From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordPalsie, palsie, Palsy and plural palsies belong to Burton’s historical vocabulary of impaired movement.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyPalsy supplies a boundary for the formal definition of melancholy.
- In this editionThe modern “paralysis” in the anatomical catalogue and Avicenna anecdote is a local rendering, not a universal substitute: the shaking spectator-passage and the cold-palsy anecdote retain “palsy.”
- A place to readPalsy among diseases of the nerves.
Meaning
Palsie, palsie, Palsy and plural palsies belong to Burton’s historical vocabulary of impaired movement. Sometimes the modern column can use “paralysis”; elsewhere Burton specifies shaking or retains a less determinate “cold palsie.” The term’s range is therefore wider than a single present-day diagnosis. The anatomical catalogue puts palsy among diseases of the nerves, beside cramp, convulsion, tremor and loss of sensation.
Use in the book
Palsy supplies a boundary for the formal definition of melancholy. Hercules de Saxonia’s phrase “of a principall part” is said to distinguish melancholy from cramp, palsy and disorders of outward sense and motion. The point is not that bodily movement cannot be affected in a melancholy patient, but that the definition concerns a different primary function. This separation coexists with another taxonomy: the Paracelsian scheme places palsy under falling-sickness. Burton reports that scheme and then disputes the sweeping claim that one cure will serve every subordinate disorder.
The dancing disorder makes the range less predictable. After describing St Vitus’s dance and Plater’s report of a woman dancing for a month, Burton says that Arabian physicians call it “a kinde of Palsie.” It would be misleading to translate that sentence as if the preceding woman could not move: the reported movement is excessive and sustained. “Palsy” here is a classificatory label assigned by an unnamed group of authorities, not Burton’s explanation that dancing and immobility are the same condition.
Several narratives explore the supposed power of apprehension over the body. Avicenna is reported to describe someone who could bring on a palsy at will. Later, the spectacle of “a man shaking with the palsie” is said to remain in an anxious observer’s mind; Burton claims that violent imagination can reproduce the feared symptoms. The recluse who falls into a “cold palsie” on seeing a woman offers a contrasting extreme to those melancholic people easily enamoured. These are particular reported examples within arguments about imagination and contrary symptoms, not reliable generalizations about will, women or neurological illness.
The treatment and moral catalogues add other uses. The witchcraft discussion reports curing palsy by touch, with the first-person witness belonging to the authority cited. Montalto’s rule about sexual activity is restrictive but conditional: he excludes sufferers from palsy and other disorders unless they are robust and full of blood. Finally, palsies recur among the diseases Burton associates with wealth and lust. Those lists lend bodily weight to moral argument; their causal associations should not be extracted as established medical findings.
Related entries
Animal faculties explains outward sense and movement; Organical parts supplies the anatomical distinctions. Witchcraft retains the larger setting of touch-cure testimony. Compare Apoplexy (Apoplexy), Convulsion and cramp (Convulsion and cramp) and St Vitus’s dance (St Vitus’s dance).
Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.
Places to read
- Subsection 3. Classification of Diseases of the Head · paragraph 14Palsy among diseases of the nerves.
- Subsection 4. Mental Impairment, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropy, St Vitus’s Dance and Ecstasy · paragraph 35The dancing condition to which the later classification refers. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
- Subsection 4. Mental Impairment, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropy, St Vitus’s Dance and Ecstasy · paragraph 37Arabian physicians said to classify the dance as a kind of palsy.
- Member 3 Subsection 1. The Definition of Melancholy Its Name and Distinctions · paragraph 9Palsy excluded from the particular function targeted by the definition of melancholy.
- Subsection 3 Witches and Magicians: How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 52; note 2208The testimony about touch cures, with Paralysin in the accompanying note.
- Subsection 2. The Power of Imagination · paragraph 19Avicenna’s report of voluntarily induced palsy.
- Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 43Visible shaking and the spectator’s feared imitation.
- Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 29A recluse’s cold palsy in the catalogue of contrary dispositions.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 6Palsy under falling-sickness in the four-class scheme.
- Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 7The criticism of its generalized cure. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
- Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 6The exception in Montalto’s restrictive regimen.
- Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 37Palsies among the bodily costs assigned to luxury.
- Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraph 23Palsies in the moral-medical catalogue against lust.
In this edition
The modern “paralysis” in the anatomical catalogue and Avicenna anecdote is a local rendering, not a universal substitute: the shaking spectator-passage and the cold-palsy anecdote retain “palsy.” In the margin to the touch-cure passage, Paralysin corresponds to paralysis, but the omitted cure verb is supplied from the body. The record thus preserves the exact Latin form and the editor’s distinction between printed words and supplied syntax.
Palsie; Palsy
A historical disorder of bodily movement, locally rendered paralysis.
Original wording: “The diseases of the Nerves; Crampes, Stupor, Convulsion, Tremor, Palsie”
Modern wording: “Diseases of the nerves include cramps, numbness, convulsions, tremor and paralysis”
Palsie is the final item, aligned with paralysis; the whole modern list must not be assigned to that one word. Other passages use the family more broadly, so the local equivalence does not settle every diagnosis. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: palsy; palsie; palsies; paralysis.
shaking with the palsie
Trembling as the visible manifestation of a palsy.
Original wording: “a man shaking with the palsie”
Modern wording: “a man shaking with palsy”
The explicit shaking distinguishes this occurrence from a reading restricted to motionlessness. The principal narrative interest is the onlooker’s fear of acquiring the same symptoms. Lookup: shaking palsy.
The same attestation is also explained at shaking with the palsie; the two contextual records distinguish palsy as the observed condition and trembling as its visible sign, rather than claiming two distinct lemmas.
cold palsie
A palsy described as cold in the reported reaction of a recluse.
Original wording: “fell into a cold palsie”
Modern wording: “fell into a cold palsy”
Burton gives no fuller clinical description here. Retaining cold rather than assigning a specific modern syndrome preserves the anecdote’s limited evidence and its role among contrary responses to women. Lookup: cold palsy.
Paralysin
Paralysis, in the marginal list of supposed touch cures.
Original wording: “Apoplexiam, Paralysin & alios morbos”
Note translation: “apoplexy, paralysis and other diseases”
The Latin disease-name is distinct from the preceding apoplexy. The source note supplies the absent curing verb from the body, so this record does not pretend that the quoted noun alone expresses a cure. Lookup: paralysin; paralysis.