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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
MEMB. II. Retention and Evacuation rectified.
I have declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring this disease;
if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at least, as indeed it is, and to this
cure necessarily required; maxime conducit, saith Montaltus, cap. 27. it very much avails.
Altomarus, cap. 7, "commends walking in a morning, into some fair green pleasant fields, but by
all means first, by art or nature, he will have these ordinary excrements evacuated." Piso calls it,
Beneficium ventris, the benefit, help or pleasure of the belly, for it doth much ease it. Laurentius,
cap. 8, Crato, consil. 21. l. 2. prescribes it once a day at least: where nature is defective, art must
supply, by those lenitive electuaries, suppositories, condite prunes, turpentine, clysters, as shall
be shown. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile, commends clysters in hypochondriacal melancholy,
still to be used as occasion serves; Peter Cnemander in a consultation of his pro hypocondriaco,
will have his patient continually loose, and to that end sets down there many forms of potions
and clysters. Mercurialis, consil. 88. if this benefit come not of its own accord, prescribes
clysters in the first place: so doth Montanus, consil. 24. consil. 31 et 229. he commends
turpentine to that purpose: the same he ingeminates, consil. 230. for an Italian abbot. 'Tis very
good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be
decently and comely attired, for sordes vitiant, nastiness defiles and dejects any man that is so
voluntarily, or compelled by want, it dulleth the spirits.
Baths are either artificial or natural, both have their special uses in this malady, and as
Alexander supposeth, lib. 1. cap. 16. yield as speedy a remedy as any other physic whatsoever.
Aetius would have them daily used, assidua balnea, Tetra. 2. sect. 2. c. 9. Galen cracks how
many several cures he hath performed in this kind by use of baths alone, and Rufus pills,
moistening them which are otherwise dry. Rhasis makes it a principal cure, Tota cura sit in
humectando, to bathe and afterwards anoint with oil. Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, cap. 8. and
Montanus set down their peculiar forms of artificial baths. Crato, consil. 17. lib. 2. commends
mallows, camomile, violets, borage to be boiled in it, and sometimes fair water alone, and in his
following counsel, Balneum aquæ dulcis solum sæpissime profuisse compertum habemus. So
doth Fuchsius, lib. 1. cap. 33. Frisimelica, 2. consil. 42. in Trincavelius. Some beside herbs
prescribe a ram's head and other things to be boiled. Fernelius, consil. 44. will have them used
ten or twelve days together; to which he must enter fasting, and so continue in a temperate heat,
and after that frictions all over the body. Lelius Aegubinus, consil. 142. and Christoph. Aererus,
in a consultation of his, hold once or twice a week sufficient to bathe, the "water to be warm, not
hot, for fear of sweating." Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1. for a melancholy lawyer, "will have lotions
of the head still joined to these baths, with a lee wherein capital herbs have been boiled."
Laurentius speaks of baths of milk, which I find approved by many others. And still after bath,
the body to be anointed with oil of bitter almonds, of violets, new or fresh butter, capon's grease,
especially the backbone, and then lotions of the head, embrocations, &c. These kinds of baths
have been in former times much frequented, and diversely varied, and are still in general use in
those eastern countries. The Romans had their public baths very sumptuous and stupend, as those
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