From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordDropsie, dropsie and plural dropsies name a swelling disorder associated with accumulated fluid.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe four-class scheme makes a strong therapeutic promise: cure the principal disease, and its subordinates are cured with it.
- In this editionThe modern column usually retains “dropsy” and “dropsies,” while editorial notes explain fluid swelling.
- A place to readDropsy classified as a particular bodily disease.
Meaning
Dropsie, dropsie and plural dropsies name a swelling disorder associated with accumulated fluid. The plural can collect cases or kinds of the disorder; it does not mean separate drops of liquid. Burton places dropsy among “Particular” bodily diseases in the synopsis. In a different scheme reported from Paracelsus’s followers, it becomes a principal class under which fevers, jaundice and cachexia are placed. The same word therefore operates at different levels of classification.
Use in the book
The four-class scheme makes a strong therapeutic promise: cure the principal disease, and its subordinates are cured with it. Burton’s next sentence calls this “too generall” and turns to the different methods actually prescribed for melancholy. His use of the scheme is thus comparative, not an instruction to regard every fever as a form of dropsy. Equally, the symptom catalogue places dropsy beside melancholy as one of the disorders encountered in mixed cases, a practical difficulty for classification rather than a single definition of melancholy.
In the prognostics, Guianerius adds dropsy to other supposedly favourable developments. The logic is relative: a change of bodily condition is being interpreted as a sign in the course of melancholy. “Good signes” does not mean that dropsy is intrinsically desirable or harmless. The paragraph is also unusually explicit about disagreement: a quartan fever is said both to relieve melancholy and, by other physicians, to cause it. This contested framework should accompany the startling inclusion of dropsy among favourable signs.
Elsewhere the disease helps Burton connect bodily condition with regimen and excess. He endorses authorities who associate impure water with dropsies; later he includes dropsies in a forceful denunciation of heavy drinking. The rich man’s luxurious table similarly comes with a catalogue of bodily and mental disorders. These passages argue against the supposed security of pleasure and wealth. They do not provide independently established diagnoses of drinkers or wealthy people.
The thirst image works differently. Students desire more learning as they acquire it, “as he that hath a Dropsie, the more he drinks the thirstier he is.” The comparison conveys appetite intensified rather than satisfied by acquisition. Here Burton praises the sweetness of study: a pathological bodily image is recruited for intellectual delight, not simply for condemning greed. Finally, dropsies appear among the disorders that Protesilaus’s shrine allegedly cures. Burton introduces these as “fabulous remedies”; the vinegrower’s report is neither Burton’s clinical observation nor an unqualified endorsement.
Related entries
Plethora and repletion concerns fullness and surplus in the bodily scheme; Prognostics explains the logic of favourable and unfavourable signs. Covetousness provides a comparison for unsatisfied acquisition, without changing the locally appreciative tone of the study passage. See also Stone and gravel (Stone and gravel).
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- In Considering Diseases: Section 1, Member 1 · paragraph 12Dropsy classified as a particular bodily disease.
- Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraph 40The impure-water context for the following disease list. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
- Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraph 41; note 2429Dropsies attributed to the disputed properties of water; compare marginal hydropem auget, the accompanying note.
- Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraph 28Dropsy among mixed disorders that resist orderly separation.
- Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraph 8Guianerius’s favourable-sign claim within disputed prognostics.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 6Dropsy as one of four principal classes.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 7The qualification of the promised common cure. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
- Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraph 16Unappeased thirst as an image for the delight of learning.
- Subsection 4 Cheerfulness, Merry Company, and Pleasing Sights as Remedies · paragraph 31Dropsies in the denunciation of excessive drinking.
- Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 37Disease as the counterweight to luxurious wealth.
- Subsection 4 Love Potions and Magical and Poetic Cures · paragraph 54; note 10964The fabulous shrine report, with Latin hydropes in the accompanying note.
In this edition
The modern column usually retains “dropsy” and “dropsies,” while editorial notes explain fluid swelling. In the water passage Burton’s English says the waters “breed” dropsies, whereas his marginal Latin hydropem auget means “aggravates dropsy.” Beginning a disorder and worsening one already present are different causal claims; the body and margin should not be silently harmonized. The shrine’s hydropes is the Latin disease-name in the plural. Simple “drops” in other passages are not attestations of dropsy.
Dropsie; dropsies
A historical swelling disorder associated with accumulated fluid.
Original wording: “To Dropsie, Agues, Jaundies, Cachexia, &c.”
Modern wording: “under dropsy, fevers, jaundice, bodily wasting and so on”
Here the disease-name serves as an umbrella class in the reported Paracelsian scheme. In the synopsis and symptom lists it is instead an individual bodily disorder. The next passage disputes the therapeutic generalization. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: dropsy; dropsie; dropsies.
hydropem auget
It aggravates dropsy.
Original wording: “hydropem auget”
Note translation: “it aggravates dropsy”
The accusative disease-name is the object of auget, “increases” or “aggravates.” Burton’s body says the water breeds dropsies. The two formulations are related but not identical claims. Lookup: hydropem; aggravates dropsy.
the more he drinks the thirstier he is
A comparison for desire that grows through attempted satisfaction.
Original wording: “as he that hath a Dropsie, the more he drinks the thirstier he is”
Modern wording: “like someone with dropsy, who grows thirstier the more he drinks”
The subject of the enclosing sentence is the learner. The thirst comparison intensifies the praise of study’s attractions, rather than turning this paragraph into an account of avarice. Lookup: dropsical thirst; thirstier.
hydropes
Dropsies or cases of dropsy.
Original wording: “Phthises, hydropes & oculorum morbos”
Note translation: “wasting illnesses, dropsies and diseases of the eyes”
The local sequence aligns hydropes with dropsies, not with the preceding wasting illnesses. This is marginal Latin accompanying a fabulous shrine narrative, not a new diagnosis or a healing claim independently verified by Burton. Lookup: hydrops; hydropes.