From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordApoplexie, Apoplexy and plural Apoplexies designate a historical disorder involving sudden loss of sense or bodily function.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe most precise argumentative use is negative.
- In this editionThe modern column retains “apoplexy” rather than imposing an exact retrospective diagnosis.
- A place to readMixed melancholy with apoplexies.
Meaning
Apoplexie, Apoplexy and plural Apoplexies designate a historical disorder involving sudden loss of sense or bodily function. The word should not automatically be replaced by a single present-day diagnosis. Burton locates it among affections of the brain’s ventricles and related parts, distinguishing these from disorders assigned to the substance of the brain. De Apoplexia, “on apoplexy,” also occurs as the subject of a cited specialist work.
Use in the book
The most precise argumentative use is negative. Asked which part melancholy principally affects, Burton reports that most authorities place it in the brain considered as a “similar part,” its bodily substance. The disorder may arise there or affect it through another part; but it is not, in this explanation, an obstruction of the ventricles, “for then it would be an Apoplexie, or Epilepsie.” Apoplexy marks a boundary in this particular account of melancholy, rather than another name for it.
The boundary is nevertheless traversable over time. Burton records authors who treat apoplexy as an illness that can develop into melancholy. In the prognostics he then gives the reverse direction: melancholy may degenerate into apoplexy and other disorders if it occupies the ventricles. These are different passages describing different claimed trajectories, not a contradiction to be erased by treating every disease-name as interchangeable. The synopsis condenses the second direction among the unfavourable developments associated with cold melancholy.
Apoplexy may also accompany melancholy without being presented as its origin or outcome. The synopsis calls such melancholy “mixt”; the symptom discussion lists apoplexy among disorders accompanying affected principal organs. The same historical vocabulary is therefore used for combination, causal succession and anatomical differentiation. The Paracelsian scheme supplies yet another arrangement, putting apoplexy under falling-sickness; its promised common treatment is immediately qualified as too sweeping.
The claims of extraordinary cure require their own speaker boundary. In the witchcraft discussion the first-person testimony about curing by touch belongs to the reported authority, not to Burton’s own observation. Later, apoplexy helps make luxury look precarious and appears among illnesses said to defeat physicians. Burton subsequently honours the medical calling: neither the catalogue of failures nor the sensational testimony is the last word on his attitude to physic.
Related entries
Cerebral chambers owns the ventricular anatomy; Organical parts the contrast with similar bodily substance. Prognostics supplies the larger account of predicted outcomes. Compare Epilepsy and falling sickness (Epilepsy and falling sickness), Palsy (Palsy) and Coma and lethargy (Coma and lethargy).
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- Necessary Causes: The Six Non-Natural Things. Section 2, Member 2 · paragraph 53Mixed melancholy with apoplexies.
- Symptoms Particular to the Three Distinct Species. Section 3, Member 2 · paragraph 62The synopsis’s unfavourable cold trajectory.
- Subsection 3. Classification of Diseases of the Head · paragraph 14The anatomical classification among ventricular disorders.
- Subsection 3. Classification of Diseases of the Head · paragraph 15Lonicerus’s specialist treatment offered as a model.
- Subsection 2. The Part Affected The Faculty Affected and the People Affected · paragraph 14Ventricular obstruction distinguishes apoplexy and epilepsy from melancholy in substance.
- Subsection 3 Witches and Magicians: How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 52Reported cures by touch; first-person evidence belongs to the authority quoted.
- Member 5 Subsection 1 Immediate, Internal, Antecedent and Proximate Causes, and How the Body Acts Upon the Mind · paragraph 57Apoplexy said to develop into melancholy.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 20Accompanying diseases, not necessarily stages of one disease.
- Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraph 11Melancholy said to progress into apoplexy on reaching the ventricles.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 6Apoplexy subordinated to falling-sickness.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 7The qualification of the four-class therapeutic claim. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
- Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 37The catalogue of bodily costs of luxury.
- Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraph 17The polemical claim that physicians cannot cure apoplexy.
- Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraph 24The return to honouring physicians. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
In this edition
The modern column retains “apoplexy” rather than imposing an exact retrospective diagnosis. Its “develop into” for degenerate into makes the direction of change intelligible without the modern word’s strongly moral associations. The translation of similar part as substance is crucial: Burton’s anatomical argument does not say that a part merely resembles another part. “Apoplexy,” “epilepsy” and “melancholy” retain different places in the argument even where one is said to become another.
Apoplexie; Apoplexy
A historical category of sudden disabling collapse or loss of sense and bodily function.
Original wording: “for then it would be an Apoplexie, or Epilepsie”
Modern wording: “for that would produce apoplexy or epilepsy”
The conditional distinguishes disorders assigned to ventricular blockage from the account of melancholy affecting brain substance. It is a local anatomical distinction, not an assertion that every case Burton calls apoplexy has been clinically established. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage. Lookup: apoplexy; apoplexie; apoplexies.
de Apoplexia
On apoplexy: the topic of a specialist medical work.
Original wording: “As Lonicerus hath done de Apoplexia”
Modern wording: “as Lonicerus has done with apoplexy”
Burton uses another author’s disease-specific treatment as a model for his own study of melancholy. The Latin is bibliographic here, not a fresh diagnosis of a patient. Lookup: Apoplexia; on apoplexy.
degenerate into
To develop or change into another illness.
Original wording: “because those diseases do often degenerate into this”
Modern wording: “because those diseases often develop into this one”
The demonstrative points to melancholy. A later passage reverses the direction and makes melancholy the condition that develops into apoplexy and other disorders. Preserving the subject and destination avoids flattening these disease histories into a list of synonyms. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: degeneration of disease.