Phlegm · Lexicon · Diotimos

From the book

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordPhlegm is the cold, moist humour of Burton's anatomical scheme.
In the Anatomy of MelancholyPhlegm first has a useful office.
In this edition“Pituita” becomes “phlegm”.
A place to readphlegm and bile in the analogy of purging the state

Meaning

Phlegm is the cold, moist humour of Burton's anatomical scheme. Phlegme, Flegme, flegm, fleagme and fleame are printed English forms; Pituita is the Latin noun he also uses. The name can identify a necessary nourishing fluid, an excessive or troublesome bodily substance, or the material associated with a particular melancholy. Phlegmatick and flegmatick describe the corresponding constitution or melancholy; the familiar association with dullness and sluggishness is grounded here in the supposed humour. Latin pituitosum similarly means phlegmatic or full of phlegm. Apophlegmatisms are preparations intended to draw off phlegm, here held or chewed in the mouth.

Use in the book

Phlegm first has a useful office. Burton defines it as generated in the liver from the colder part of chyle, the juice of food digested in the stomach. It nourishes and moistens moving parts such as the tongue so that they do not grow too dry. This account gives a place, a material source and a function; it does not classify the normal humour as waste. In the brain's middle ventricle one passage receives pituita while another leads towards the fourth chamber. The neighbouring discussion assigns imagination, thought and memory to chambers and describes the passage of animal spirits. Burton's “they place” and “they say” mark his account of inherited anatomical doctrine.

Whether phlegm can generate melancholy is disputed. Burton reports Galen and several followers excluding it: how can white become black? He then gives the opposing view of Hercules de Saxonia, Cardan and others, including Melanchthon's reported eyewitness claim. On that view the event is possible but rare, and the resulting melancholy is dull. A further account attributed to Fonseca describes thin watery fluids thickening into phlegm, phlegm degenerating into choler, and burnt choler becoming a sharp melancholy substance. These are distinct reported explanations; the first party's exclusion must not be turned into Burton's unconditional rule.

The symptomatic account develops the rare phlegmatic kind through sleepiness, slowness, coldness, stupor, weeping, pale colour, brooding and muttering. The disparaging phrase Asininam melancholiam means ass-like melancholy. It is attributed to Melanchthon; it is historical diagnostic language, not this lexicon's description of people. Burton's following passage adds dreams of drowning, fear of water, increased spitting and rheum, and reported patients in Venice and elsewhere. The distinction affects regimen: the received opinion that a melancholy person cannot sleep too much has an exception in cold, sluggish phlegmatic melancholy, where more sleep can harm. The exact source of Burton's watery thoughts and sighing in that sleep passage remains uncertain in the supplied edition.

The constitution is applied in several further ways. A marginal maxim on heredity makes phlegmatic offspring follow phlegmatic parents; its English translation supplies the relationship nouns implicit in Latin. Dietary authorities call fish cold, moist and phlegmatic, though the next passage records more discriminating opinions rather than a unanimous ban on fish. Crato is cited for inactivity filling the body with phlegm and obstructions: both excessive exercise and complete idleness can harm. In explaining intellectual ability, Burton reports phlegm excluded from the balanced mixture proposed to foster it, and Fracastorius describes phlegmatic people as dull. These are humoral judgments under discussion, not present-day findings about intelligence. A separate optical explanation makes a phlegmatic person's world appear white because the bodily humour colours the receiving medium.

The broader body-to-soul argument makes the organs’ condition affect the soul’s operations, like a vessel imparting its flavour to wine. Here the abundance of phlegm explains dullness and accompanies the claim that people cannot resist the passions imposed by their humours; the following Melanchthon-associated explanation gives the weakened will little power to restrain the outward parts. This strong local formulation belongs to the physiological argument rather than a new meaning of the phlegm noun.

Sexual and amorous applications are not entirely uniform. In discussing sexual endurance Burton prints “hot and moist, phlegmatick,” although his defining account makes phlegm cold and moist; the phrase is preserved rather than silently corrected. In the causes of love he reports Ficino that phlegmatic people are seldom caught and naturally melancholic people still less, while noting a rival view that hypochondriacal sufferers are most vulnerable. A later remedy passage contrasts Dioscorides's claim that polypody and epithyme evacuate phlegm with Brasavola's claim that they purge the melancholy humour. The noun's object in each view matters; the disagreement should not disappear into a general assertion that the herbs purge humours.

Phlegm also serves satirical and moral arguments outside the clinical account. In the address to the reader, the wise man's supposed invulnerability is punctured by a shortened Horatian phrase: wisdom lasts except when troublesome phlegm intervenes. Another marginal comparison represents people who beg as phlegm and bile to be expelled from the commonwealth. The supplied edition distinguishes Burton's medical analogy from the cited Platonic passage. In counsel against erotic desire, Burton's appeal to Chrysostom turns phlegm into repellent bodily matter beneath an attractive surface. This is a deliberately demeaning anti-erotic argument, with no precise Chrysostom work supplied, not a neutral physiological description of women.

Related entries

Humour; Humoral qualities; Chyle; Choler; Cerebral chambers; Animal faculties; Adust; Blood and sanguine; Excrements; Complexion and temperament; Wit; Sleep and waking (future entry outside Batch 1)

Places to read

Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 5–7phlegm and bile in the analogy of purging the state
Democritus Junior to the Readertroublesome phlegm interrupts the sage's wisdom; the shortened Horace wording remains as printed
First Partition, anatomical divisiontechnical vocabulary, useful humour, liver, chyle and the moistening of moving parts
First Partition, dissimilar partspituita and the middle ventricle, alongside animal spirits and attributed faculty locations
First Partition, matter of melancholycontested derivation from phlegm, rarity, dullness and Fonseca's sequence of transformations
First Partition, inherited causesphlegmatic parents and offspring
First Partition, bad dietfish called phlegmatic and the immediately following alternative distinctions
First Partition, exercise and idlenessexcess phlegm and obstructions as effects of inactivity
First Partition, sleeping and wakingthe phlegmatic exception to praise of abundant sleep
First Partition, inward causesphlegmatic dullness within the account of the body affecting the mind
First Partition, particular symptomsrare phlegmatic melancholy, its attributed symptoms and case reports
First Partition, immediate causes of symptoms · paragraph 5–8exclusion of phlegm from an intellectual mixture; Fracastorius's contrast of constitutions
First Partition, immediate causes of symptomshumoral colouring of vision
Second Partition, retention and evacuationsexual capacity and the anomalous “hot and moist, phlegmatick”
Second Partition, purging simplesdisagreement about which humour polypody and epithyme evacuate
Second Partition, compound purgersapophlegmatisms held or chewed in the mouth, following Burton's caution against self-prescription
Third Partition, causes of heroic lovephlegmatic susceptibility to love and competing constitutional explanations
Third Partition, counsel against lovefleame and pituita in the deliberately repellent picture of the body
Unnumbered Table“Flegmatick melancholy signs 191” directs the reader to the symptom account; 191 is the printed target, not this table leaf's page

In this edition

“Pituita” becomes “phlegm”. The English replaces the Latin name while the reported character of the faculty locations remains in “they place” and “they say.” The definition retains both names, and the various English spellings are modernized to phlegm. “Phlegmatick” normally becomes “phlegmatic”; it continues to name a bodily constitution even when dullness is the immediate point. The anomalous heat remains in the modern version and is explicitly noted, not reconciled with the definition by changing Burton's words.

The short construction “nisi quum pituita molesta” becomes “except when troublesome phlegm gets in the way”: the obstructing event is implicit in the Latin and supplied verbally in English. In the heredity margin, “Ex Pituitosis pituitosi” becomes “From phlegmatic parents come phlegmatic children.” Parents, children and come make the implied relation explicit; they are not separate lexical meanings of pituitosus. Marginal Latin and its editorial translations remain distinct from Burton's English prose, including the learned but disparaging description of phlegmatic intelligence and the anti-erotic quotation.

In the dispute over melancholy’s material, “Flegme, or Pituita” is compressed to the single modern name “phlegm”: two synonymous source labels become one English term. The separate “Asininam” becomes “asinine,” literally ass-like; Burton’s added “dull, swinish” is a further degrading comparison, not a translation of the Latin as pig-like. “Masticatories,” paired with “Apophlegmatisms,” emphasizes that the preparations are chewed.

apophlegmatism

Printed “Apophlegmatisms” (English; family). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Literal meaning, Meaning and use, Argument: Phlegm-drawing preparations held and chewed in the mouth, divided into gentle and strong kinds.

Context: Burton’s historical classification; preceding passage refuses to encourage unsupervised prescribing.

Grammar: Plural nouns identifying a class of preparations.

Source: original body

Source wording: Apophlegmatisms, Masticatories

Uncertainty: No unresolved local alignment issue; historical claim is not a modern medical endorsement.

asinina melancholia

Printed “Asininam melancholiam” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Asininam melancholiam

Citation convention

Literal meaning, Meaning and use, Argument: Ass-like melancholy: a disparaging historical label for the sluggish phlegmatic kind.

Context: Attributed to Melanchthon, not adopted as the lexicon’s characterization.

Grammar: Accusative adjective and noun complement to calls it.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: Asinine melancholy

At a Glance

Meaning

Use in the book

Places to read

In this edition

apophlegmatism

asinina melancholia

asininus

masticatory

phlegm · Phlegme

phlegm · Flegme · local use 1

phlegm · Flegme · local use 2

phlegm · flegme · local use 1

phlegm · flegm · local use 1

phlegm · fleagme

phlegm · flegme · local use 2

phlegm · flegm · local use 2

phlegm · fleame

phlegma

phlegmatic · phlegmatick · local use 1

phlegmatic · flegmatick

phlegmatic · Phlegmatick · local use 1

phlegmatic · phlegmatick · local use 2

phlegmatic · phlegmatick · local use 3

phlegmatic · Phlegmatick · local use 2

phlegmatic · Flegmatick

phlegmatic · Phlegmatick · local use 3

phlegmaticus

pituita · pituitam

pituita · local use 1

pituita · Pituita · local use 1

pituita · Pituita · local use 2

pituita · local use 2

pituita · Pituita · local use 3

pituitosus · Pituitosis

pituitosus · pituitosum

pituitosus · pituitosi