Fomentation

Use in the book

The synopsis first places fomentations among external medicines, then specifies oil applications to the belly among measures for procuring sleep. The fuller catalogue explains “Fomentations or spunges, wet in some decoctions,” immediately before epithems laid on linen. The two names share a moist external mode but are not simply two names for the decoction itself. A decoction is a prepared liquid; the fomentation is its application, represented here by the soaked sponge. Burton closes the catalogue by reserving the particular uses of these preparations for the separate kinds of melancholy.

The belly example uses oil in which seeds have been boiled. Later, treatment for hypochondriacal melancholy extends the head’s external applications to the liver, spleen, stomach and regions beneath the ribs. Fomentations for the hypochondries then use wine and water with boiled herbs. The lexical category therefore survives a change of vehicle and anatomical site. It does not name one fixed medicine, nor does the presence of a medicinal liquid make this an internal drink.

A further wind-expelling list explicitly begins “Outwardly taken” and includes fomentations using herbal decoctions beneath the ribs. Here taken means employed externally, not swallowed. Its immediately preceding caution is essential: Bruel warns that remedies meant to expel wind can inflame the blood and worsen the disease, and says their heating or cooling tendency must follow the circumstances and the patient’s constitution. The list cannot therefore be read as an unqualified rule that every affected person requires more heat. These are distinctions within historical medicine, not present-day therapeutic advice.

The Latin family broadens the article beyond pharmaceutical technique. In the marriage discussion, the woman who sits beside a sick man, tends him, prepares a fomentum and seeks a doctor supplies one of the comforts unmarried people supposedly lack. Burton acknowledges the loss before arguing that these inconveniences are small beside marriage’s burdens. The same noun in the wine passage has the reverse value: wine is called fomentum libidinis, fuel or encouragement for lust, under Burton’s attribution to Augustine. The neighbouring heated-belly and volcanic images explain why warming or sustaining a condition can become a hostile moral metaphor. A marginal plural, fomenta libidinum, similarly names cosmetics as incentives to lust in a polemical exhortation.

Related entries

Decoction owns the liquid-preparation process; Epithemes the moist linen application; Friction and embrocation rubbing and other liquid application. Baths and bathing retains the broader bathing regimen. Compare Plaster and cerate (Plaster and cerate) for differently prepared external dressings.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 17Fomentations classified among external medicines.
2. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 24Oil applications to the belly in the sleep-treatment synopsis.
3. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 30Sponges wetted in decoctions beside the distinct linen-based epithems.
4. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 24Oil as the vehicle of a belly fomentation.
5. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraph 41Applications extended from the head to abdominal regions.
6. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraph 43Wine-and-water applications beneath the ribs.
7. Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On · paragraph 51Patient-dependent caution about hot and dry remedies. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
8. Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On · paragraph 52External fomentations in the wind-expelling list.
9. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 49Excessive food and sexual preparation introduce the wine comparison. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
10. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 50Fomentum libidinis names wine as fuel for lust.
11. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 51Youthful heat compared with volcanoes. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
12. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraph 42The marginal fomenta libidinum labels cosmetics as incentives to lust.
13. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraph 29The comparison begins with praise of virginity. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
14. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraph 30Fomentum prepared by a woman nursing a sick man.
15. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraph 31The argument returns to compensations of unmarried life. [Context, not a headword attestation.]

In this edition

“Fomentations or spunges, wet in some decoctions” becomes “fomentations, or sponges soaked in decoctions and similar liquids.” The belly and hypochondrial examples become “a warm application of oil” and “Warm applications to the regions beneath the ribs.” Warmth is an explanatory rendering, not an additional printed adjective in those original phrases. The nursing fomentum is “a soothing application,” while fomentum libidinis becomes “fuel for lust.” This difference preserves the literal care and figurative encouragement without making the Latin word itself mean a particular drug in both settings. The nursing quotation’s precise external source and the Augustine attribution remain uncollated in the supplied edition.

Fomentations; fomentations

Moist medicinal applications made externally, here represented by sponges soaked in prepared liquids.

Original wording: “Fomentations or spunges, wet in some decoctions”

Modern wording: “fomentations, or sponges soaked in decoctions”

The sponge is the immediate vehicle of application; the decoction is the liquid it carries. The following linen-based epithems remain under Epithemes rather than being absorbed as identical vocabulary. Further checked occurrences: the passage, the passage, the passage. Lookup: fomentation; fomentations; warm application; spunges [fomentation vehicle].

Fomentation of oyle [phrase]

A moist external application using oil as its liquid vehicle.

Original wording: “For the Belly, make a Fomentation of oyle”

Modern wording: “For the belly, make a warm application of oil”

The ensuing clause describes seeds boiled in the oil. Of oyle states the material used, while For the Belly states the site; neither should be mistaken for an oral dose. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: fomentation of oil; oil application.

Fomentations to the Hypocondries [phrase]

External moist applications to the upper abdominal regions beneath the ribs.

Original wording: “Fomentations to the Hypocondries are very good, of wine and water”

Modern wording: “Warm applications to the regions beneath the ribs are very good: wine and water”

The full phrase supplies the location. The ensuing boiled herbs specify this preparation, while the neighbouring heading Topicks establishes the external route. Lookup: hypochondrial fomentation; fomentations to the hypochondries.

fomentum libidinis [Latin phrase]

Fuel or encouragement for sexual desire.

Original wording: “fomentum libidinis vocat Augustinus”

Modern wording: “Augustine calls it fuel for lust”

Wine is the subject of the attributed description. This metaphor makes the sustaining or warming action harmful, rather than identifying a medicinal sponge used to treat desire. Lookup: fomentum; fomentum libidinis; fuel for lust.

fomentum paret [Latin phrase]

Prepare a soothing medicinal application for a sick person.

Original wording: “fomentum paret”

Modern wording: “prepare a soothing application”

The woman who attends a sick man is the implied agent. Her nursing is one acknowledged comfort of marriage within an argument preferring unmarried life; the application itself is not specified by ingredient or temperature. Lookup: fomentum [nursing]; fomentum paret; soothing application.

fomenta libidinum [Latin phrase]

Incentives or nourishment for lustful desires.

Original wording: “fomenta libidinum”

Note translation: “incentives to lust”

The plural condemns rouge and white lead within a religiously polemical account of adornment. It names the supposed encouragement of desire, not the cosmetics’ formulation as medical fomentations. Lookup: fomenta; fomenta libidinum.