Inflammation

Use in the book

The early disease classification locates inflammation in the brain or its membranes and joins it with acute fever in defining phrenitis. Elsewhere the anatomical account places pleurisy in an inflamed pleura. These examples give sites, not a modern general mechanism. Later, inflammation can be an antecedent after which melancholy humour remains; Burton reports authorities who also derive that humour from an internal part’s disordered temperament. A subsequent diagnostic statement attributed to Piso again allows harmful fluid to remain after inflammation, but Burton immediately rejects the inference as always reliable because blood and hypochondria may also be affected in head melancholy. The word participates in contested causal distinctions, not a uniform diagnosis.

The causal section develops the relation between blockage and heat. The stomach and mesenteric veins contribute through obstruction; matter becomes scorched and inflamed. A following paragraph says most of the organs under discussion offend through inflammation and corrupt humours and spirits. Burton there equates mesentery, midriff and diaphragm, an anatomical confusion retained and identified by the editor. Montalto’s claim that the active cause is hot and dry, rather than cold and dry, builds on this heating account. Crusius, however, allows an inflamed brain while calling the disease cold in itself and only incidentally hot; Burton then states his own preference for Capivaccius. Reporting these turns as one unanimous theory would lose the argument’s contrasts.

Other constructions show the family’s bodily range. Inflamed and red faces are appearances in Mercatus’s symptom account, while “inflamed blood” is a condition in a conditional exception to avoiding bloodletting. The subject of inflammation need not be an organ. The report about a girl who dried her hair in the sun instead places the head within an alleged causal sequence from prolonged exposure to derangement. Burton attributes the story to Amatus Lusitanus; its explanation is the cited report’s, not an independently demonstrated consequence.

The treatment passages make overheating a reason to qualify, refuse or modify a remedy. Neglecting bloodletting is dangerous in one heated, excessive condition, but using it without judgment, at the wrong time or to excess is said to do equal harm through cooling and depletion. Compound waters are restricted where melancholy is inflamed or the constitution too hot; wine likewise is not for those described as hot or inflamed. Bruel’s particularly pointed caution says that, in trying to expel wind with hot and dry medicines, practitioners may inflame the blood and increase the very disease they seek to relieve. The remedy must vary with circumstances and the person’s constitution. These are historical restrictions within the regimen, not contemporary treatment advice.

The same fire-language crosses bodily, environmental and emotional descriptions without preserving one medical sense. The “Earth inflamed” is land under scorching heat, in the geographical account of pilgrims and hot sands. In love, Philostratus’s speaker says the beloved’s eyes have inflamed his soul beyond quenching; bodily beauty kindles desire. The cure-of-love section returns to embers, dry wood and fresh burning to explain why renewed sight revives an earlier passion. These are figurative workings of heat, although a separate prognostic passage attributed to Montalto supplies a humoral causal story in which persistent passion heats and blackens the blood and inflammation reaches the brain. Metaphor and medical explanation coexist, but one should not be silently converted into the other.

Divine love gives kindling a positive end. In the passage drawing on Bernard, souls are inflamed with divine heat, purified, raised to God and reconciled. Its following contrasts oppose troubling to cleansing and casting down to raising up. Inflammation here is neither a disease to evacuate nor a synonym for morally destructive passion: the object and sequence make the heat purifying. The printed English is compressed, and the margin clarifies the successive agents and states: the love kindles souls, then purifies and elevates them.

Related entries

Phrenitis owns the fever-defined disease; Ventricle the stomach and pylorus vocabulary. Anatomical arteries retains “inflammationem arteriæ circa dorsum”, rather than duplicating that already explained phrase here. Matrix and mother retains the uterine causal account. Phlebotomy develops the opposing risks of bloodletting; Humoral qualities supplies the wider hot-and-cold terminology.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Subsection 4. Mental Impairment, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropy, St Vitus’s Dance and Ecstasy · paragraph 19Inflammation and fever in the definition of phrenitis.
2. Subsection 4. Composite Parts · paragraph 13Inflamed pleura in the anatomical account.
3. Subsection 4 Retention and Evacuation as Causes, and How They Act · paragraph 6Body inflammation differs from marginal inflationes.
4. Subsection 4 Retention and Evacuation as Causes, and How They Act · paragraph 22Opposed dangers of neglect and excessive bloodletting.
5. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraph 32Scorching earth in a geographical report.
6. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraph 38The solar-heating case attributed to Amatus Lusitanus.
7. Member 5 Subsection 1 Immediate, Internal, Antecedent and Proximate Causes, and How the Body Acts Upon the Mind · paragraph 55Humour said to remain after inflammation.
8. Subsection 2. Disorders of Particular Parts as Causes · paragraph 9Obstruction, heat and inflamed material.
9. Subsection 2. Disorders of Particular Parts as Causes · paragraph 12Inflammation among the contributing parts; anatomical conflation disclosed.
10. Subsection 2. Disorders of Particular Parts as Causes · paragraph 13Montalto’s argument for a hot and dry active cause.
11. Subsection 2. Disorders of Particular Parts as Causes · paragraph 14Heating causes continue the argument.
12. Subsection 3. Causes of Head Melancholy · paragraph 21Bruel and Capivaccius distinguish hot and cold effects. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
13. Subsection 3. Causes of Head Melancholy · paragraph 22Crusius’s incidental heat and Burton’s stated preference.
14. Member 2, Subsection 1 Symptoms of Head Melancholy · paragraph 2Piso’s account and Burton’s explicit qualification.
15. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 29Earlier-owned Latin arterial-inflammation phrase in Anatomical arteries; comparison only, with no new local support record.
16. Subsection 4 Symptoms of Melancholy in Unmarried Women, Nuns and Widows · paragraph 2Inflamed red faces in a symptom report.
17. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 24Compound waters qualified by the exclusion of excessive heat.
18. Subsection 2 Bloodletting · paragraph 23Inflamed blood within an exception to avoiding bloodletting.
19. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 45Wine and spices restricted for those hot or inflamed.
20. Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On · paragraph 51Bruel warns against worsening illness while trying to expel wind.
21. Member 3 Charity Combining All Three Kinds of Love Pleasant Profitable and Honourable · paragraph 39Divine heat kindles, purifies and elevates.
22. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraph 62Erotic fire in Philostratus’s literary complaint.
23. The Prognosis of Love Melancholy · paragraph 45A conditional humoral prognosis of persistent love.
24. 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 11Renewed sight compared with revived fire.

In this edition

The modern column commonly keeps inflammation, but renders the environmental “Earth inflamed” as “the earth ablaze” and divine kindling as “sets our souls aflame.” These are contextual choices rather than a correction of one uniformly pathological term. The body’s “inflammation of the head” is preserved beside a marginal Latin sentence whose inflationes is translated “swellings.” The editor identifies the difference; neither form should be silently made to attest the other. In the compound-water caution, the Latin margin lacks a second explicit negative before the hotter constitution, whereas Burton’s English excludes excessive heat and the modern body makes that exclusion explicit. In Philostratus’s complaint, the English says no water can quench the fire, but the printed marginal Latin has flame. Both differences remain visible.

inflammation [bodily condition]

An inflamed, abnormally heated state of a bodily part in the historical medical account.

Original wording: “an inflammation of the Brain, or the Membranes or Kels of it”

Modern wording: “an inflammation of the brain or its membranes”

The specified site and accompanying acute fever help define phrenitis. The noun elsewhere appears as an earlier condition after which harmful humour is said to remain; it does not alone specify one present-day pathology. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: inflammation; inflammations.

inflammation of the head [body wording]

An inflammatory condition of the head, as Burton’s English states it.

Original wording: “It produceth inflammation of the head”

Modern wording: “it produces inflammation of the head”

The implied cause is retained stool or constipation in the surrounding discussion. The marginal Latin has inflationes, swellings or distensions, rather than an exact Latin equivalent of inflammation; the editorial note preserves that discrepancy. Lookup: inflammation of the head; inflationes [contrast in the accompanying note].

inflame the blood

Overheat the blood harmfully within the humoral account.

Original wording: “they do not inflame the blood, and increase the disease”

Modern wording: “do not inflame the blood and increase the disease”

Bruel’s warning concerns an unintended effect of hot, dry medicines used to expel wind. The construction links the harmful heating with worsening illness rather than presenting it as the intended treatment. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage. Lookup: inflame; inflamed blood; inflame the blood.

faces are inflamed

Faces are hot-looking and reddened.

Original wording: “their faces are inflamed, and red”

Modern wording: “their faces are inflamed and red”

Mercatus’s reported symptom list couples the condition with redness, thirst and sudden heat. The local observable appearance differs from a statement about the blood or an internal organ. Lookup: inflamed faces; faces are inflamed.

Earth inflamed

Land intensely heated or scorched by the sun.

Original wording: “the Air scorching hot, and Earth inflamed”

Modern wording: “the air scorching, the earth ablaze”

The environmental description precedes reports of barefoot pilgrims on hot sands. Ablaze conveys the heat-image; the sentence does not require literal burning ground. Lookup: Earth inflamed; inflamed [scorching heat].

inflames our souls with a divine heat

Kindles a purifying spiritual love in the souls described.

Original wording: “inflames our souls with a divine heat”

Modern wording: “sets our souls aflame with divine heat”

The continuation gives the sequence purification, elevation and reconciliation. The positive outcome distinguishes this kindling from harmful bodily inflammation and destructive passion. Lookup: inflames our souls; divine heat; inflame [spiritual kindling].

inflamed his soul

Aroused intense erotic desire in him.

Original wording: “they had so inflamed his soul, that no water could quench it”

Modern wording: “They had so inflamed his soul that no water could quench it”

They refers to the beloved’s eyes in a complaint attributed to Philostratus. The impossibility of quenching belongs to the literary fire-image, not an assertion that the soul is a bodily organ with inflammation. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: inflamed his soul; inflame [erotic desire].