at the outset. Mattioli boasts that he has often used it to many people’s benefit; and Heurnius says that “he has used it successfully, prepared according to his own prescription,” with good results. Christophorus à Vega, book 3, chapter 41, likewise considers its administration permissible. Our country gentlewomen find through their regular practice that there is no such great danger in it.

Dr Turner, discussing this plant in his Herbal, says that in his time it was a common household recipe to give powdered hellebore up to the weight of two pence, and he does not much object. But people commonly exceed that amount—for who is as bold as blind Bayard?—and prescribe it by the pennyworth and in similarly unreasonable ways, as I myself have heard market people ask for it in an apothecary’s shop.

God knows with what success. They often suffer for their rash boldness and folly: they burst a vein, make their eyes almost start from their heads, or kill themselves. The fault, then, lies not in the medicine but in its ignorant and reckless use.

Anyone wishing to know when to use it, how to prepare it correctly and in what dose should read Heurnius, Medical Practice, book 2; Brasavola, On Purgatives; Godefridus Stegius, Emperor Rudolf’s physician, chapter 16; Mattioli on Dioscorides; and Baptista Codronchus’ excellent Commentary on White Hellebore, which “is worth all the others.” There he will find a great variety of examples and recipes.

Antimony, or stibium, which our chemical physicians praise so highly, is taken either as the substance itself or as an infusion, and so on, and is frequently prescribed for this disease. “It helps all ailments arising from black bile, epilepsy and hypochondriacal disorders,” says Mattioli. To support his claim further, he gives several examples of people who have been relieved by it:

One is Andrew Gallus, a physician of Trent, who, after many other attempts, “attributes his recovery, after God, to this remedy alone.” Another is George Handschius, who similarly, when other medicines failed, “was restored by it to his former health; and others, as he knows, have likewise tried this admirable medicine and recovered through its help.”