The Anatomy of Melancholy

SUBSECTION 2 Single substances that purge melancholy downwards

Polypody and epithyme are gentle purgatives of melancholy, beyond all objection. Dioscorides holds that they evacuate phlegm; but Brasavola affirms from experience that they purge this humour. They are used in decoctions, infusions and so on, singly or mixed.

All five kinds of myrobalans are successfully prescribed against melancholy and quartan fevers. Brasavola speaks from “a thousand experiences”; he gave them in pills, decoctions and so on. Consult him for particular recipes.

In this list of purgatives of black bile I find stoechas, fumitory, dodder, herb mercury, caper roots, genista or broom, pennyroyal and half-boiled cabbage; oregano, feverfew, ammoniac salt and saltpetre. But these are very gentle; also alyppus, dragon root, centaury, dittany and colutea, which Fuchs, chapter 168, and others take to be senna, though most distinguish them.

Senna stands midway between violent and gentle downward purgatives, hot in the second degree and dry in the first. Brasavola calls it “a wonderful herb against melancholy: it cleanses the blood, brightens the spirits and shakes off sorrow.” It is “a most beneficial medicine,” as Dodoens calls it, discovered by the Arabians and unheard of before.

It is taken in various ways, as a powder or infusion, but most commonly as an infusion, with ginger or some cordial flowers added to temper its effects. Actuarius recommends it boiled in broth with an old rooster, or in whey, the usual vehicle for substances that purge black bile; or steeped in wine, which Heurnius considers sufficient without any further tempering.

Most say that aloes purges choler; but Aurelianus, Chronic Diseases, book 2, chapter 6; Arculanus, chapter 6 on the ninth book of Rhazes; Julius Alexandrinus, consultation 185 in Scholtz; and Crato, consultation 189 in Scholtz, prescribe it for this disease. Following Mesue, Rhazes, Serapio and Avicenna, they consider it good for the stomach and for opening the haemorrhoidal veins. Menardus opposes this in his Letters, book 1, letter 1: aloes “does not open the veins or provoke haemorrhoidal bleeding.” Leonhart Fuchs likewise affirms this in his Paradoxes, book 1; but Brasavola and Dodoens defend Mesue on the basis of their experience. Let Valesius settle the controversy.

Armenian stone and lapis lazuli are highly praised by Alexander, book 1, chapter 16, Avicenna, Aetius and Actuarius, provided they are thoroughly washed until the water is no longer coloured—fifty times, some say. “That good Alexander,” says Guainerius, “places such confidence in this one medicine that he thought it could cure every melancholic disorder. For my part, I have often used it successfully and have never been disappointed by its action.”