Epidemical

Use in the book

At the close of the preface, Burton justifies the usefulness of his undertaking through the frequency of melancholy. Mercurialis and Laurentius are cited for its prevalence; Claudinus calls it a fountain of other diseases and claims scarcely one in a thousand is free. Burton then describes his subject as “so universall a malady, an Epidemical disease,” a source of bodily and mental torment. The adjective intensifies the claim of common need that motivates the book. It does not introduce an account of contagion between sufferers, and the cited numbers are not modern prevalence estimates.

The formal outline makes a distinction between collective and particular bodily diseases. Later the general account of human miseries names epidemic diseases afflicting “whole Kingdoms, Territories, Cities,” as opposed to the cares, losses and sickness of private persons. The distinction organises consolation as well as medicine: suffering belongs both to communities and individuals. It does not entail that a person affected by a collective calamity lacks a particular illness.

Burton's examples also resist a modern one-to-one classification. In the fantasy of a world reformer, epidemic diseases include scurvy, plica and the Neapolitan disease. In the medical opening the list expands to smallpox and sweating sickness and uses the French disease's name. Burton says these were unknown to Galen and Hippocrates. The editor distinguishes his claim about ancient medical knowledge from any established date of the diseases' first appearance. Plica here names a disorder of severely matted hair, while the historical national names for the venereal disease carry the period's naming practices; inclusion under epidemical does not settle their present diagnostic or epidemiological status.

Causal settings change with the argument. Cyprian's address is used to make epidemical afflictions part of punishment for sin; the discussion of the air derives epidemic diseases from weather and atmospheric disorder. Burton then contrasts largely foreseeable public calamities with treacherous human malice that no vigilance can anticipate. His confidence in astrologers' forecasts serves that contrast, not a separately established demonstration of prediction. In the reported polemic about intercourse during menstruation, “morbi Epidemici” belongs to a claim attributed to Jewish objections through Christian intermediaries. It is neither unmediated testimony about Jewish practice nor Burton's evidence for a verified mode of disease transmission.

Related entries

Melancholy owns the substantive illness; Air the environmental causal account; Commonwealth the collective political body. Compare Contagion and infection: being widespread and being transmitted are different claims. Pestilence and plague develops the chief outbreak vocabulary.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 31Diseases in the imagined programme of worldwide reform.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 18Authorities cited for melancholy’s frequency.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 19Claudinus’s prevalence claim and the editor’s explanation of epidemical.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 20Widespread melancholy as justification for the book.
5. In Considering Diseases: Section 1, Member 1 · paragraph 12Epidemic versus particular diseases in the synopsis.
6. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraph 14Collective disease within the cited argument from divine punishment.
7. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraph 29Atmospheric causes and reported plague statistics.
8. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraph 37Foreseeable epidemics contrasted with hidden human malice.
9. Subsection 2. The Definition, Number and Classification of Diseases · paragraph 3The number of diseases expressly remains unsettled.
10. Subsection 2. The Definition, Number and Classification of Diseases · paragraph 5Diseases said to be unknown to ancient physicians.
11. Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 7Latin Epidemici within a mediated religious-medical polemic.
12. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 A Digression on Consolation, Containing Remedies for Every Kind of Discontent · paragraph 1Public calamity distinguished from private affliction.
13. Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 A Digression on Consolation, Containing Remedies for Every Kind of Discontent · paragraph 2The shared-suffering argument into which that distinction leads.

In this edition

The modern rendering uses “widespread” for the melancholy passage and for Latin Epidemici, while keeping “epidemic” for the collective disease class and the disasters afflicting kingdoms. That choice usefully preserves the adjective's range without imposing a present technical definition. The editor also marks the enormous plague death totals and recurrence intervals in the air passage as Burton's reports from earlier authorities, not verified statistics.

In the synopsis, “Definition, Member, Division” becomes “definition, number, and classification.” The modern “number” is an explicit editorial emendation, supported by the corresponding chapter heading, not a new reading silently attributed to the original. The synopsis's 300 remains Burton's stated count, and the adjoining medical discussion itself says the number of diseases is unsettled.

Epidemicall; Particular

Collective versus individual kinds of bodily disease in the outline.

Original wording: “Epidemicall; as Plague, Plica, &c.”

Modern wording: “Epidemic, such as plague, plica, etc.”

The following line opposes particular diseases such as gout and dropsy. This is Burton’s historical grouping, not a modern test requiring a specified case rate or mode of spread.

Editorial access forms: epidemic; epidemical; epidemicall. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

Further checked attestations: the passage: “Or Particular; as Gout, Dropsie, &c.”.

A distinct textual issue in the same outline is “Definition, Member, Division”, rendered “definition, number, and classification”. An accompanying note identifies number as an editorial emendation supported by the chapter heading, not the original reading or a new meaning of Member. Editorial lookup: Member [editorially emended to number].

an Epidemical disease

A widely prevalent disease, here melancholy.

Original wording: “so universall a malady, an Epidemical disease”

Modern wording: “so universal a malady, so widespread a disease”

The adjective advances Burton’s justification for a work useful to many. No claim of person-to-person contagion follows from this wording alone.

Editorial access forms: widespread melancholy. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

morbi Epidemici

Widespread diseases, in a reported polemical explanation of illness.

Original wording: “tam multi morbi Epidemici, acerbi, & venenosi sint”

Modern wording: “so many widespread, painful and poisonous diseases”

Epidemici agrees with plural morbi. Widespread corresponds to that adjective; painful and poisonous translate the separate adjectives acerbi and venenosi. The passage’s attribution and prejudicial framework must not be removed.

Editorial access forms: epidemici; epidemic diseases. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

Epidemical diseases which afflict whole Kingdoms

Public disease affecting large political communities.

Original wording: “Epidemical diseases which afflict whole Kingdoms, Territories, Cities”

Modern wording: “epidemic diseases that afflict whole kingdoms, territories, and cities”

The defining context is scale of shared affliction, contrasted with private persons’ cares and sickness. This is a phrase record for the explicit collective range.

Editorial access forms: collective disease. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.