This electronic edition is funded by the National Library of Medicine History of Medicine Division. This text has been proofread to a high degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using Data Entry. (Medical Information Disclaimer:
It is not the intention of NLM to provide specific medical advice but rather to provide users with information to better understand their health and their diagnosed disorders. Specific medical advice will not be provided, and NLM urges you to consult with a qualified physician for diagnosis and for answers to your personal questions.)
OF ARETÆUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN, ON THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC DISEASE
BOOK I.
CHAPTER V. ON MELANCHOLY
[p. 300]
for whatever, when awake, they have an aversion to, as being
an evil, rushes upon their visions in sleep. They are prone to
change their mind readily; to become base, mean-spirited,
illiberal, and in a little time, perhaps, simple, extravagant,
munificent, not from any virtue of the soul, but from the
changeableness of the disease. But if the illness become more
urgent, hatred, avoidance of the haunts of men, vain lamentations;
they complain of life, and desire to die. In many, the
understanding so leads to insensibility and fatuousness, that
they become ignorant of all things, or forgetful of themselves,
and live the life of the inferior animals. The habit of the
body also becomes perverted; colour, a darkish-green, unless
the bile do not pass downward, but is diffused with the
blood over the whole system. They are voracious, indeed,
yet emaciated; for in them sleep does not brace their limbs
either by what they have eaten or drunk, but watchfulness
diffuses and determines them outwardly. Therefore the bowels
are dried up, and discharge nothing; or, if they do, the dejections
are dried, round, with a black and bilious fluid, in which
they float; urine scanty, acrid, tinged with bile. They are
flatulent about the hypochondriac region; the eructations
fetid, virulent, like brine from salt; and sometimes an acrid
fluid, mixed with bile, floats in the stomach. Pulse for the
most part small, torpid, feeble, dense, like that from cold.
A story is told, that a certain person, incurably affected, fell
in love with a girl; and when the physicians could bring him
no relief, love cured him. But I think that he was originally
in love, and that he was dejected and spiritless from being
unsuccessful with the girl, and appeared to the common
people to be melancholic. He then did not know that it was
love; but when he imparted the love to the girl, he ceased
from his dejection, and dispelled his passion and sorrow; and
with joy he awoke from his lowness of spirits, and he became
restored to understanding, love being his physician.
