The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic - Robert Burton

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and hot spices there growing, the air is so obnoxious to their brains, that the very inhabitants at some times cannot abide it, much less weaklings and strangers. [1523]Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 1. curat. 45, reports of a young maid, that was one Vincent a currier's daughter, some thirteen years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day (in July) and so let it dry in the sun, [1524]"to make it yellow, but by that means tarrying too long in the heat, she inflamed her head, and made herself mad."

      Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so doth Montaltus esteem of it, c. 11, if it be dry withal. In those northern countries, the people are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many witches, which (as I have before quoted) Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus, Baptista Porta ascribe to melancholy. But these cold climes are more subject to natural melancholy (not this artificial) which is cold and dry: for which cause [1525]Mercurius Britannicus belike puts melancholy men to inhabit just under the Pole. The worst of the three is a [1526]thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens, moorish grounds, lakes, muck-hills, draughts, sinks, where any carcasses, or carrion lies, or from whence any stinking fulsome smell comes: Galen, Avicenna, Mercurialis, new and old physicians, hold that such air is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy, plagues, and what not? [1527]Alexandretta, an haven-town in the Mediterranean Sea, Saint John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-Hispania, are much condemned for a bad air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lithuania, Ditmarsh, Pomptinae Paludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c. Romney Marsh with us; the Hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Cardan, de rerum varietate, l. 17, c. 96, finds fault with the sight of those rich, and most populous cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Ghent, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, &c. the air is bad; and so at Stockholm in Sweden; Regium in Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn: they may be commodious for navigation, this new kind of fortification, and many other good necessary uses; but are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath descended from the hills to the valley, 'tis the site of most of our new cities, and held best to build in plains, to take the opportunity of rivers. Leander Albertus pleads hard for the air and site of Venice, though the black moorish lands appear at every low water: the sea, fire, and smoke (as he thinks) qualify the air; and [1528]some suppose, that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them of Pisa in Italy; and our Camden, out of Plato, commends the site of Cambridge, because it is so near the fens. But let the site of such places be as it may, how can they be excused that have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and all that nature can afford, and yet through their own nastiness, and sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of life, suffer their air to putrefy, and themselves to be chocked up? Many cities in Turkey do male audire in this kind: Constantinople itself, where commonly carrion lies in the street. Some find the same fault in Spain, even in Madrid, the king's seat, a most excellent air, a pleasant site; but the inhabitants are slovens, and the streets uncleanly kept.

      A troublesome tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough and foul weather, impetuous winds, cloudy dark days, as it is commonly with us, Coelum visu foedum, [1529]Polydore calls it a filthy sky, et in quo facile generantur nubes; as Tully's brother Quintus wrote to him in Rome, being then quaestor in Britain. "In a thick and cloudy air" (saith Lemnius) "men are tetric, sad, and peevish: And if the western winds blow, and that there be a calm, or a fair sunshine day, there is a kind of alacrity in men's minds; it cheers up men and beasts: but if it be a turbulent, rough, cloudy, stormy weather, men are sad, lumpish, and much dejected, angry, waspish, dull, and melancholy." This was [1530]Virgil's experiment of old,

      "Verum ubi tempestas, et coeli mobilis humor

       Mutavere vices, et Jupiter humidus Austro,

       Vertuntur species animorum, et pectore motus

       Concipiunt alios"———

      "But when the face of Heaven changed is

       To tempests, rain, from season fair:

       Our minds are altered, and in our breasts

       Forthwith some new conceits appear."

      And who is not weather-wise against such and such conjunctions of planets, moved in foul weather, dull and heavy in such tempestuous seasons? [1531] Gelidum contristat Aquarius annum: the time requires, and the autumn breeds it; winter is like unto it, ugly, foul, squalid, the air works on all men, more or less, but especially on such as are melancholy, or inclined to it, as Lemnius holds, [1532]"They are most moved with it, and those which are already mad, rave downright, either in, or against a tempest. Besides, the devil many times takes his opportunity of such storms, and when the humours by the air be stirred, he goes in with them, exagitates our spirits, and vexeth our souls; as the sea waves, so are the spirits and humours in our bodies tossed with tempestuous winds and storms." To such as are melancholy therefore, Montanus, consil. 24, will have tempestuous and rough air to be avoided, and consil. 27, all night air, and would not have them to walk abroad, but in a pleasant day. Lemnius, l. 3. c. 3, discommends the south and eastern winds, commends the north. Montanus, consil. 31. [1533]"Will not any windows to be opened in the night." Consil. 229. et consil. 230, he discommends especially the south wind, and nocturnal air: So doth [1534]Plutarch. The night and darkness makes men sad, the like do all subterranean vaults, dark houses in caves and rocks, desert places cause melancholy in an instant, especially such as have not been used to it, or otherwise accustomed. Read more of air in Hippocrates, Aetius, l. 3. a c. 171. ad 175. Oribasius, a c. 1. ad 21. Avicen. l. 1. can. Fen. 2. doc. 2. Fen. 1. c. 123 to the 12, &c.

      SUBSECT. VI.—Immoderate Exercise a cause, and how. Solitariness, Idleness.

      Nothing so good but it may be abused: nothing better than exercise (if opportunely used) for the preservation of the body: nothing so bad if it be unseasonable. violent, or overmuch. Fernelius out of Galen, Path. lib. 1. c. 16, saith, [1535]"That much exercise and weariness consumes the spirits and substance, refrigerates the body; and such humours which Nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage: which being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body and mind." So doth it, if it be unseasonably used, upon a full stomach, or when the body is full of crudities, which Fuchsius so much inveighs against, lib. 2. instit. sec. 2. c. 4, giving that for a cause, why schoolboys in Germany are so often scabbed, because they use exercise presently after meats. [1536]Bayerus puts in a caveat against such exercise, because "it [1537]corrupts the meat in the stomach, and carries the same juice raw, and as yet undigested, into the veins" (saith Lemnius), "which there putrefies and confounds the animal spirits." Crato, consil. 21. l. 2, [1538]protests against all such exercise after meat, as being the greatest enemy to concoction that may be, and cause of corruption of humours, which produce this, and many other diseases. Not without good reason then doth Salust. Salvianus, l. 2. c. 1, and Leonartus Jacchinus, in 9. Rhasis, Mercurialis, Arcubanus, and many other, set down [1539]immoderate exercise as a most forcible cause of melancholy.

      Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion, as [1540]Gualter calls it, his pillow and chief reposal. "For the mind can never rest, but still meditates on one thing or other, except it be occupied about some honest business, of his own accord it rusheth into melancholy." [1541]"As too much and violent exercise offends on the one side, so doth an idle life on the other" (saith Crato), "it fills the body full of phlegm, gross humours, and all manner of obstructions, rheums, catarrhs," &c. Rhasis, cont. lib. 1. tract. 9, accounts of it as the greatest cause of melancholy. [1542]"I have often seen" (saith he) "that idleness begets this humour more than anything else." Montaltus, c. 1, seconds him out of his experience, [1543]"They that are idle are far more subject to melancholy than such as are conversant or employed about any office or business." [1544]Plutarch reckons up idleness for a sole cause of the sickness of the soul: "There are they" (saith he) "troubled in mind, that have no other cause but this." Homer, Iliad. 1, brings in Achilles eating of his own heart in his idleness, because he might not fight. Mercurialis, consil. 86, for a melancholy young man urgeth, [1545]it as a chief cause; why was he melancholy? because idle. Nothing begets it sooner, increaseth and continueth it oftener than idleness. [1546]A disease familiar to all idle persons,

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