The Anatomy of Melancholy

The same may be said of lapis lazuli, although it is somewhat weaker than the other. Garcia da Orta, History, book 1, chapter 65, reports that Moorish physicians routinely prescribe it for all melancholic disorders; and Mattioli, Letters, book 3, boasts of the consistent success he has had in administering it. Nicholas Meripsa places it among the best remedies in his Antidotes, section 1, chapter 12.

“If this will not serve,” says Rhazes, “nothing remains but Armenian stone and hellebore itself.” Valescus and Jason Pratensis strongly recommend Hali’s powder, which is made from it. James Damascene, book 2, chapter 12, Hercules de Saxonia and others speak well of it. Crato does not approve: it and both hellebores, he says, are no better than poison. Victor Trincavelli, book 2, chapter 14, found from experience that it was “very harmful, troubling the stomach and injuring the bodies of those who take too much.”

Black hellebore, that renowned plant and famous purgative of melancholy, so widely used and admired throughout antiquity, was first discovered by a shepherd named Melampodius, as Pliny records in book 25, chapter 5. Seeing it purge his goats when they were raving, he tried it on Elize and Calene, the daughters of King Proetus, who ruled in Arcadia near the spring Clitorius, and restored them to their former health.

In Hippocrates’ time it alone was in demand, so much so that he wrote a book about it, a fragment of which still survives. Theophrastus, Galen, Pliny, Caelius Aurelianus—as ancient as Galen—book 1, chapter 6; Aretaeus, book 1, chapter 5; Oribasius, a famous Greek, Collection, book 7; Aetius, section 3, chapters 112 and 113; Paul of Aegina, Galen’s imitator, book 7, chapter 4; Actuarius; Trallianus, book 5, chapter 15; and Cornelius Celsus, the only surviving author of the old Latin writers, book 3, chapter 23: all praise and admire this excellent plant.

The ancients generally esteemed it so highly for this disease, among others, that they sent people who were mentally disordered or delirious to the Anticyras, or to Phocis in Achaia, to be purged, since the plant was plentiful there. In Strabo’s time this was a common journey: “Let him sail to Anticyra.” It was a familiar proverb among Greeks and Romans, telling a fool or madman to go and take hellebore.

Thus in Lucian, Menippus says to Tantalus: “Tantalus, you are talking nonsense; you need a draught of hellebore, and quite undiluted at that.” You are out of your little wits, O Tantalus, and must drink hellebore, without anything mixed with it. Aristophanes says in The Wasps, drink hellebore, and so on; and Harpax, in the comic playwright, told Simo and Ballio, two foolish fellows, that they needed purging with this plant.