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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
SUBSECT. III.--Concerning Physic.
Physic itself in the last place is to be considered; "for the Lord hath created medicines of
the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them." Ecclus. xxxviii. 4. ver. 7. "of such doth the
apothecary make a confection," &c. Of these medicines there be diverse and infinite kinds,
plants, metals, animals, &c., and those of several natures, some good for one, hurtful to another:
some noxious in themselves, corrected by art, very wholesome and good, simples, mixed, &c.,
and therefore left to be managed by discreet and skilful physicians, and thence applied to man's
use. To this purpose they have invented method, and several rules of art, to put these remedies in
order, for their particular ends. Physic (as Hippocrates defines it) is nought else but "addition and
subtraction;" and as it is required in all other diseases, so in this of melancholy it ought to be
most accurate, it being (as Mercurialis acknowledgeth) so common an affection in these our
times, and therefore fit to be understood. Several prescripts and methods I find in several men,
some take upon them to cure all maladies with one medicine, severally applied, as that panacea,
aurum potabile, so much controverted in these days, herba solis, &c. Paracelsus reduceth all
diseases to four principal heads, to whom Severinus, Ravelascus, Leo Suavius, and others adhere
and imitate: those are leprosy, gout, dropsy, falling-sickness. To which they reduce the rest; as to
leprosy, ulcers, itches, furfurs, scabs, &c. To gout, stone, colic, toothache, headache, &c. To
dropsy, agues, jaundice, cachexia, &c. To the falling-sickness, belong palsy, vertigo, cramps,
convulsions, incubus, apoplexy, &c. "If any of these four principal be cured" (saith Ravelascus)
"all the inferior are cured," and the same remedies commonly serve: but this is too general, and
by some contradicted: for this peculiar disease of melancholy, of which I am now to speak, I find
several cures, several methods and prescripts. They that intend the practic cure of melancholy,
saith Duretus in his notes to Hollerius, set down nine peculiar scopes or ends; Savanarola
prescribes seven especial canons. Aelianus Montaltus cap. 26. Faventinus in his empirics,
Hercules de Saxonia, &c., have their several injunctions and rules, all tending to one end. The
ordinary is threefold, which I mean to follow. Διαιτητιχη [Diaitaetike], Pharmaceutica, and
Chirurgica, diet, or living, apothecary, chirurgery, which Wecker, Crato, Guianerius, &c., and
most, prescribe; of which I will insist, and speak in their order.
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