Oppilation

Use in the book

The inherited catalogue moves from undigested matter and wind through obstruction, corrupted humours, excessive fullness and poor digestion to sudden death. Oppilation names one condition in that accumulation, not a separately located or modern diagnostic entity. The same general word appears with the harms attributed to excessive study and sitting, and among the nutritive disturbances accompanying melancholy. Co-occurrence with costiveness does not make the two terms identical.

Other passages specify the proposed mechanism. Montanus’s soldier develops inward obstructions after faults in the six non-natural factors. Sweet foods are called obstructive, with an exception allowing honey for cold constitutions. The abdominal discussion links blockage, heat and adust material in the stomach and mesenteric veins; the spleen’s failure to purge supplies another account. Montaltus’s account from Galen makes blocked veins interrupt the passage of chyle to the liver, while the continuation distributes responsibility among stomach, liver and spleen and retains rival hot and cold explanations. These are related historical theories, not a single uniform anatomical finding.

Negative and corrective uses are equally important. In the discussion of the part affected, ventricular obstructions are excluded from the proposed account of melancholy and assigned instead to apoplexy or epilepsy in Laurentius’s distinction. In treatment, the fear that cold remedies increase obstructions is set against a warning about hot remedies; Burton says the choice depends on the person and is difficult, and the continuation advises great discretion and necessity. Opening obstructions is one alleged effect of a historical medicine, separately listed from loosening the bowels and promoting urine. These descriptions offer no present-day treatment or reconstructed recipe.

The Latin noun also occurs in a less secure setting. The marginal “insanæ obstructiones” accompanies a satirical catalogue of supposedly mad pursuits. The supplied edition retains obstructions literally and leaves the collected quotations uncollated. It would be unsafe to turn that uncertain phrase into a definite bodily diagnosis or silently replace its wording. The medical margin, by contrast, explicitly locates its obstructions in the internal organs.

Related entries

Spleen

Hypochondria

Bowels

Costiveness

Plethora and repletion

Concoction: The processing of nourishment within the historical digestive account.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 20–22The marginal catalogue combines mad gluttony, obstructions, hunting and discord beside a satire of fashionable occupations.
2. Subsection 2. The Part Affected the Faculty Affected and the People Affected · paragraphs 13–15Ventricular blockage is explicitly excluded as the proposed seat of this melancholy.
3. Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraphs 29–31Internal blockages are the result attributed to misuse of the six non-natural factors.
4. Subsection 1 Bad Diet as a Cause. Substance. The Quality of Foods · paragraphs 22–24Sweet things are described as obstructive in the dietary classification.
5. Subsection 2 the Quantity of Food as a Cause · paragraphs 3–5The term belongs to a catalogue of harmful digestive and humoral consequences.
6. Subsection 6 Excessive Exercise as a Cause, and How It Acts. Solitude And… · paragraphs 19–21The Latin specifies obstructions of the internal organs among effects of inactivity.
7. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on The… · paragraphs 25–27Obstructions join digestive and wasting troubles in the scholar’s symptom list.
8. Subsection 2. Disorders of Particular Parts as Causes · paragraphs 8–11The stomach and mesenteric veins are said to contribute because they are blocked. The participle qualifies the spleen in Montanus’s cited explanation.
9. Subsection 4. Causes of Hypochondriacal, or Windy, Melancholy · paragraphs 30–37The veins are blocked in the account of interrupted chyle passage.
10. Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraphs 14–16Obstructions accompany costiveness and undigested matter among nutritive disturbances.
11. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraphs 30–32Cold remedies are said by one authority to increase blockages.
12. Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On · paragraphs 57–60Opening is a supposed medicinal effect distinguished from keeping the bowels loose and promoting urine.

In this edition

“oppilations” → “obstructions” gives the general meaning without inventing a site or a specific modern disease. “obstructive” becomes causing obstructions in the dietary passage. Latin “Splen obstructus” → “A blocked spleen” is a separately translated marginal construction; the related passive forms in the stomach and vein passages remain independently traceable.

The neighbouring original prints cruelties; the modern undigested matter follows a contextual conjecture of crudities, with Fernel’s source still uncollated. The catalogue’s interpretation therefore retains that uncertainty rather than treating every printed item as unproblematic. The modern version distinguishes the interrupted passage of chyle from the chyle that becomes corrupted, clarifying Burton’s compressed grammar without replacing his physiology.

obstructio

Printed “obstructiones” (Latin; lemma).

Obstructions; the printed noun’s intended application here is uncertain.

Here: The marginal catalogue combines mad gluttony, obstructions, hunting and discord beside a satire of fashionable occupations.

Context: The note gathers phrases under a compressed Virgil attribution; their individual sources remain uncollated, so no anatomical site or conjectural replacement is supplied.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: insanæ obstructiones

Modern rendering: mad obstructions

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The Latin obstruction form contributes blocked or blockage to the specified construction.

Further local use

Printed “obstructiones” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: obstructio.

Here: The Latin specifies obstructions of the internal organs among effects of inactivity.

Context: Crato compares harm from excessive exercise with harm from idleness; this is a localized medical use, unlike the uncertain satirical phrase.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: viscerum obstructiones

Modern rendering: obstructions of the internal organs

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The Latin obstruction form contributes blocked or blockage to the specified construction.

Sense relation: The same Latin noun has an expressly bodily construction here.

obstruction

Printed “obstruction” (English; lemma).

Blockage preventing the normal passage of bodily material.

Here: Blocked mesenteric veins prevent or delay the passage of chyle to the liver in the historical model.

Context: Montaltus cites Galen; the following authorities supply different contributing organs and hot or cold explanations.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: heat and obstruction of those meseraicke veins

Modern rendering: heat and blockage of those mesenteric veins

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “obstructions” (English; lemma).

Here: Ventricular blockage is explicitly excluded as the proposed seat of this melancholy.

Context: Burton reports the majority view and Laurentius’s distinction: such blockage would instead count as apoplexy or epilepsy in the historical system.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: not in his ventricles, or any obstructions in them

Modern rendering: not in its ventricles or in any blockage within them

Sense relation: The same blockage noun serves a different specified causal or diagnostic relation, including explicit negation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “obstructions” (English; lemma).

Here: Internal blockages are the result attributed to misuse of the six non-natural factors.

Context: Burton reports Montanus’s judgment of a particular soldier, within a broader statement about physicians’ consultations.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: outward causes, from which came those inward obstructions

Modern rendering: external causes from which those internal obstructions arose

Sense relation: The same blockage noun serves a different specified causal or diagnostic relation, including explicit negation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “obstructions” (English; lemma).

Here: Cold remedies are said by one authority to increase blockages.

Context: Sylvaticus’s warning opposes the warning against hot medicines; Burton concludes that the choice varies with the patient and is difficult.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: they increase obstructions

Sense relation: The same blockage noun serves a different specified causal or diagnostic relation, including explicit negation.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

obstructive

Printed “obstructive” (English; lemma).

Causing or tending to cause bodily blockages.

Here: Sweet things are described as obstructive in the dietary classification.

Context: Some authorities nevertheless allow honey for cold constitutions; Burton retains the exception and the contrast with corrosive foods.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: they are obstructive

Modern rendering: they cause obstructions

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

obstruo

Printed “obstructus” (Latin; lemma).

Blocked or obstructed.

Here: The participle qualifies the spleen in Montanus’s cited explanation.

Context: This is the reported condition of the spleen; the passage also discusses suppressed bleeding and failure of purging.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: Splen obstructus

Modern rendering: A blocked spleen

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The Latin obstruction form contributes blocked or blockage to the specified construction.

Further local use

Printed “obstructæ” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: obstruo.

Here: The stomach and mesenteric veins are said to contribute because they are blocked.

Context: The Latin margin preserves the historical causal account separately from the body paraphrase.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: quod hæ partes obstructæ sunt

Modern rendering: because these parts are obstructed

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The Latin obstruction form contributes blocked or blockage to the specified construction.

Sense relation: The same Latin blocking verb, in participial or finite passive construction.

Further local use

Printed “obstruuntur” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: obstruo.

Here: The veins are blocked in the account of interrupted chyle passage.

Context: The Latin margin preserves the historical causal account separately from the body paraphrase.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: venæ obstruuntur

Modern rendering: the veins are blocked

Modern container: note

Alignment scope: Original Latin marginal construction and supplied note translation

Word and construction: The Latin obstruction form contributes blocked or blockage to the specified construction.

Sense relation: The same Latin blocking verb, in participial or finite passive construction.

open obstructions

Printed “opens obstructions” (English; phrase).

Removes or clears blockages.

Here: Opening is a supposed medicinal effect distinguished from keeping the bowels loose and promoting urine.

Context: Cnemander and Montanus are cited for the historical claims; body and margin differ in their scheduling, and no recipe is supplied here.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: opens obstructions

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

oppilation

Printed “oppilations” (English; lemma).

Blockages or obstructions within the body.

Here: The term belongs to a catalogue of harmful digestive and humoral consequences.

Context: The catalogue is attributed to Fernel; it supplies no specific site for these blockages and no exact modern diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: oppilations

Modern rendering: obstructions

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “Oppilations” (English; lemma).

Here: Obstructions join digestive and wasting troubles in the scholar’s symptom list.

Context: Burton collects physicians’ explanations of excessive study and sitting.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Oppilations

Modern rendering: obstructions

Sense relation: The same general blockage noun occurs in another bodily catalogue.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “oppilations” (English; lemma).

Here: Obstructions accompany costiveness and undigested matter among nutritive disturbances.

Context: Burton invokes Rhazes and Aretaeus; the co-listed conditions remain distinct.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: oppilations

Modern rendering: obstructions

Sense relation: The same general blockage noun occurs in another bodily catalogue.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention, Alignment convention.