From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPalpitation usually names an agitated beating of the heart in Burton's symptom lists.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe general catalogue cautiously says “Some adde” palpitation and cold sweat as usual symptoms.
- In this editionThe modern text uses “palpitations” for the cardiac noun but “fluttering eyes” for oculos habentes palpitantes.
- A place to readPalpitation as an effect of fear.
Meaning
Palpitation usually names an agitated beating of the heart in Burton's symptom lists. It stands alongside, rather than simply replacing, heaviness, ache, short breath and leaping elsewhere in the body. Related Latin palpitantes can describe fluttering eyes, so the root itself does not guarantee a cardiac reference.
Use in the book
The general catalogue cautiously says “Some adde” palpitation and cold sweat as usual symptoms. The same sentence also describes leaping in many bodily parts, then a skin sensation likened to flea-biting. These are associated phenomena, not one continuous definition of palpitation as itching. The succeeding ocular phrase, oculos habentes palpitantes, concerns fluttering eyes and belongs to a different bodily site.
In the hypochondriacal list, palpitation is placed between sudden trembling and cardiaca passio. The latter is explained as pain at the stomach opening which makes the patient think the heart aches. Preserving the separation matters: Burton does not say that all palpitations are mislocated stomach pain. His causal chapter gives palpitation, heaviness and aching a common source in vapours, while attributing leaping in other parts to wind. The mechanism is historical humoral physiology, not a present-day explanation of an individual symptom.
Fear and love each supply an occasion. Fear can cause palpitation among colour changes, trembling and fainting; in love melancholy the sight or mention of the beloved is connected with agitation, short breathing and the heart seeming to leap towards the mouth. This latter image expands sensation into a familiar bodily exaggeration, but the surrounding list continues to distinguish symptoms and metaphors.
An unexpected occurrence tests any simple equation of palpitation with fear. In the amulet discussion, Burton reports Philes's claim that wearing the skin of a sheep or kid mauled by a wolf causes palpitation, “not for any fear,” but through a hidden power. The explicit negation belongs to the reported theory and should not be reversed into a fear-based explanation. Burton later omits separate treatment of palpitation and several other grievances because physicians discuss them fully elsewhere. That omission limits what the Anatomy promises to supply as a practical account.
Related entries
- Heart and cordolium: organ, heartache and cardiaca passio.
- Hypochondria: the anatomical and pathological setting.
- Matrix and mother: the separate womb-related accounts.
- Pulse and pulsation (Pulse and pulsation): measured beat and contested diagnosis.
- Virtue and Occult: the hidden power in Philes’s explanation.
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- Subsection 5. Fear as a Cause · paragraph 23Palpitation as an effect of fear.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 10Some authorities add palpitation; leaping and itching remain distinct descriptions.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 11The Latin root applied to eyes rather than heart.
- Section 3. Member 1. Subsection 1. Symptoms or Signs of Melancholy in the Body · paragraph 19Palpitation beside wind, short breath, heaviness and heartache.
- Subsection 2 Symptoms of Windy Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraph 15Palpitation distinguished from the stomach-associated cardiac affection.
- Member 3 Immediate Cause of the Preceding Symptoms · paragraph 10Vapours assigned as its cause.
- Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 28; note 7971Philes’s occult explanation explicitly excludes fear; see the accompanying note.
- Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against Fearful Dreams, Redness and So On · paragraph 13Burton declines a separate practical treatment.
- Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraph 55The lover’s palpitation, gasping and heart-at-mouth image.
In this edition
The modern text uses “palpitations” for the cardiac noun but “fluttering eyes” for oculos habentes palpitantes. It renders “blow short” as “gasp for breath,” not palpitation, and keeps the Latin cor proximum ori as “the heart is close to the mouth” before Burton's further image. The Philes passage's “secret vertue” becomes a “hidden power”; the editor distinguishes Philes's animal lore from the inserted Martial verse about a kid on a dinner menu.
palpitation of the heart
Agitated beating of the heart, reported as a symptom. Some add is an attribution and qualification. “Usual” does not say every sufferer has the sign.
Original wording: Some adde palpitation of the heart, cold sweat, as usuall Symptomes
Modern wording: Some add palpitations of the heart and cold sweat as usual symptoms
Lookup: palpitation; heart palpitations.
oculos habentes palpitantes
Having fluttering eyes. The anatomical object is eyes; this Latin cognate must not be translated as heart palpitations.
Original wording: oculos habentes palpitantes
Modern wording: with fluttering eyes
Lookup: palpitantes; fluttering eyes.
a leaping in many parts
Jumping or twitching sensations distributed through the body. The distributed movement is added to palpitation, not identified with it.
Original wording: a leaping in many parts of the body, saltum in multis corporis partibus
Modern wording: a jumping in many parts of the body—“a twitching in many parts of the body”
Lookup: leaping; saltum in multis corporis partibus; twitching.
secret vertue
An occult or hidden natural power, in Philes’s reported explanation. The negation is essential: the source proposes occult action instead of psychological apprehension. See Virtue and Occult for the broader power-vocabulary.
Original wording: not for any fear, but a secret vertue which Amulets have
Modern wording: through no fear, but through a hidden power that amulets possess
Lookup: secret vertue; hidden power; palpitation: hidden power.
blow short
Breathe in short gasps. Breathing is a companion sign, not the meaning of palpitation itself.
Original wording: others sweat, blow short
Modern wording: Others sweat and gasp for breath
Lookup: short breath; gasping; blow short.
cor proximum ori
The heart close to the mouth. The Latin relation and Burton’s amplifying English image are separately retained.
Original wording: cor proximum ori, saith Aristenætus, their heart is at their mouth, leaps
Modern wording: “the heart is close to the mouth,” says Aristaenetus. Their heart leaps into their mouth
Lookup: heart at the mouth; cor proximum ori.