Prognostics · Lexicon

From the book

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The word“Prognosticks” are “signs of things to come”: indications of a condition’s expected course and outcome.
In the Anatomy of MelancholyPrognostics belong to the Anatomy’s advertised method: kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics and cures.
In this edition“prognosticks” becomes “prognoses” in the prefatory warning.
A place to readPrognostickes, rendered prognoses, within the advertised method.

Meaning

“Prognosticks” are “signs of things to come”: indications of a condition’s expected course and outcome. The family includes “Prognostickes,” “Prognostiques,” the Latin noun “prognosticatio,” and Burton’s English “prognostication.” “Event” can mean the outcome itself; it need not mean an isolated occurrence. Prognostic signs may be favourable or unfavourable. The word therefore does not inherently mean a fatal prediction.

The same forward-looking sense permits figurative use: answering smiles can be “prognosticks of greater matters,” apparent indications of further intimacy. Their interpretation may be mistaken. The related “presage” means foretell in a report of death omens, whose supernatural explanation remains qualified and contested. Latin “præsagit” describes the mind foreboding an unspecified evil; “præsagio,” an ablative of praesagium, names the optimistic presentiment associated with Athenais’s beauty. Neither apprehension by itself establishes an actual future event.

Use in the book

Prognostics belong to the Anatomy’s advertised method: kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics and cures. Symptoms concern what is manifest; prognostics ask what those signs indicate about what follows. The First Partition gives prognosis a distinct section, and the later discussions of love, jealousy, religious melancholy and despair repeat that structure. Burton expressly adopts it when following the physicians who treat love separately. Prognostics can address bodily outcomes, conduct, social disaster and, in the religious argument, salvation or damnation. The structure is medical in origin but Burton’s uses exceed medicine alone.

The prefatory warning places the reader inside this problem of interpretation. Burton first tells a reader already suffering from melancholy not to read the symptoms or prognostics, lest general statements be appropriated and magnified into a description of that reader’s own case. The very next unit advises cautious reading instead. Both formulations matter: the book intends benefit while recognizing that its general descriptions may distress a susceptible reader. The attached marginal reference names the symptoms section, not the separate prognostics section.

The prognostics chapter begins with good signs. Non-hereditary illness treated early offers hope; the laughing form is said to be the safest, mildest and least severe of all. Reported evacuations and skin eruptions are interpreted through the historical theory of diverted or discharged humours. Burton does not present every purported good sign without reservation: after reporting benefit from quartan fever, he asks whether it truly frees a person from melancholy, since prolonged fevers are elsewhere counted among its causes. The same occurrence may therefore be interpreted differently by the cited physicians.

Bad prognostics are equally argumentative. A maxim of incurability in established melancholy is softened by others to difficulty of cure. Paracelsus’s reported claim that every disease is curable is juxtaposed with a contrary statement about hereditary disease. Bruel’s ranking of bodily kinds disagrees with Galen’s. The body calls the blood-derived form gentlest, while its marginal Latin calls the form from boiling blood bad; their wording is not silently harmonized. Montanus’s reported claim is stronger than a mere possibility of relapse: physicians may relieve the illness but cannot remove it completely, and it will return more severely. Burton illustrates surviving remnants with gold remaining in the crevices of an apparently bare statue. These are attributed historical claims, not current prognoses.

“Event” occurs when humoral heating is said to lead commonly to madness. The passage differentiates outcomes attributed to cold, heat, and excessive scorched natural melancholy, and distinguishes periodic from continuous madness. Its medical categories, including the reported demonic category, must not be silently merged. The ensuing discussion of self-inflicted death moves from cited medical verdicts into the language of felt suffering, metaphor, and theological intervention. Its sweeping frequency claims do not supply measured risks. Later in the despair section Burton expressly describes multitudes recovering comfort, so the most severe prognostic sentences should not be turned into an inevitable personal fate.

Love and jealousy make the importance of conditions especially clear. Gordonius’s Latin says that lovers face the predicted outcome “unless they receive help”; Burton’s immediately following English gloss omits that condition. The later elaboration restores conditional clauses about continued passion and absent help. Jealousy likewise is said generally to progress towards hatred and worse outcomes “if they be not otherwise relieved.” Preserving these qualifications is necessary even when explaining a historically alarming prediction.

Religious prognostics add moral and collective consequences. Burton infers folly, despair and a bad end from the symptoms he has described, then extends the prediction to wars, persecution and devastated lands. His explanation invokes divine judgement and attacks superstition; it is his theological argument, not a neutral account of causation or a verified history of every group he names. In the despair discussion he also qualifies harsh judgements of the dead: charity and the force of illness can alter the moral construction placed upon an act.

Outside formal disease descriptions, a smile’s “prognosticks” expose the danger of reading too much into a sign. A lover may take another person’s ordinary pleasant expression as proof of personal willingness. That error parallels, without equating, the preface’s concern about appropriating general statements to oneself. “Event” likewise describes the alleged outcome of marriages formed from money, deception or lust; it retains its outcome sense within moral argument.

Related entries

Physick; Present; Century; Symptoms; Signs; Cause; Despair; Jealousy; Fear; Sorrow; Religious melancholy; Habit and disposition

Places to read

Engraved title, unnumberedPrognostickes, rendered prognoses, within the advertised method.
· paragraph 26–DJR-6-28Harmful self-application, prohibition and subsequent advice to read cautiously.
Unnumbered First Partition synopsis · paragraph 21–DJR-20-22The distinct prognostic section and its relation to kinds, symptoms and cures.
Unnumbered First Partition synopsisFavourable prognostic indications.
· paragraph 15The general method: kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics and cures.
· paragraph 16The abbreviated Hippocratic reference; divine versus natural cause and its disputed interpretation.
· paragraph 29–DJR-30-31Reported death omens, hearsay, and competing natural or spiritual explanations.
· paragraph 1–DJR-55-3The mind’s foreboding of unspecified evil within superstitious fear.
· paragraph 5–DJR-65-21Definition, good and bad signs, disputed cures, categorical relapse claims, humoral event and severe-outcome rhetoric.
· paragraph 9The abbreviated marginal reference identified as Digges’s Prognostication, a book title here.
Unnumbered Third Partition synopsis, supplied positions [404–405]The repeated prognostic arrangement for love, jealousy, religious melancholy and despair, beside their treatments.
Sequence [printed 246]The debated disease category and Burton’s adoption of its physicians’ method.
· paragraph 34–DJR-120-36Smiles as ambiguous signs of further intimacy and their misapplication.
· paragraph 12–DJR-122-14Event as the alleged usual outcome of ill-founded matches; original all and modern these.
· paragraph 29–DJR-133-31Love’s outcome and reported literary incurability.
· paragraph 43–DJR-133-49Public disaster and the conditional Latin prediction; the immediate English prognostication omits the help-condition.
· paragraph 33–DJR-141-37Athenais’s beauty, the father’s presentiment, and the reported favourable outcome.
· paragraph 7Jealousy’s separate treatment through causes, prognostics and cures.
· paragraph 1–DJR-148-6Jealousy’s conditional prognosis, generally and unless otherwise relieved.
· paragraph 29–DJR-160-33Individual, collective and theological consequences.
Despair’s severe prognostics, charitable qualifications and subsequent recovery argument.
Unnumbered Table · paragraph 150Despair’s inherited Table route, including prognosis at 704.
Unnumbered Table · paragraph 260Jealousy’s inherited Table route, including prognosis at 613.
Unnumbered Table · paragraph 116The general prognostics entry’s inconsistent page references, preserved as textual evidence.
Unnumbered Table · paragraph 139Religious melancholy’s Table route, including prognosis at 678.
Unnumbered TableViolent death as prognostic and event in the inherited Table; its page assignments are not certified navigation.

In this edition

“prognosticks” becomes “prognoses” in the prefatory warning. “the common event” becomes “the usual outcome” in the conditional account of heating. These preserve the predictive purpose while leaving the distinct historical outcomes visible. At the chapter’s definition “Prognosticks, or signs of things to come” becomes “Prognostic signs, or signs of what is to come.” The modern heading’s singular “Prognosis” describes the whole assessment, while plural signs describe its indications.

The modern column translates the complete Latin prediction, including “Unless they receive help,” then also retains Burton’s shorter English restatement. The condition is explicit in the source Latin; it is not a modern editorial invention. Burton’s English “prognostication” is rendered “prediction”; its own brief restatement still lacks the preceding help-condition. The title-page “Prognostickes” likewise has the direct rendering “prognoses”. At the passage “prognosticks of greater matters” becomes “foretastes of greater things,” within the deceptive-smiles argument.

The source Tables are not silently harmonized: the general prognostics entry assigns love, despair and jealousy page numbers that differ from the actual headings at, while another Table entry correctly gives despair’s prognosis at. These inherited locators are textual evidence rather than certified navigation. No fresh collation of the cited historical authorities is claimed.

event · local use 1

Printed “event” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

At a Glance

Meaning

Use in the book

Places to read

In this edition

event · local use 1

event · local use 2

event · local use 3

evil prognostics

if not relieved

praesagio

praesagium

presage

prognostic · prognosticks · local use 1

prognostic · Prognosticks · local use 1

prognostic · prognosticks · local use 2

prognostic · Prognosticks · local use 2

prognostic · Prognostiques

prognostic · Prognostickes

prognosticatio

prognostication

prognosticon

si non succurratur