Fits and paroxysms

Use in the book

The opening distinction initially seems sharp. Passing melancholy fits are called melancholy only “improperly”: they seize people for a time, then go as the provoking object changes. The subject Burton proposes to treat is instead fixed and established. Yet this does not make an intermittent course incompatible with the disease. In the later classification, Thomas Erastus distinguishes a perpetual form from an “interrupt” form, coming and going by fits, and subdivides the latter into the remaining bodily kinds. Fit describes an episode; established describes the underlying condition. Confusing those two levels would erase the distinction Burton subsequently needs.

The symptoms section makes that temporal variety concrete. Some sufferers are troubled only in spring and autumn, some yearly, some at hours or seasons explained astrologically, some during pregnancy only; others have a continuous condition. The next passage adds a grievous fit perhaps once in a lifetime, or once in five or seven years, occasioned by a dreadful event or object. These are alternatives distributed among different people, not a timetable imposed on everyone. In the account of the condition attributed to the womb, distress lasts while the supposed vapour lasts and may give way to singing, conversation and laughter; if the disorder is long established, episodes become more frequent, violent and continuous. “By fits” therefore helps articulate both recurrence and the contrast with relief, without appropriating the separately owned vocabulary of lucid intervals.

The two paroxysm passages warn against treating the learned word as an automatic diagnosis. Cornelius Gemma’s extraordinary narrative of Katherine Gualter combines convulsions and alleged expulsions of objects with paroxysms of laughing, weeping and ecstasy; the next paragraph says medical treatment failed and she was left to the clergy. Burton reports a marvel narrative and its witness’s horror. By contrast, an “Epileptick Paroxysme” is something an anxious observer sees, remembers and fears will happen to himself. The adjective identifies the observed attack; Burton’s claim that violent imagination may reproduce a condition belongs to his causal account, not to the definition of paroxysm.

Fits also give emotions a bounded duration. During an angry man’s fit Burton compares him with a madman; his following warning is explicitly conditional on fits being excessive, prolonged or frequent. The term does not make every brief anger identical to settled madness. In the cure of love, sight of a former beloved brings on a “new fit”: recurrence, rather than first infection, is the point. The introductory poem’s “jealous fits” likewise names repeated suffering within the speaker’s account of love. These belong to the same episodic vocabulary without being interchangeable medical cases.

Burton uses the word on his own writing. Having anatomized other people’s folly, the persona says he has awakened from a dream and had a raving, fantastical fit; he then declares himself recovered and promises a more sober discourse. The sequence makes the preceding satirical performance an episode from which its speaker theatrically emerges, not a clinical case history. At the other end of the work, fits enter an account of distressing religious thoughts: the raving of a sick person supplies an analogy for involuntary mental disturbance, in a passage ascribing that compulsion to the devil. The words “against their wils” are essential to the comparison; the passage’s supernatural explanation must remain attributed to Burton.

Finally, not everything occurring by fits is afflicted. Hard frost and snow can come at intervals, and comets are said, in Blancanus’s account, to diminish and disappear rather than perish. Here the expression carries only the discontinuous timing. These geographical and cosmological instances establish why a search for fits must be read semantically, not simply counted as a set of patients or attacks.

Related entries

Lucid intervals owns the expressions for intervening relief; Calenture and ague the fever vocabulary; Madness and Anger the conditions compared during an angry fit. Matrix and mother retains “fits of the mother,” including the comparison rather than identity. Hypochondria retains “hypocondriacall fit”. Compare Inveterate (Inveterate) for establishment and Habit and disposition for the underlying distinction.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. The Author’s Summary of Melancholy, in Dialogue · paragraph 53The poetic speaker recalls jealous episodes.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 32The satirical persona admits his own folly. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 33A raving and fantastical fit figures the preceding performance.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 34Recovery and the promise of a more sober discourse. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
5. Subsection 5. Melancholy as a Passing State, Loosely So Called; the Different Meanings of the Word · paragraph 19Passing fits contrasted with an established disorder.
6. Subsection 4. The Species or Kinds of Melancholy · paragraph 49Erastus’s intermittent category within the disease classification.
7. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 24Gemma’s case narrative introduces Katherine Gualter. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
8. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 25Paroxysms of laughter, weeping and ecstasy in that report.
9. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 26The reported failure of medicine and turn to clergy. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
10. Subsection 9. Anger as a Cause · paragraph 30Anger compared with madness during a fit.
11. Subsection 9. Anger as a Cause · paragraph 33Excess, duration or frequency conditions the warning.
12. Subsection 4. Causes of Hypochondriacal, or Windy, Melancholy · paragraph 43Earlier-owned hypocondriacall fit in Hypochondria; comparison only, with no new local support record.
13. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 42Fear of acquiring diseases heard or read about. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
14. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 43An epileptic paroxysm as an object of anxious observation.
15. Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraph 11Varied periodic and continuous courses.
16. Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraph 12Rare attacks and different provoking events.
17. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 1Earlier-owned fits of the mother in Matrix and mother; comparison only, with no new local support record.
18. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 3Intervals of sociability and the exception of entrenched illness.
19. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraph 37Frost and snow occurring intermittently.
20. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraph 1The surrounding debate about heavenly appearances. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
21. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraph 2Comets said to come and go at intervals.
22. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 8Seeing a former beloved triggers a fresh fit.
23. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 28Burton introduces a demonic explanation of intrusive thoughts. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
24. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 29Fits in the analogy of sickness and involuntary thoughts.
25. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 30The following contrast with thoughts attributed to the sufferers themselves. [Context, not a headword attestation.]

In this edition

The modern column often retains fit or supplies “attack”; interrupt becomes “intermittent,” and the ordinary temporal by fits becomes “at intervals.” Paroxysmes becomes “fits,” but Epileptick Paroxysme becomes the whole phrase “epileptic seizure.” The latter rendering is licensed by the adjective as well as the noun. For the persona’s phantastical fit, “a fit of wild fancy” explains the association with imagination rather than merely modernizing it to fantastic. Paroxysm is a normalized lookup form, not the spelling printed in these two body passages.

Melancholy fits

Temporary episodes of melancholy feeling or disturbance.

Original wording: “all these Melancholy fits”

Modern wording: “all these melancholy fits”

The following qualification says such passing experiences are called melancholy only loosely. The expression is not by itself the name of the fixed disorder Burton proposes to examine. Lookup: melancholy fits; fit [episode].

by fits [intermittent illness]

In separate attacks rather than without interruption.

Original wording: “interrupt, which comes and goes by fits”

Modern wording: “intermittent, coming and going in attacks”

Erastus uses this course to distinguish one category of melancholy from the perpetual form. An underlying illness may remain established while its attacks recur. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage. Lookup: by fits [illness]; fits; intermittent; interrupt.

a most grievous fit

A particularly severe episode, possibly isolated or very infrequent.

Original wording: “once peradventure in his life, hath a most grievous fit”

Modern wording: “has a most grievous fit perhaps once in his life”

Perhaps and the alternatives once in five or seven years prevent this from describing a necessary or regular recurrence. The paragraph distributes different courses among different sufferers. Lookup: grievous fit; fit [rare attack].

paroxysmes

Acute episodes of an affection, here laughter, weeping and trance-like states.

Original wording: “paroxysmes of laughing, weeping and extasies”

Modern wording: “fits of laughter, weeping and trance”

The complements identify the manifestations in Gemma’s reported marvel narrative. The noun does not independently designate epilepsy. Lookup: paroxysmes; paroxysm [normalized access form].

Epileptick Paroxysme

An epileptic attack.

Original wording: “an Epileptick Paroxysme”

Modern wording: “an epileptic seizure”

The full adjective-and-noun phrase specifies the observed event. The subject of the surrounding passage is the fearful observer, not a patient whom Burton has independently diagnosed. Lookup: Epileptick Paroxysme; epileptic paroxysm; Paroxysme.

The same attestation is also explained at Epileptick Paroxysme; the two contextual records distinguish the named seizure disorder and the episodic sense of paroxysm, rather than claiming two distinct lemmas.

fit [emotional episode]

A period in which a passion takes hold of someone.

Original wording: “in the time of his fit”

Modern wording: “during his fit”

The possessive refers to the angry man. The comparison with madness is limited to that period; the later warning about lasting effects adds conditions of excess, duration or frequency. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: fit [anger]; fits [passion]; new fit; jealous fits.

a phantastical fit

An episode of uncontrolled fancy or imaginative extravagance.

Original wording: “a raving fit, a phantastical fit”

Modern wording: “a raving fit, a fit of wild fancy”

The speaker describes his preceding satirical excursion and immediately performs a recovery. This is the self-characterization of the authorial persona, not an independently established illness. Lookup: phantastical fit; raving fit; fit of wild fancy.

by fits [at intervals]

Intermittently; at separated times.

Original wording: “or by fits”

Modern wording: “or at intervals”

The objects are frost and snow, so no bodily attack is implied. The comet passage similarly uses the phrase for recurring appearance. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: by fits [at intervals]; at intervals.

in his fits [sickness analogy]

During episodes of sickness or disturbance.

Original wording: “As a sick man frets, raves in his fits”

Modern wording: “Just as a sick person frets and raves during attacks”

The simile illustrates lack of voluntary control. Burton applies it to thoughts he ascribes to demonic compulsion; the lexical definition does not endorse that explanation. Lookup: fits [sickness analogy]; in his fits.