Myrach

Use in the book

Burton puts Myrache among the “hard words” that justify his preliminary anatomy lesson. The promised help is practical: readers need to know what a thing is, where it is situated and what function it serves. Yet the subsequent definitions also reveal the variability of inherited terminology. In one anatomical division, Arab writers distinguish upper and lower abdominal regions and call the upper, the Epigastrium, Mirach. In the discussion of the part affected, Burton writes “Stomack; or myrache, as the Arabians terme it.” The edition retains the older name because this compressed identification is imprecise; it does not establish that myrach always means the modern stomach.

The word participates in two different acts of classification. Savonarola is reported to allow infinitely many kinds of melancholy, including one from the myrach and another from the stomach. That juxtaposition prevents the earlier loose equation from becoming a universal synonymy. Burton immediately qualifies this proliferation: what these writers call species should, in his judgment, be understood as differing symptoms, reducible by location to three kinds, head, body and hypochondria. Later, when discussing the hypochondriacal or windy kind, Burton identifies it with the form called myrachial by the Arabians. A name can therefore preserve a particular anatomical tradition while entering a broader threefold medical scheme.

The inward-causes catalogue lists mirach separately from stomach, mesentery and hypochondria. Another passage locates melancholy’s bodily material in various parts when the humour remains there or the liver is not properly cleansed. Its marginal Latin uses myrache among the sources from which that material can arise. This is a regional explanation of a bodily disease process; the occurrence is not merely a picturesque name for emotional gloom.

Burton calls the myrachial or hypochondriacal kind the most distressing and frequent in his own judgment, but reports Bruel and Laurentius as considering it least dangerous and less difficult to recognize or cure. The criteria differ. The symptom account later makes the attribution conditional: “If from the myrache,” expect swelling and wind beneath the ribs, nausea, an urge to vomit and upward pulling. That list follows a warning that the symptoms do not reliably settle which organ is chiefly affected. These regional names therefore do not settle the diagnosis.

Related entries

Organical parts; Hypochondria; Meseraic; Bowels; Spleen; Melancholy; Consent and essence

Places to read

1. First Partition, introduction to anatomyMyrache as an example of technical vocabulary requiring explanation
2. First Partition, composite partsEpigastrium, Mirach and Mirachialis Melancholia in the regional division attributed to Arab writers
3. First Partition, part affected and kinds of melancholythe compressed stomach/myrach expression; Savonarola’s separate myrachial and stomach-derived kinds; Burton’s immediate reinterpretation of the proliferating species as symptoms
4. First Partition, inward causesthe regional catalogue and the location of melancholy’s material
5. First Partition, causes of hypochondriacal melancholythe classification and differently qualified judgments of severity, frequency and danger
6. First Partition, symptoms of hypochondriacal melancholyuncertainty over the affected part followed by the conditional myrach symptom cluster

In this edition

The edition retains “myrach” in the classification, normalizes “Mirache” to “mirach” in the list of causes, and gives “Myrachiall” as “myrachial.” At the symptom passage, “myrache” becomes “abdominal wall.” This explanatory rendering states the local sense adopted by the edition; it should not be imposed on every earlier occurrence. The source’s own regional identification and its loose association with stomach remain visible.

“Mirachialis Melancholia” becomes “mirachial melancholy.” In “called myrachialis of the Arabians,” the modern “called myrachial by the Arab physicians” clarifies that the Arabians are the naming authority. The phrase does not mean that the disorder belongs exclusively to Arab patients. Original marginal Latin and its modern editorial translation are recorded separately.

Epigastrium

Printed “Epigastrium” (Latin). Attestation: word form.

Upper abdominal division in the reported two-part scheme; contrasted with the lower division.

Argument: Establishes the referent locally assigned to Mirach.

Context: Burton’s report of Arab anatomical classification.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Epigastrium, and Hypogastrium; upper, or lower

Modern rendering: the epigastrium and hypogastrium, upper and lower

Alignment convention

Qualification: The paired Latin names and paired English explanations align as a whole construction; Epigastrium is the upper component.

Mirach

Printed “Mirach” (English). Attestation: word form.

The upper abdominal region in the division attributed here to Arab writers.

Argument: Local identification is not a universal modern anatomical identity.

Context: Burton reports a regional naming tradition.

Source: original body

Source wording: Epigastrium they call Mirach

Mirache

Printed “Mirache” (English). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: Mirache

Abdominal wall or region listed separately from several neighbouring organs and regions.

Argument: Retains the old article’s cause-list attestation.

Context: Burton’s catalogue of possible bodily causes.

Source: original body

Mirachialis Melancholia

Printed “Mirachialis Melancholia” (Latin). Attestation: phrase.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Mirachialis Melancholia

A historical kind of melancholy named from the abdominal region called Mirach.

Argument: Connects anatomical vocabulary to classification.

Context: Burton derives the term from the preceding regional name.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: mirachial melancholy

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original and modern units are exact substrings of the paired source.

myrach

Printed “myrach” (English). Attestation: word form.

A proposed abdominal source of one kind of melancholy.

Argument: Records Savonarola’s source-based classification, which Burton immediately reinterprets as differences of symptoms before retaining three location-based kinds.

Context: Savonarola proposes infinitely many kinds and separately names myrach and stomach; Burton’s following judgment reduces that multiplicity to symptoms.

Source: original body

Source wording: one from the myrach

myrach · myrache

Printed “myrache” (Latin). Attestation: word form.

Abdominal source of melancholy’s material, alongside the hypochondria and spleen.

Argument: Original Latin marginal attestation distinct from Burton’s body wording.

Context: Gordonius’s reported material account; conditional on humour remaining there.

Source: original marginal quotation with editorial translation

Source wording, Original wording: ab hypocondriis, myrache, splene

Modern rendering: comes from the hypochondria, mirach or spleen

Alignment convention

Qualification: Comes is supplied to express the Latin prepositional source construction; the original list lacks a separate finite verb.

Myrache

Printed “Myrache” (English). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: Myrache

A historical abdominal name, introduced as a difficult word whose site and use readers need explained.

Argument: Explains Burton’s rationale for a preliminary anatomy lesson by identifying terminology ordinary readers may not understand.

Context: Burton’s justification of the anatomy digression.

Source: original body

myrache · local use 1

Printed “myrache” (English). Attestation: word form.

An abdominal region or containing wall, loosely associated here with stomach.

Argument: Must be read alongside Savonarola’s later separation of the two sites.

Context: Reported account of bodily influence on the brain; the original equivalence is imprecise.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: or myrache, as the Arabians terme it

Modern rendering: the myrach, as the Arab physicians call it

Alignment convention

Qualification: Modern removes the loose or-link while retaining the older term; this is an editorial clarification rather than proof of exact anatomical synonymy.

myrache · local use 2

Printed “myrache” (English). Attestation: word form.

The abdominal wall as the locally proposed source of a conditional symptom cluster.

Argument: The translation makes a local anatomical interpretation explicit.

Context: Conditional attribution after an explicit warning about uncertain localization.

Source: original body

Source wording: If from the myrache

myrachialis

Printed “myrachialis” (Latin). Attestation: word form.

The Latinized adjective naming melancholy from the myrach.

Argument: The of-phrase denotes agency, not patient ethnicity.

Context: Arab physicians are the agents of naming within Savonarola’s reported classification.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: called myrachialis of the Arabians

Modern rendering: called myrachial by the Arab physicians

Alignment convention

Qualification: Original and modern units are exact substrings of the paired source.

Myrachiall

Printed “Myrachiall” (English). Attestation: word form.

Name equated with the hypochondriacal or flatulent kind of melancholy.

Argument: No exclusive modern diagnostic equivalence is asserted.

Context: Burton’s classification, followed by contrasting attributed evaluations.

Source: original body

Source wording: is that which the Arabians call Myrachiall