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diff --git a/30099-0.txt b/30099-0.txt index 059409b..275e844 100644 --- a/30099-0.txt +++ b/30099-0.txt @@ -1,1501 +1,1501 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***
-
-The Augustan Reprint Society
-
-JOHN HILL
-
-HYPOCHONDRIASIS
-
-A Practical Treatise.
-
-(1766)
-
-Introduction by
-
-G. S. ROUSSEAU
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Publication Number 135
-William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
-University Of California, Los Angeles
-1969
-
-
-
-
-GENERAL EDITORS
-
- William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
- George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
- Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
-
-
-ASSOCIATE EDITOR
-
- David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_
-
-
-ADVISORY EDITORS
-
- Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_
- James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_
- Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
- Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
- Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
- Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
- Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_
- Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
- Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
- Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
- James Sutherland, _University College, London_
- H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_
- Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
-
-
-CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
-
- Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
-
-
-EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
-
- Mary Kerbret, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION
-
- "When I first dabbled in this art, the old distemper call'd
- _Melancholy_ was exchang'd for _Vapours_, and afterwards for the
- _Hypp_, and at last took up the now current appellation of the
- _Spleen_, which it still retains, tho' a learned doctor of the
- west, in a little tract he hath written, divides the _Spleen_ and
- _Vapours_, not only into the _Hypp_, the _Hyppos_, and the
- Hyppocons; but subdivides these divisions into the _Markambles_,
- the _Moonpalls_, the _Strong-Fiacs_, and the _Hockogrokles_."
-
-
- Nicholas Robinson, _A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and
- Hypochondriack Melancholy_ (London, 1729)
-
-
-Treatises on hypochondriasis--the seventeenth-century medical term for a
-wide range of nervous diseases--were old when "Sir" John Hill, the
-eccentric English scientist, physician, apothecary, and hack writer,
-published his _Hypochondriasis_ in 1766.[1] For at least a century and a
-half medical writers as well as lay authors had been writing literature
-of all types (treatises, pamphlets, poems, sermons, epigrams) on this
-most fashionable of English maladies under the variant names of
-"melancholy," "the spleen," "black melancholy," "hysteria," "nervous
-debility," "the hyp." Despite the plethora of _materia scripta_ on the
-subject it makes sense to reprint Hill's _Hypochondriasis_, because it
-is indeed a "practical treatise" and because it offers the modern
-student of neoclassical literature a clear summary of the best thoughts
-that had been put forth on the subject, as well as an explanation of the
-causes, symptoms, and cures of this commonplace malady.
-
-No reader of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English literature
-needs to be reminded of the interest of writers of the period in the
-condition--"disease" is too confining a term--hypochondriasis.[2] Their
-concern is apparent in both the poetry and prose of two centuries. From
-Robert Burton's Brobdingnagian exposition in _The Anatomy of Melancholy_
-(1621) to Tobias Smollett's depiction of the misanthropic and ailing
-Matthew Bramble in _Humphry Clinker_ (1771), and, of course, well into
-the nineteenth century, afflicted heroes and weeping heroines populate
-the pages of England's literature. There is scarcely a decade in the
-period 1600-1800 that does not contribute to the literature of
-melancholy; so considerable in number are the works that could be placed
-under this heading that it actually makes sense to speak of the
-"literature of melancholy." A kaleidoscopic survey of this literature
-(exclusive of treatises written on the subject) would include mention of
-Milton's "Il Penseroso" and "L'Allegro," the meditative Puritan and
-nervous Anglican thinkers of the Restoration (many of whose narrators,
-such as Richard Baxter, author of the _Reliquiae Baxterianae_,[3] are
-afflicted), Swift's "School of Spleen" in _A Tale of a Tub_, Pope's
-hysterical Belinda in the "Cave of Spleen," the melancholic "I" of
-Samuel Richardson's correspondence, Gray's leucocholy, the
-psychosomatically ailing characters of _The Vicar of Wakefield_ and
-_Tristram Shandy_, Boswell's _Hypochondriack Papers_ (1777-1783)
-contributed to the _London Magazine_, and such "sensible" and
-"sensitive" women as Mrs. Bennett and Miss Bates in the novels of Jane
-Austen. So great in bulk is this literature in the mid eighteenth
-century, that C. A. Moore has written, "statistically, this deserves to
-be called the Age of Melancholy."[4] The vastness of this literature is
-sufficient to justify the reprinting of an unavailable practical
-handbook on the subject by a prolific author all too little known.[5]
-
-The medical background of Hill's pamphlet extends further back than the
-seventeenth century and Burton's _Anatomy_. The ancient Greeks had
-theorized about hypochondria: hypochondriasis signified a disorder
-beneath (hypo) the gristle (chondria) and the disease was discussed
-principally in physiological terms. The belief that hypochondriasis was
-a somatic condition persisted until the second half of the seventeenth
-century at which time an innovation was made by Dr. Thomas Sydenham. In
-addition to showing that hypochondriasis and hysteria (thought previously
-by Sydenham to afflict women only) were the same disease, Sydenham noted
-that the external cause of both was a mental disturbance and not a
-physiological one. He also had a theory that the internal and immediate
-cause was a disorder of the animal spirits arising from a clot and
-resulting in pain, spasms, and bodily disorders. By attributing the
-onset of the malady to mental phenomena and not to obstructions of the
-spleen or viscera, Sydenham was moving towards a psychosomatic theory of
-hypochondriasis, one that was to be debated in the next century in
-England, Holland, and France.[6] Sydenham's influence on the physicians
-of the eighteenth century was profound: Cheyne in England, Boerhaave in
-Holland, La Mettrie in France. Once the theory of the nervous origins of
-hypochondria gained ground--here I merely note coincidence, not historical
-cause and effect--the disease became increasingly fashionable in England,
-particularly among the polite, the aristocratic, and the refined. Students
-of the drama will recall Scrub's denial in _The Beaux' Stratagem_ (1707)
-of the possibility that Archer has the spleen and Mrs. Sullen's
-interjection, "I thought that distemper had been only proper to people of
-quality."
-
-Toward the middle of the eighteenth century, hypochondria was so
-prevalent in people's minds and mouths that it soon assumed the
-abbreviated name "the hyp." Entire poems like William Somervile's _The
-Hyp: a Burlesque Poem in Five Canto's_ (1731) and Tim Scrubb's _A Rod
-for the Hyp-Doctor_ (1731) were devoted to this strain; others, like
-Malcom Flemyng's epic poem, _Neuropathia: sive de morbis hypochondriacis
-et hystericis, libri tres, poema medicum_ (1740), were more technical
-and scientific. Professor Donald Davie has written that he has often
-"heard old fashioned and provincial persons [in England and Scotland]
-even in [my] own lifetime say, 'Oh, you give me the hyp,' where we
-should say 'You give me a pain in the neck'"[7]; and I myself have heard
-the expression, "You give me the pip," where "pip" may be a corruption
-of "hyp." As used in the early eighteenth century, the term "hyp" was
-perhaps not far from what our century has learned to call _Angst_. It
-was also used as a synonym for "lunacy," as the anonymous author of
-_Anti-Siris_ (1744), one of the tracts in the tar-water controversy,
-informs us that "Berkeley tells his Countrymen, they are all mad, or
-_Hypochondriac_, which is but a fashionable name for Madness." Bernard
-Mandeville, the Dutch physician and author of _The Fable of the Bees_,
-seems to have understood perfectly well that hypochondriasis is a
-condition encompassing any number of diseases and not a specific and
-readily definable ailment; a condition, moreover, that hovers
-precariously and bafflingly in limbo between mind and body, and he
-stressed this as the theme of his _Treatise of the Hypochondriack and
-Hysteric Passions, Vulgarly Call'd the Hypo in Men and Vapours in Women_
-(1711). The mental causes are noted as well in an anonymous pamphlet in
-the British Museum, _A Treatise on the Dismal Effects of
-Low-Spiritedness_ (1750) and are echoed in many similar early and
-mid-eighteenth century works. Some medical writers of the age, like
-Nicholas Robinson, had reservations about the external mental bases of
-the hyp and preferred to discuss the condition in terms of internal
-physiological causes:
-
- ...of that Disorder we call the Vapours, or _Hypochondria_; for
- they have no material distinctive Characters, but what arise from
- the same Disease affecting different Sexes, and the Vapours in
- Women are term'd the _Hypochondria_ in Men, and they proceed from
- the Contraction of the Vessels being depress'd a little beneath the
- Balance of Nature, and the Relaxation of the Nerves at the same
- Time, which creates that Uneasiness and Melancholy that naturally
- attends Vapours, and which generally is an Intemperature of the
- whole Body, proceeding from a Depression of the Solids beneath the
- Balance of Nature; but the Intemperature of the Parts is that
- Peculiar Disposition whereby they favour any Disease.[8]
-
-
-But the majority of medical thinkers had been persuaded that the
-condition was psychosomatic, and this belief was supported by research
-on nerves by important physicians in the 1740's and 1750's: the Monro
-brothers in London, Robert Whytt in Edinburgh, Albrecht von Haller in
-Leipzig. By mid century the condition known as the hyp was believed to
-be a real, not an imaginary ailment, common, peculiar in its
-manifestations, and indefinable, almost impossible to cure, producing
-very real symptoms of physical illness, and said to originate sometimes
-in depression and idleness. It was summed up by Robert James in his
-_Medicinal Dictionary_ (London, 1743-45):
-
- If we thoroughly consider its Nature, it will be found to be a
- spasmodico-flatulent Disorder of the _Primae Viae_, that is, of the
- Stomach and Intestines, arising from an Inversion or Perversion of
- their peristaltic Motion, and, by the mutual consent of the Parts,
- throwing the whole nervous System into irregular Motions, and
- disturbing the whole Oeconomy of the Functions.... no part or
- Function of the Body escapes the Influence of this tedious and long
- protracted Disease, whose Symptoms are so violent and numerous,
- that it is no easy Task either to enumerate or account for them....
- No disease is more troublesome, either to the Patient or Physician,
- than hypochondriac Disorders; and it often happens, that, thro' the
- Fault of both, the Cure is either unnecessarily protracted, or
- totally frustrated; for the Patients are so delighted, not only
- with a Variety of Medicines, but also of Physicians.... On the
- contrary, few physicians are sufficiently acquainted with the true
- Genius and Nature of this perplexing Disorder; for which Reason
- they boldly prescribe almost everything contained in the Shops, not
- without an irreparable Injury to the Patient (article on
- "Hypochondriacus Morbis").
-
-This is a more technical description than Hill gives anywhere in his
-handbook, but it serves well to summarize the background of the condition
-about which Sir John wrote.
-
-Hill's _Hypochondriasis_ adds little that is new to the theory of the
-disease. It incorporates much of the thinking set forth by the writings
-mentioned above, particularly those of George Cheyne, whose medical
-works _The English Malady_ (1733) and _The Natural Method of Cureing the
-Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the
-Body_ (1742) Hill knew. He is also conversant with some Continental
-writers on the subject, two of whom--Isaac Biberg, author of The
-_Oeconomy of Nature_ (1751), and René Réaumur who had written a history
-of insects (1722)[9]--he mentions explicitly, and with William
-Stukeley's _Of the Spleen_ (1723). Internal evidence indicates that Hill
-had read or was familiar with the ideas propounded in Richard
-Blackmore's _Treatise of the Spleen and Vapours_ (1725) and Nicholas
-Robinson's _A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack
-Melancholy_ (1729).
-
-Hill's arrangement of sections is logical: he first defines the
-condition (I), then proceeds to discuss persons most susceptible to it
-(II), its major symptoms (III), consequences (IV), causes (V), and cures
-(VI-VIII). In the first four sections almost every statement is
-commonplace and requires no commentary (for example, Hill's opening
-remark: "To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and
-cruel. It is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by
-thickened and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver,
-and other parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick
-scarce knows one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure.") His
-belief that the condition afflicts sedentary persons, particularly
-students, philosophers, theologians, and that it is not restricted to
-women alone--as some contemporary thinkers still maintained--is also
-impossible to trace to a single source, as is his description (p. 12) of
-the most prevalent physiological _symptoms_ ("lowness of spirits, and
-inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love of solitude....
-Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness") and _causes_ (the poor and damp
-English climate and the resultant clotting of blood in the spleen) of
-the illness.
-
-Sections V-VIII, dealing with causes and cures, are less commonplace and
-display some of Hill's eccentricities as a writer and thinker. He uses
-the section entitled "Cures" as a means to peddle his newly discovered
-cure-all, water dock,[10] which Smollett satirized through the mouth of
-Tabitha Bramble in _Humphry Clinker_ (1771). Hill also rebelled against
-contemporary apothecaries and physicians who prescribed popular
-medicines--such as Berkeley's tar-water, Dover's mercury powders, and
-James's fever-powders--as universal panaceas for the cure of the hyp.
-"No acrid medicine must be directed, for that may act too hastily,
-dissolve the impacted matter at once, and let it loose, to the
-destruction of the sufferer; no antimonial, no mercurial, no martial
-preparation must be taken; in short, no chymistry: nature is the shop
-that heaven has set before us, and we must seek our medicine there"
-(p. 24). However scientifically correct Hill may have been in minimizing
-the efficacy of current pills and potions advertised as remedies for the
-hyp, he was unusual for his time in objecting so strongly to them. Less
-eccentric was his allegiance to the "Ancients" rather than to the
-"Moderns" so far as chemical treatment (i.e., restoration of the humours
-by chemical rearrangement) of hypochondriasis is concerned.[11] "The
-venerable ancients," Hill writes, "who knew not this new art, will lead
-us in the search; and (faithful relators as they are of truth) will tell
-us whence we may deduce our hope; and what we are to fear" (p. 24).
-
-Still more idiosyncratic, perhaps, is Hill's contention (p. 25) that the
-air of dry, high grounds worsens the condition of the patient. Virtually
-every writer I have read on the subject believed that onset of the hyp
-was caused by one of the six non-naturals--air, diet, lack of sufficient
-sleep, too little or too much exercise, defective evacuation, the
-passions of the mind; and although some medical writers emphasized the
-last of these,[12] few would have concurred with Hill that the fetid air
-of London was less harmful than the clearer air at Highgate. All readers
-of the novel of the period will recall the hypochondriacal Matt
-Bramble's tirade against the stench of London air. Beliefs of the
-variety here mentioned cause me to question Hill's importance in the
-history of medicine; there can be no question about his contributions to
-the advancement of the science of botany through popularization of
-Linnaeus' system of bisexual classification, but Hill's medical
-importance is summarized best as that of a compiler. His recommendation
-of the study of botany as a cure for melancholics is sensible but verges
-on becoming "a digression in praise of the author," a poetic _apologia
-pro vita sua_ in Augustan fashion:
-
- For me, I should advise above all other things the study of nature.
- Let him begin with plants: he will here find a continual pleasure,
- and continual change; fertile of a thousand useful things; even of
- the utility we are seeking here. This will induce him to walk; and
- every hedge and hillock, every foot-path side, and thicket, will
- afford him some new object. He will be tempted to be continually in
- the air; and continually to change the nature and quality of the
- air, by visiting in succession the high lands and the low, the
- lawn, the heath, the forest. He will never want inducement to be
- abroad; and the unceasing variety of the subjects of his
- observation, will prevent his walking hastily: he will pursue his
- studies in the air; and that contemplative turn of mind, which in
- his closet threatened his destruction, will thus become the great
- means of his recovery (pp. 26-27).
-
-Hill was forever extolling the claims of a life devoted to the study of
-nature, as we see in a late work, _The Virtues of British Herbs_ (1770).
-Judicious as is the logic of this recommendation, one cannot help but
-feel that the emphasis here is less on diversion as a cure and more on
-the botanic attractions of "every hedge and hillock, every foot-path
-side, and thicket."
-
-While Hill's rules and regulations regarding proper diet (Section VII)
-are standard, several taken almost _verbatim et literatim_ from Cheyne's
-list in _The English Malady_ (1733), his recommendation (Section VIII)
-of "Spleen-Wort" as the best medicine for the hypochondriac patient is
-not. Since Hill devotes so much space to the virtues of this herb and
-concludes his work extolling this plant, a word should be said about it.
-Throughout his life he was an active botanist. Apothecary, physician,
-and writer though he was, it was ultimately botany that was his ruling
-passion, as is made abundantly clear in his correspondence.[13] Wherever
-he lived--whether in the small house in St. James's Street or in the
-larger one on the Bayswater Road--he cultivated an herb garden that
-flattered his knowledge and ability. Connoisseurs raved about its
-species and considered it one of the showpieces of London. His arrogant
-personality alone prevented him from becoming the first Keeper of the
-Apothecary's Garden in Chelsea, although he was for a time
-superintendent to the Dowager Princess of Wales's gardens at Kensington
-Palace and at Kew. His interest in cultivation of herbs nevertheless
-continued; over the years Hill produced more than thirty botanical
-works, many of them devoted to the medical virtues of rare herbs such as
-"Spleen-Wort." Among these are _The British Herbal_ (1756), _On the
-Virtues of Sage in Lengthening Human Life_ (1763), _Centaury, the Great
-Stomachic_ (1765), _Polypody_ (1768), _A Method of Curing Jaundice_
-(1768), _Instances of the Virtue of Petasite Root_ (1771), and _Twenty
-Five New Plants_ (1773).[14] It is therefore not surprising that he
-should believe a specific herb to be the best remedy for a complicated
-medical condition. Nor is his reference to the Ancients as authority for
-the herbal pacification of an inflamed spleen surprising in the light of
-his researches: he was convinced that every illness could be cured by
-taking an appropriate herb or combination of herbs. Whereas a few
-nonmedical writers--such as John Wesley in _Primitive Physick_
-(1747)--had advocated the taking of one or two herbs in moderate dosage
-as anti-hysterics (the eighteenth-century term for all cures of the
-hyp), no medical writer of the century ever promoted the use of herbs to
-the extent that Hill did. In fairness to him, it is important to note
-that his herbal remedies were harmless and that many found their way
-into the official _London Pharmacopeia_. "The virtues of this smooth
-Spleen-wort," he insists, "have stood the test of ages; and the plant
-every where retained its name and credit: and one of our good
-herbarists, who had seen a wonderful case of a swoln spleen, so big, and
-hard as to be felt with terror, brought back to a state of nature by it"
-(p. 37).[15] The greatest portion of Hill's concluding section combines
-advertisement for the powder medicine he was himself manufacturing at a
-handsome profit together with a protest against competing apothecaries:
-"An intelligent person was directed to go to the medicinal herb shops in
-the several markets, and buy some of this Spleen-wort; the name was
-written, and shewn to every one; every shop received his money, and
-almost every one sold a different plant, under the name of this: but
-what is very striking, not one of them the right" (p. 42).
-
-Treatises on hypochondriasis did not cease to be printed after Hill's in
-1766, but continued to issue from the presses into the nineteenth
-century. A good example of this is the tome by John Reid, physician to
-the Finsbury Dispensary in London, _Essays on Insanity, Hypochondriasis
-and Other Nervous Affections_ (1816), which summarizes theories of the
-malady.[16] A bibliographical study of such works would probably reveal
-a larger number of titles in the nineteenth century than in the previous
-one, but by this time the nature and definition of hypochondria had
-changed significantly.
-
-If John Hill's volume is not an important contribution in the history of
-medicine, it is a lucid and brief exposition of many of the best ideas
-that had been thought and written on the hyp, with the exception of his
-uninhibited prescribing of herbal medicines as cure-alls. An
-understanding of this disease is essential for readers of neoclassical
-English literature, especially when we reflect upon the fact that some
-of the best literature of the period was composed by writers whom it
-afflicted. It is perhaps not without significance that the greatest poet
-of the Augustan age, Alexander Pope, thought it necessary as he lay on
-his deathbed in May 1744 to exclaim with his last breath, "I never was
-hippish in my whole life."[17]
-
- University of California,
- Los Angeles
-
-
-
-
-NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
-
-
-[1] The text here reproduced is that of the copy in the Library of the
-Royal Society of Medicine, London. Title pages of different copies of
-the first edition of 1766 vary. For example, the title page of the copy
-in the British Museum reads, _Hypochondriasis; a Practical Treatise On
-the Nature and Cure of that Disorder, Commonly called the Hyp and the
-Hypo_. The copy in the Royal Society of Medicine contains, among other
-additions, the words "by Sir John Hill" in pencil, and "8vo Lond.
-1766," written in ink and probably a later addition.
-
-[2] Melancholy, hypochondriasis, and the spleen were considered in the
-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to be one complex condition, a
-malady rather than a malaise, which is but a symptom. Distinctions among
-these, of interest primarily to medical historians, cannot be treated
-here. As good a definition as any is found in Dr. Johnson's _Dictionary_
-(1755): "Hypochondriacal.... 1. Melancholy; disordered in the
-imagination.... 2. Producing melancholy...." The literature of
-melancholy has been surveyed in part by C. A. Moore, "The English
-Malady," _Backgrounds of English Literature 1700-1760_ (Minneapolis,
-1953), pp. 179-235. In medical parlance, "hypochondria" means the soft
-parts of the body below the costal cartilages, and the singular form of
-the word, "hypochondrium," means the viscera situated in the
-hypochondria, i.e., the liver, gall bladder, and spleen.
-
-[3] See Samuel Clifford's _The Signs and Causes of Melancholy, with
-directions suited to the case of those who are afflicted with it.
-Collected out of the works of Mr. Richard Baxter_ (London, 1716) in the
-British Museum.
-
-[4] _Backgrounds of English Literature_, p. 179.
-
-[5] See my forthcoming biography, _The Literary Quack: A Life of 'Sir'
-John Hill of London_, and John Kennedy's _Some Remarks on the Life and
-Writings of Dr. J---- H----, Inspector General of Great Britain_
-(London, 1752).
-
-[6] For some of this background see L. J. Rather, _Mind and Body in
-Eighteenth Century Medicine: A Study Based on Jerome Gaub's De Regimine
-Mentis_ (London, 1965), pp. 135-90 _passim_.
-
-[7] _Science and Literature 1700-1740_ (London, 1964), pp. 50-51.
-
-[8] _A New Theory of Physick_ (London, 1725), p. 56.
-
-[9] Biberg was a Swedish naturalist and had studied botany under
-Linnaeus in Uppsala; Réaumur, a French botanist, had contributed papers
-to the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society in London.
-
-[10] _The Power of Water-Dock against the Scurvy whether in the Plain
-Root or Essence...._ (London, 1765), had been published six months
-earlier than _Hypochondriasis_ and had earned Hill a handsome profit.
-
-[11] I have treated aspects of this subject in my article, "Matt Bramble
-and The Sulphur Controversy in the XVIIIth Century: Medical Background
-of _Humphry Clinker_," _JHI_, XXVIII (1967), 577-90.
-
-[12] See, for example, Jeremiah Waineright, _A Mechanical Account of the
-Non-Naturals_ (1707); John Arbuthnot, _An Essay Concerning the Effects
-of Air on Human Bodies_ (1733); Frank Nichols, _De Anima Medica_ (1750).
-
-[13] Hill's correspondence is not published but shall be printed as an
-appendix to my forthcoming biography.
-
-[14] I have discussed some of these works in connection with the medical
-background of John Wesley's _Primitive Physick_ (1747). See G. S.
-Rousseau, _Harvard Library Bulletin_, XVI (1968), 242-56.
-
-[15] It is difficult to know with certainty when Hill first became
-interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in _The British
-Herbal_ (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he
-opened an apothecary shop.
-
-[16] Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled _De Insania_ (1798),
-contains materials on the relationship of the imagination to all forms
-of mental disturbance. Secondary literature on hypochondria is
-plentiful. Works include: R. H. Gillespie, _Hypochondria_ (London,
-1928), William K. Richmond, _The English Disease_ (London, 1958),
-Charles Chenevix Trench, _The Royal Malady_ (New York, 1964), and Ilza
-Vieth, _Hysteria: The History of a Disease_ (Chicago, 1965), and "On
-Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," _Bulletin of the History of
-Medicine_, XXX (1956), 233-40.
-
-[17] Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books
-and Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264.
-
-I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts
-in writing this introduction.
-
-
-
-
-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
-
-The text of this facsimile of _Hypochondriasis_ is reproduced from a
-copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.
-
-
-
-
- HYPOCHONDRIASIS.
-
- A
-
- PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c.
-
-
-
-HYPOCHONDRIASIS.
-
-
-SECT. I.
-
-The NATURE of the DISORDER.
-
-
-To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and cruel. It
-is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by thickened
-and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver, and other
-parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick scarce knows
-one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure.
-
-The blood is a mixture of many fluids, which, in a state of health, are
-so combined, that the whole passes freely through its appointed vessels;
-but if by the loss of the thinner parts, the rest becomes too gross to
-be thus carried through, it will stop where the circulation has least
-power; and having thus stopped it will accumulate; heaping by degrees
-obstruction on obstruction.
-
-Health and chearfulness, and the quiet exercise of mind, depend upon a
-perfect circulation: is it a wonder then, when this becomes impeded the
-body looses of its health, and the temper of its sprightliness? to be
-otherwise would be the miracle; and he inhumanly insults the afflicted,
-who calls all this a voluntary frowardness. Its slightest state brings
-with it sickness, anguish and oppression; and innumerable ills follow
-its advancing steps, unless prevented by timely care; till life itself
-grows burthensome.
-
-The disease was common in antient Greece; and her physicians understood
-it, better than those perhaps of later times, in any other country; who
-though happy in many advantages these fathers of the science could not
-have, yet want the great assistance of frequent watching it in all its
-stages.
-
-Those venerable writers have delivered its nature, and its cure: in the
-first every thing now shews they were right; and what they have said as
-to the latter will be found equally true and certain. This, so far as
-present experience has confirmed it, and no farther, will be here laid
-before the afflicted in a few plain words.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. II.
-
-Persons Subject to it.
-
-
-Fatigue of mind, and great exertion of its powers often give birth to
-this disease; and always tend to encrease it. The finer spirits are
-wasted by the labour of the brain: the Philosopher rises from his study
-more exhausted than the Peasant leaves his drudgery; without the benefit
-that he has from exercise. Greatness of mind, and steady virtue;
-determined resolution, and manly firmness, when put in action, and
-intent upon their object, all also lead to it: perhaps whatever tends to
-the ennobling of the soul has equal share in bringing on this weakness
-of the body.
-
-From this we may learn easily who are the men most subject to it; the
-grave and studious, those of a sedate temper and enlarged understanding,
-the learned and wise, the virtuous and the valiant: those whom it were
-the interest of the world to wish were free from this and every other
-illness; and who perhaps, except for this alloy, would have too large a
-portion of human happiness.
-
-Though these are most, it is not these alone, who are subject to it.
-There are countries where it is endemial, and in other places some have
-the seeds of it in their constitution; and in some it takes rise from
-accidents. In these last it is the easiest of cure; and in the first
-most difficult.
-
-Beside the Greeks already named, the Jews of old time were heavily
-afflicted with this disease; and in their descendants to this day it is
-often constitutional: the Spaniards have it almost to a man; and so have
-the American Indians. Perhaps the character of these several nations may
-be connected with it. The steady honour, and firm valour of the
-Spaniard, very like that of the ancient Doric nation, who followed the
-flute not the trumpet to the field; and met the enemy, not with shouts
-and fury, but with a determined virtue: it is the temper of the
-Hypochondriac to be slow, but unmoveably resolved: the Jew has shewn
-this mistakenly, but almost miraculously; and the poor Indian, untaught
-as he is, faces all peril with composure, and sings his death-song with
-an unalter'd countenance.
-
-Among particular persons the most inquiring and contemplative are those
-who suffer oftenest by this disease; and of all degrees of men I think
-the clergy. I do not mean the hunting, shooting, drinking clergy, who
-bear the tables of the great; but the retir'd and conscientious; such as
-attend in midnight silence to their duty; and seek in their own cool
-breasts, or wheresoever else they may be found, new admonitions for an
-age plunged in new vices. To this disease we owe the irreparable loss of
-Dr. YOUNG; and the present danger of many other the best and most
-improved amongst us. May what is here to be proposed assist in their
-preservation!
-
-The Geometrician or the learned Philosopher of whatever denomination,
-whose course of study fixes his eye for ever on one object, his mind
-intensely and continually employed upon one thought, should be warned
-also that he is in danger; or if he find himself already afflicted, he
-should be told that the same course of life, which brought it on, will,
-without due care, encrease it to the most dreaded violence.
-
-The middle period of life is that in which there is the greatest danger
-of an attack from this disease; and the latter end of autumn, when the
-summer heats have a little time been over, is the season when in our
-climate its first assaults are most to be expected. The same time of the
-year always increases the disorder in those who have been before
-afflicted with it; and it is a truth must be confessed, that from its
-first attack the patient grows continually, though slowly, worse; unless
-a careful regimen prevent it.
-
-The constitutions most liable to this obstruction are the lean, and dark
-complexioned; the grave and sedentary. Let such watch the first
-symptoms; and obviate, (as they may with ease) that which it will be
-much more difficult to remove.
-
-It is happy a disease, wherein the patient must do a great deal for
-himself, falls, for the most part, upon those who have the powers of
-reason strongest. Let them only be aware of this, that the distemper
-naturally disposes them to inactivity; and reason will have no use
-unless accompanied with resolution to enforce it.
-
-Though the physician can do something toward the cure, much more depends
-upon the patient; and here his constancy of mind will be employed most
-happily. No one is better qualified to judge on a fair hearing what
-course is the most fit; and having made that choice, he must with
-patience wait its good effects. Diseases that come on slowly must have
-time for curing; an attention to the first appearances of the disorder
-will be always happiest; because when least established it is easiest
-overthrown: but when that happy period has been neglected, he must wait
-the effects of such a course as will dilute and melt the obstructing
-matter gradually; for till that be done it is not only vain, but
-sometimes dangerous, to attempt its expulsion from the body.
-
-The blood easily separates itself into the grosser and the thinner
-parts: we see this in bleeding; and from the toughness of the red cake
-may guess how very difficult it will be to dissolve a substance of like
-firmness in the vessels of the body. That it can thus become thickened
-within the body, a Pleurisy shews us too evidently: in that case it is
-brought on suddenly, and with inflammation; in this other, slowly and
-without; and here, even before it forms the obstruction, can bring on
-many mischiefs. Various causes can produce the same effect, but that in
-all cases operates most durably, which operates most slowly. The watery
-part of the blood is its mild part; in the remaining gross matter of it,
-are acrid salts and burning oils, and these, when destitute of that
-happy dilution nature gives them in a healthy body, are capable of doing
-great mischief to the tender vessels in which they are kept stagnant.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. III.
-
-The SYMPTOMS of the DISORDER.
-
-
-The first and lightest of the signs that shew this illness are a lowness
-of spirits, and inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love
-of solitude and a habit of thinking, even on trifling subjects, with too
-much steadiness. A very little help may combat these: but if that
-indolence which is indeed a part of the disorder, will neglect them;
-worse must be expected soon to follow.
-
-Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness, weight, and oppression in the body,
-a want of appetite, or, what is worse, an appetite without digestion;
-for these are the conditions of different states of the disease, a
-fullness and a difficulty of breathing after meals, a straitness of the
-breast, pains and flatulencies in the bowels, and an unaptness to
-discharge their contents.
-
-The pulse becomes low, weak, and unequal; and there are frequent
-palpitations of the heart, a little dark-coloured urine is voided at
-some times; and a flood of colourless and insipid at others; relieving
-for a moment, but increasing the distemper: there is in some cases also
-a continual teazing cough, with a choaking stoppage in the throat at
-times; then heartburn, sickness, hardness of the belly, and a costive
-habit, or a tormenting and vain irritation.
-
-The lips turn pale, the eyes loose their brightness and by degrees the
-white grows as it were greenish, the gums want their due firmness, with
-their proper colour; and an unpleasing foulness grows upon the teeth:
-the inside of the mouth is pale and furred, and the throat dry and
-husky: the colour of the skin is pale (though there are periods when the
-face is florid) and as the obstruction gathers ground, and more affects
-the liver, the whole body becomes yellow, tawny, greenish, and at length
-of that deep and dusky hue, to which men of swift imagination have given
-the name of blackness.
-
-These symptoms do not all appear in any one period of the disease, or in
-one case, but at one time or other all of them, as well as those which
-follow: the flesh becomes cold to the touch, though the patient does not
-himself perceive it; the limbs grow numbed and torpid, the breathing
-dull and slow, and the voice hollow; and usually the appetite in this
-period declines, and comes almost to nothing: night sweats come on,
-black swellings appear on the veins, the flesh wastes and the breast
-becomes flat and hollow: the mouth is full of a thin spittle, the head
-is dizzy and confus'd, and sometimes there is an unconquerable numbness
-in the organs of speech.
-
-I have known the temporary silence that follows upon this last symptom
-become a jest to the common herd; and the unhappy patient, instead of
-compassion and assistance, receive the reproof of sullenness, from those
-who should have known and acted better.
-
-About twenty years ago I met on a visit at Catthorpe in Leicestershire a
-young gentleman of distinguished learning and abilities, who at certain
-times was speechless. The vulgar thought it a pretence: and a jocose
-lady, where he was at tea with company, putting him as she said to a
-trial, poured out a dish very strong and without sugar. He drank it and
-returned the cup with a bow of great reserve, and his eye bent on the
-ground: she then filled the cup with sugar, and pouring weak tea on it,
-sent it him: he drank that too, looked at her steadily, and blushed for
-her. The lady declared the man was dumb; the rest thought him perverse,
-and obstinate; but a constant and steady perseverance in an easy method
-cured him.
-
-All these are miseries which the disease, while it retains its natural
-form, can bring upon the patient; and thus he will in time be worn out,
-and led miserably, though slowly, to the grave. Let him not indulge his
-inactivity so far as to give way to this, because it is represented as
-far off; the disease may suddenly and frightfully change its nature; and
-swifter evils follow.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. IV.
-
-The DANGER.
-
-
-We have done with the obstruction considered in itself; but this, though
-often unsurmountable by art, at least by the methods now in use, will be
-sometimes broken through at once by nature, or by accidents; and bring
-on fatal evils. These are strictly different diseases, and are no
-otherway concerned here, than as the consequences of that of which we
-are treating.
-
-The thick and glutinous blood which has so long stagnated in the spleen,
-will have in that time altered its nature, and acquired a very great
-degree of acrimony: while it lies dormant, this does no more mischiefs,
-than those named already; but when violent exercise, a fit of outrageous
-anger, or any thing else that suddenly shocks and disturbs the frame,
-puts it in motion, it melts at once into a kind of liquid putrefaction.
-Being now thin, it mixes itself readily with the blood again, and brings
-on putrid fevers; destroys the substance of the spleen itself, or being
-thrown upon some other of the viscera, corrodes them, and leads on this
-way a swift and miserable death. If it fall upon the liver, its tender
-pulpy substance is soon destroyed, jaundices beyond the help of art
-first follow, then dropsies and all their train of misery; if on lungs,
-consumptions; if on the brain, convulsions, epilepsy, palsy, apoplexy;
-if on the surface, leprosy.
-
-The intention of cure is to melt this coagulation softly, not to break
-it violently; and then to give it a very gentle passage through the
-bowels. There is no safe way for it to take but that; and even that when
-urged too far may bring on fatal dysenteries.
-
-Let none wonder at the sudden devastation which sometimes arises from
-this long stagnant matter, when liquified too hastily: how long, how
-many years the impacted matter will continue quiet in a schirrous tumour
-of the breast; but being once put in motion, whether from accident, or
-in the course of nature, what can describe; or what can stop its
-havock!
-
-Instances of the other are too frequent. A nobleman the other day died
-paralytick: dissection shewed a spleen consumed by an abscess, formed
-from the dissolved matter of such an obstruction: and 'tis scarce longer
-since, a learned gentleman, who had been several years lost to his
-friends, by the extreams of a Hypochondriacal disorder, seem'd gradually
-without assistance to recover: but the lungs suffered while the spleen
-was freed; and he died very soon of what is called a galloping
-consumption.
-
-When the obstruction is great and of long continuance, if it be thus
-hastily moved, the consequence is, equally, a sudden and a miserable
-death, whether, like the matter of a cancer, it remains in its place; or
-like that of a bad small pox, be thrown upon some other vital part.
-
-Let not the patient be too much alarmed; this is laid down to caution,
-not to terrify him: it is fit he should know his danger, and attend to
-it; for the prevention is easy; and the cure, even of the most advanced
-stages, when undertaken by gentle means, is not at all impracticable: to
-assist the physician, let him look into himself, and recollect the
-source of his complaint. This he may judge of from the following
-notices.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. V.
-
-The Causes of the HYPOCHONDRIASIS.
-
-
-The obstruction which forms this disease, may take its origin from
-different accidents: a fever ill cured has often caused it; or the
-piles, which had been used to discharge largely, ceasing; a marshy soil,
-poisoned with stagnant water, has given it to some persons; and altho'
-indolence and inactivity are oftenest at the root, yet it has arisen
-from too great exercise.
-
-Real grief has often brought it on; and even love, for sometimes that is
-real. Study and fixed attention of the mind have been accused before;
-and add to these the stooping posture of the body, which most men use,
-though none should use it, in writing and in reading. This has
-contributed too much to it; but of all other things night studies are
-the most destructive. The steady stillness, and dusky habit of all
-nature in those hours, enforce, encourage, and support that settled
-gloom, which rises from fixt thought; and sinks the body to the grave;
-even while it carries up the mind to heaven. He who would have his lamp
-
- _At midnight hour
- Be seen in some high lonely tower,_[18]
-
-will waste the flame of this unheeded life: and while he labours to
-unsphere the spirit of Plato[18] will let loose his own.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. VI.
-
-The Cure of the HYPOCHONDRIASIS.
-
-
-Let him who would escape the mischiefs of an obstructed spleen, avoid
-the things here named: and let him who suffers from the malady,
-endeavour to remember to which of them it has been owing; for half the
-hope depends upon that knowledge.
-
-Nature has sometimes made a cure herself, and we should watch her ways;
-for art never is so right as when it imitates her: sometimes the
-patient's own resolution has set him free. This is always in his power,
-and at all times will do wonders.
-
-The bleeding of the piles, from nature's single efforts, has at once
-cured a miserable man; where their cessation was the cause of the
-disorder. A leprosy has appeared upon the skin, and all the symptoms of
-the former sickness vanished. This among the Jews happened often: both
-diseases we know were common among them: and I have here seen something
-very like it: Water-Dock has thrown out scorbutic eruptions, and all the
-former symptoms of an Hypochondriacal disorder have disappeared:
-returning indeed when these were unadvisedly struck in; but keeping off
-entirely when they were better treated. A natural purging unsuppressed
-has sometimes done the same good office: but this is hazardous.
-
-It is easy to be directed from such instances; only let us take the
-whole along with us. Bleeding would have answered nature's purpose, if
-she could not have opened of herself the hæmorrhoidal vessels; but he
-who should give medicines for that purpose, might destroy his patient by
-too great disturbance. If a natural looseness may perform the cure, so
-may an artificial; when the original source of the disorder points that
-way. But these are helps that take place only in particular cases.
-
-The general and universal method of cure must be by some mild and gently
-resolving medicine, under the influence of which the obstructing matter
-may be voided that, or some other way with safety. The best season to
-undertake this is the autumn, but even here there must be caution.
-
-In the first place, no strong evacuating remedy must be given; for that,
-by carrying off the thinner parts of the juices, will tend to thicken
-the remainder; and certainly encrease the distemper. No acrid medicine
-must be directed, for that may act too hastily, dissolve the impacted
-matter at once, and let it loose, to the destruction of the sufferer; no
-antimonial, no mercurial, no martial preparation must be taken; in
-short, no chymistry: nature is the shop that heaven has set before us,
-and we must seek our medicine there. The venerable ancients, who knew
-not this new art, will lead us in the search; and (faithful relators as
-they are of truth) will tell us whence we may deduce our hope; and what
-we are to fear.
-
-But prior to the course of any medicine, and as an essential to any good
-hope from it, the patient must prescribe himself a proper course of
-life, and a well chosen diet: let us assist him in his choice; and speak
-of this first, as it comes first in order.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. VI.
-
-Rules of Life for Hypochondriac Persons.
-
-
-Air and exercise, as they are the best preservers of health, and
-greatest assistants in the cure of all long continued diseases, will
-have their full effect in this; but there requires some caution in the
-choice, and management of them. It is common to think the air of high
-grounds best; but experience near home shews otherwise: the
-Hypochondriac patient is always worse at Highgate even than in London.
-
-The air he breathes should be temperate; not exposed to the utmost
-violences of heat and cold, and the swift changes from one to the
-other; which are most felt on those high grounds. The side of a hill is
-the best place for him: and though wet grounds are hurtful; yet let
-there be the shade of trees, to tempt him often to a walk; and soften by
-their exhalation the over dryness of the air.
-
-The exercise he takes should be frequent; but not violent. Motion
-preserves the firmness of the parts, and elasticity of the vessels; it
-prevents that aggregation of thick humours which he is most to fear. A
-sedentary life always produces weakness, and that mischief always
-follows: weak eyes are gummy, weak lungs are clogged with phlegm, and
-weak bowels waste themselves in vapid diarrhoeas.
-
-Let him invite himself abroad, and let his friends invite him by every
-innocent inducement. For me, I should advise above all other things the
-study of nature. Let him begin with plants: he will here find a
-continual pleasure, and continual change; fertile of a thousand useful
-things; even of the utility we are seeking here. This will induce him to
-walk; and every hedge and hillock, every foot-path side, and thicket,
-will afford him some new object. He will be tempted to be continually
-in the air, and continually to change the nature and quality of the air,
-by visiting in succession the high lands and the low, the lawn, the
-heath, the forest. He will never want inducement to be abroad; and the
-unceasing variety of the subjects of his observation, will prevent his
-walking hastily: he will pursue his studies in the air; and that
-contemplative turn of mind, which in his closet threatened his
-destruction, will thus become the great means of his recovery.
-
-If the mind tire upon this, from the repeated use, another of nature's
-kingdoms opens itself at once upon him; the plant he is weary of
-observing, feeds some insect he may examine; nor is there a stone that
-lies before his foot, but may afford instruction and amusement.
-
-Even what the vulgar call the most abject things will shew a wonderful
-utility; and lead the mind, in pious contemplation higher than the
-stars. The poorest moss that is trampled under foot, has its important
-uses: is it at the bottom of a wood we find it? why there it shelters
-the fallen seeds; hides them from birds, and covers them from frost;
-and thus becomes the foster father of another forest! creeps it along
-the surface of a rock? even there its good is infinite! its small roots
-run into the stone, and the rains make their way after them; the moss
-having lived its time dies; it rots and with the mouldered fragments of
-the stone forms earth; wherein, after a few successions, useful plants
-may grow, and feed more useful cattle![19]
-
-Is there a weed more humble in its aspect, more trampled on, or more
-despised than knot grass! no art can get the better of its growth, no
-labour can destroy it; 'twere pity if they could, for the thing lives
-where nothing would of use to us; and its large and most wonderfully
-abundant seeds, feed in hard winters, half the birds of Heaven.
-
-What the weak moss performs upon the rock the loathed toadstool brings
-about in timber: is an oak dead where man's eye will not find it? this
-fungus roots itself upon the bark, and rots the wood beneath it; hither
-the beetle creeps for shelter, and for sustenance; him the woodpecker
-follows as his prey; and while he tears the tree in search of him, he
-scatters it about the ground; which it manures.
-
-Nor is it the beetle alone that thus insinuates itself into the
-substance of the vegetable tribe: the tender aphide[20], whom a touch
-destroys, burrows between the two skins of a leaf, for shelter from his
-winged enemies; tracing, with more than Dedalæan art, his various
-meanders; and veining the green surface with these white lines more
-beautifully than the best Ægyptian marble.
-
-'Twere endless to proceed; nor is it needful: one object will not fail
-to lead on to another, and every where the goodness of his God will
-shine before him even in what are thought the vilest things; his
-greatness in the lead of them.
-
-Let him pursue these thoughts, and seek abroad the objects and the
-instigations to them: but let him in these and all other excursions
-avoid equally the dews of early morning, and of evening.
-
-The more than usual exercise of this prescription will dispose him to
-more than customary sleep, let him indulge it freely; so far from
-hurting, it will help his cure.
-
-Let him avoid all excesses: drink need scarce be named, for we are
-writing to men of better and of nobler minds, than can be tempted to
-that humiliating vice. Those who in this disorder have too great an
-appetite, must not indulge it; much eaten was never well digested: but
-of all excesses the most fatal in this case is that of venery. It is the
-excess we speak of.
-
-
-
-
-SECT. VII.
-
-The proper DIET.
-
-
-In the first place acids must be avoided carefully; and all things that
-are in a state of fermentation, for they will breed acidity. Provisions
-hardened by salting never should be tasted; much less those cured by
-smoaking, and by salting. Bacon is indigestible in an Hypochondriac
-stomach; and hams, impregnated as is now the custom, with acid fumes
-from the wood fires over which they are hung, have that additional
-mischief.
-
-Milk ought to be a great article in the diet: and even in this there
-should be choice. The milk of grass-fed cows has its true quality: no
-other. There are a multitude of ways in which this may be made a part
-both of our foods and drinks, and they should all be used.
-
-The great and general caution is that the diet be at all times of a kind
-loosening and gently stimulating; light but not acrid. Veal, lamb,
-fowls, lobsters, crabs, craw-fish, fresh water fish and mutton broth,
-with plenty of boiled vegetables, are always right; and give enough
-variety.
-
-Raw vegetables are all bad: sour wines, old cheese, and bottled beer are
-things never to be once tasted. Indeed much wine is wrong, be it of what
-kind soever. It is the first of cordials; and as such I would have it
-taken in this disease when it is wanted: plainly as a medicine, rather
-than a part of diet. Malt liquor carefully chosen is certainly the best
-drink. This must be neither new, nor tending to sourness; perfectly
-clear, and of a moderate strength: it is the native liquor of our
-country, and the most healthful.
-
-Too much tea weakens; and even sugar is in this disorder hurtful: but
-honey may supply its place in most things; and this is not only harmless
-but medicinal; a very powerful dissolvent of impacted humours, and a
-great deobstruent.
-
-What wine is drank should be of some of the sweet kinds. Old Hock has
-been found on enquiry to yield more than ten times the acid of the sweet
-wines; and in red Port, at least in what we are content to call so,
-there is an astringent quality, that is most mischievous in these cases:
-it is said there is often alum in it: how pregnant with mischief that
-must be to persons whose bowels require to be kept open, is most
-evident. Summer fruits perfectly ripe are not only harmless but
-medicinal; but if eaten unripe they will be very prejudicial. A light
-supper, which will leave an appetite for a milk breakfast, is always
-right; this will not let the stomach be ravenous for dinner, as it is
-apt to be in those who make that their only meal.
-
-One caution more must be given, and it may seem a strange one: it is
-that the patient attend regularly to his hours of eating. We have to do
-with men for the most part whose soul is the great object of their
-regard; but let them not forget they have a body.
-
-The late Dr. STUKELY has told me, that one day by appointment visiting
-Sir ISAAC NEWTON, the servant told him, he was in his study. No one was
-permitted to disturb him there; but as it was near dinner time, the
-visitor sat down to wait for him. After a time dinner was brought in; a
-boil'd chicken under a cover. An hour pass'd, and Sir ISAAC did not
-appear. The doctor eat the fowl, and covering up the empty dish, bad
-them dress their master another. Before that was ready, the great man
-came down; he apologiz'd for his delay, and added, "give me but leave to
-take my short dinner, and I shall be at your service; I am fatigued and
-faint." Saying this, he lifted up the cover; and without any emotion,
-turned about to STUKELY with a smile; "See says he, what we studious
-people are, I forgot I had din'd."
-
-
-
-
-SECT. VIII.
-
-The MEDICINE.
-
-
-'Tis the ill fate of this disease, more than of all others to be
-misunderstood at first, and thence neglected; till the physician shakes
-his head at a few first questions. None steals so fatally upon the
-sufferer: its advances are by very slow degrees; but every day it grows
-more difficult of cure.
-
-That this obstruction in the spleen is the true malady, the cases
-related by the antients, present observation, and the unerring
-testimonies of dissections leave no room to doubt. Being understood, the
-path is open where to seek a remedy: and our best guides in this, as in
-the former instance, will be those venerable Greeks; who saw a thousand
-of these cases, where we see one; and with less than half our theory,
-cured twice as many patients.
-
-One established doctrine holds place in all these writers; that whatever
-by a hasty fermentation dissolves the impacted matter of the
-obstruction, and sends it in that state into the blood, does incredible
-mischief: but that whatever medicine softens it by slow degrees, and, as
-it melts, delivers it to the bowels without disturbance; will cure with
-equal certainty and safety.
-
-For this good purpose, they knew and tried a multitude of herbs; but in
-the end they fixed on one: and on their repeated trials of this, they
-banished all the rest. This stood alone for the cure of the disease; and
-from its virtue received the name of SPLEEN-WORT[21]. O wise and happy
-Greeks! authors of knowledge and perpetuators of it! With them the very
-name they gave a plant declared its virtues: with us, a writer calls a
-plant from some friend; that the good gardener who receives the honour,
-may call another by his name who gave it. We now add the term _smooth_
-to this herb, to distinguish it from another, called by the same general
-term, though not much resembling it.
-
-The virtues of this smooth Spleen-wort have flood the test of ages; and
-the plant every where retained its name and credit: and one of our good
-herbalists, who had seen a wonderful case of a swoln spleen, so big, and
-hard as to be felt with terror, brought back to a state of nature by it;
-and all the miserable symptoms vanish; thought Spleen-wort not enough
-expressive of its excellence; but stamp'd on it the name of MILT-WASTE.
-
-In the Greek Islands now, the use of it is known to every one; and even
-the lazy monks who take it, are no longer splenetic. In the west of
-England, the rocks are stripped of it with diligence; and every old woman
-tells you how charming that leaf is for bookish men: in Russia they use
-a plant of this kind in their malt liquor: it came into fashion there
-for the cure of this disease; which from its constant use is scarce
-known any longer; and they suppose 'tis added to their liquor for a
-flavour.
-
-The ancients held it in a kind of veneration; and used what has been
-called a superstition in the gathering it. It was to be taken up with a
-sharp knife, without violence, and laid upon the clean linen: no time
-but the still darkness of the night was proper, and even the moon was
-not to shine upon it[22]. I know they have been ridiculed for this; for
-nothing is so vain as learned ignorance: but let me be permitted once to
-vindicate them.
-
-The plant has leaves that can close in their sides; and their under part
-is covered thick with a yellow powder, consisting of the seeds, and seed
-vessels: in these they knew the virtue most resided: this was the golden
-dust[23] they held so valuable; and this they knew they could not be too
-cautious to preserve. They were not ignorant of the sleep of plants; a
-matter lately spoken of by some, as if a new discovery; and being
-sensible that light, a dry air, an expanded leaf, and a tempestuous
-season, were the means of losing this fine dust; and knowing also that
-darkness alone brought on that closing of the leaf which thence has
-been called sleep; and which helped to defend and to secure it, they
-therefore took such time, and used such means as could best preserve the
-plant entire; and even save what might be scattered from it.--And now
-where is their superstition?
-
-From this plant thus collected they prepared a medicine, which in a
-course of forty days scarce ever failed to make a perfect cure.
-
-We have the plant wild with us; and till the fashion of rough chemical
-preparations took off our attention from these gentler remedies, it was
-in frequent use and great repute. I trust it will be so again: and many
-thank me for restoring it to notice.
-
-Spleen-wort gives out its virtues freely in a tincture; and a small dose
-of this, mixing readily with the blood and juices, gradually dissolves
-the obstruction; and by a little at a time delivers its contents to be
-thrown off without pain, from the bowels. Let this be done while the
-viscera are yet sound and the cure is perfect. More than the forty days
-of the Greek method is scarce ever required; much oftener two thirds of
-that time suffice; and every day, from the first dose of it, the patient
-feels the happy change that is growing in his constitution. His food no
-more turns putrid on his stomach, but yields its healthful nourishment.
-The swelling after meals therefore vanishes; and with that goes the
-lowness, and anxiety, the difficult breath, and the distracting cholick:
-he can bear the approach of rainy weather without pain; he finds himself
-more apt for motion, and ready to take that exercise which is to be
-assistant in his cure; life seems no longer burthensome. His bowels get
-into the natural condition of health, and perform their office once at
-least a day; better if a little more: the dull and dead colour of his
-skin goes off, his lips grow red again, and every sign of health
-returns.
-
-Let him who takes the medicine, say whether any thing here be
-exaggerated. Let him, if he pleases to give himself the trouble, talk
-over with me, or write to me, this gradual decrease of his complaints,
-as he proceeds in his cure. My uncertain state of health does not
-permit me to practise physic in the usual way, but I am very desirous to
-do what good I can, and shall never refuse my advice, such as it may be,
-to any person rich or poor, in whatever manner he may apply for it. I
-shall refer him to no apothecary, whose bills require he should be
-drenched with potions; but tell him, in this as in all other cases,
-where to find some simple herb; which he may if he please prepare
-himself; or if he had rather spare that trouble, may have it so prepared
-from me.
-
-With regard to Spleen-wort, no method of using it is more effectual than
-simply taking it in powder; the only advantage of a tincture, is that a
-proper dose may be given, and yet the stomach not be loaded with so
-large a quantity: it is an easier and pleasanter method, and nothing
-more.
-
-If any person choose to take it in the other way, I should still wish
-him once at least to apply to me; that he may be assured what he is
-about to take is the right plant. Abuses in medicines are at this time
-very great, and in no instance worse than what relates to herbs. The
-best of our physicians have complained upon this head with warmth, but
-without redress: they know the virtues and the value of many of our
-native plants, but dread to prescribe them; lest some wrong thing should
-be administered in their place; perhaps inefficacious, perhaps
-mischievous, nay it may be fatal. The few simple things I direct are
-always before me; and it will at all times be a pleasure to me, in this
-and any other instance, to see whether what any person is about to take
-be right. I have great obligations to the public, and this is the best
-return that I know how to make.
-
-To see the need of such a caution, hear a transaction but of yesterday!
-An intelligent person was directed to go to the medicinal herb shops in
-the several markets, and buy some of this Spleen-wort; the name was
-written, and shewn to every one; every shop received his money, and
-almost every one sold a different plant, under the name of this: but
-what is very striking, not one of them the right. Such is the chance of
-health in those hands through which the best means of it usually pass;
-even in the most regular course of application.
-
-I would not be understood to limit the little services I may this way be
-able to render the afflicted, to this single instance; much less to
-propose to myself any advantages from it. Whoever pleases will be
-welcome to me, upon any such occasion; and whatever be the herb on which
-he places a dependance, he shall be shewn it growing. I once recommended
-a garden to be established for this use, at the public expence: one
-great person has put it in my power to answer all its purposes.
-
-
- F I N I S.
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-
-
-THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
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-WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
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-UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
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-1948-1949
-
-16. Henry Nevil Payne, _The Fatal Jealousie_ (1673).
-
-18. Anonymous, "Of Genius," in _The Occasional Paper_, Vol. III, No. 10
-(1719), and Aaron Hill, Preface to _The Creation_ (1720).
-
-
-1949-1950
-
-19. Susanna Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709).
-
-20. Lewis Theobald, _Preface to the Works of Shakespeare_ (1734).
-
-22. Samuel Johnson, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and two
-_Rambler_ papers (1750).
-
-23. John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681).
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-1951-1952
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-31. Thomas Gray, _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard_ (1751), and
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-104. Thomas D'Urfey, _Wonders in the Sun; or, The Kingdom of the Birds_
-(1706).
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-1964-1965
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-110. John Tutchin, _Selected Poems_ (1685-1700).
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-111. Anonymous, _Political Justice_ (1736).
-
-112. Robert Dodsley, _An Essay on Fable_ (1764).
-
-113. T. R., _An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning_ (1698).
-
-114. _Two Poems Against Pope_: Leonard Welsted, _One Epistle to Mr. A.
-Pope_ (1730), and Anonymous, _The Blatant Beast_ (1742).
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-1965-1966
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-115. Daniel Defoe and others, _Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal_.
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-(1717).
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-120. Bernard Mandeville, _Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables_
-(1704).
-
-
-1966-1967
-
-123. Edmond Malone, _Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Mr.
-Thomas Rowley_ (1782).
-
-124. Anonymous, _The Female Wits_ (1704).
-
-125. Anonymous, _The Scribleriad_ (1742). Lord Hervey, _The Difference
-Between Verbal and Practical Virtue_ (1742).
-
-126. _Le Lutrin: an Heroick Poem, Written Originally in French by
-Monsieur Boileau: Made English by N. O._ (1682).
-
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-1967-1968
-
-127-
-
-128. Charles Macklin, _A Will and No Will, or a Bone for the Lawyers_
-(1746). _The New Play Criticiz'd, or The Plague of Envy_ (1747).
-
-129. Lawrence Echard, Prefaces to _Terence's Comedies_ (1694) and
-_Plautus's Comedies_ (1694).
-
-130. Henry More, _Democritus Platonissans_ (1646).
-
-131. John Evelyn, _The History of Sabatai Sevi, The Suppos'd Messiah of
-the Jews_ (1669).
-
-132. Walter Harte, _An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad_
-(1730).
-
-Publications of the first fifteen years of the Society (numbers 1-90)
-are available in paperbound units of six issues at $16.00 per unit, from
-the Kraus Reprint Company, 16 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017.
-
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-$5.00 yearly. Prices of single issues may be obtained upon request.
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-Memorial Library
-
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-REGULAR PUBLICATIONS FOR 1968-1969
-
-133. John Courtenay, _A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral
-Character of the Late Samuel Johnson_ (1786). Introduction by Robert E.
-Kelley.
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-134. John Downes, _Roscius Anglicanus_ (1708). Introduction by John
-Loftis.
-
-135. Sir John Hill, _Hypochondriasis, a Practical Treatise on the Nature
-and Cure of that Disorder Call'd the Hyp or Hypo_ (1766). Introduction
-by G. S. Rousseau.
-
-136. Thomas Sheridan, _Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course of
-Lectures on Elocution and the English Language_ (1759). Introduction by
-G. P. Mohrman.
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-137. Arthur Murphy, _The Englishman From Paris_ (1756). Introduction by
-Simon Trefman. Previously unpublished manuscript.
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-138. [Catherine Trotter], _Olinda's Adventures_ (1718). Introduction by
-Robert Adams Day.
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-SPECIAL PUBLICATION FOR 1968-1969
-
-_After THE TEMPEST_. Introduction by George Robert Guffey.
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-Next in the continuing series of special publications by the Society
-will be _After THE TEMPEST_, a volume including the Dryden-Davenant
-version of _The Tempest_ (1670); the "operatic" _Tempest_ (1674); Thomas
-Duffet's _Mock-Tempest_ (1675); and the "Garrick" _Tempest_ (1756), with
-an Introduction by George Robert Guffey.
-
-Already published in this series are:
-
-1. John Ogilby, _The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse_ (1668), with
-an Introduction by Earl Miner.
-
-2. John Gay, _Fables_ (1727, 1738), with an Introduction by Vinton A.
-Dearing.
-
-3. Elkanah Settle, _The Empress of Morocco_ (1673) with five plates;
-_Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco_ (1674) by John
-Dryden, John Crowne and Thomas Shadwell; _Notes and Observations on the
-Empress of Morocco Revised_ (1674) by Elkanah Settle; and _The Empress
-of Morocco. A Farce_ (1674) by Thomas Duffet; with an Introduction by
-Maximillian E. Novak.
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-Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.
-
-
-
-
-Footnotes:
-
-[18] Milton's Penseroso.
-
-[19] Biberg.
-
-[20] Reaumur.
-
-[21] asplenon
-
-[22] Silente Luna.
-
-[23] Pulvis Aureus.
-
-
-
-
- * * * * *
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
- Long "s" has been modernized.
-
- Page 21 contains two markers referring to the same footnote.
-
- The original text contains two sections labeled "Sect. V."
-
- Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
-
- Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
- both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as
- presented in the original text.
-
- The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
- letters have been replaced with transliterations.
-
- The following misprints have been corrected:
- "the the" corrected to "the" (page v)
- "sympton" corrected to "symptom" (page 14)
- "symptons" corrected to "symptoms" (page 23)
-
- Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
- spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been
- retained.
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 *** + +The Augustan Reprint Society + +JOHN HILL + +HYPOCHONDRIASIS + +A Practical Treatise. + +(1766) + +Introduction by + +G. S. ROUSSEAU + + + + + + + +Publication Number 135 +William Andrews Clark Memorial Library +University Of California, Los Angeles +1969 + + + + +GENERAL EDITORS + + William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ + George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + + +ASSOCIATE EDITOR + + David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + + +ADVISORY EDITORS + + Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ + James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ + Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_ + Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ + Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ + Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ + Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ + James Sutherland, _University College, London_ + H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_ + Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ + + +CORRESPONDING SECRETARY + + Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ + + +EDITORIAL ASSISTANT + + Mary Kerbret, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + "When I first dabbled in this art, the old distemper call'd + _Melancholy_ was exchang'd for _Vapours_, and afterwards for the + _Hypp_, and at last took up the now current appellation of the + _Spleen_, which it still retains, tho' a learned doctor of the + west, in a little tract he hath written, divides the _Spleen_ and + _Vapours_, not only into the _Hypp_, the _Hyppos_, and the + Hyppocons; but subdivides these divisions into the _Markambles_, + the _Moonpalls_, the _Strong-Fiacs_, and the _Hockogrokles_." + + + Nicholas Robinson, _A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and + Hypochondriack Melancholy_ (London, 1729) + + +Treatises on hypochondriasis--the seventeenth-century medical term for a +wide range of nervous diseases--were old when "Sir" John Hill, the +eccentric English scientist, physician, apothecary, and hack writer, +published his _Hypochondriasis_ in 1766.[1] For at least a century and a +half medical writers as well as lay authors had been writing literature +of all types (treatises, pamphlets, poems, sermons, epigrams) on this +most fashionable of English maladies under the variant names of +"melancholy," "the spleen," "black melancholy," "hysteria," "nervous +debility," "the hyp." Despite the plethora of _materia scripta_ on the +subject it makes sense to reprint Hill's _Hypochondriasis_, because it +is indeed a "practical treatise" and because it offers the modern +student of neoclassical literature a clear summary of the best thoughts +that had been put forth on the subject, as well as an explanation of the +causes, symptoms, and cures of this commonplace malady. + +No reader of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English literature +needs to be reminded of the interest of writers of the period in the +condition--"disease" is too confining a term--hypochondriasis.[2] Their +concern is apparent in both the poetry and prose of two centuries. From +Robert Burton's Brobdingnagian exposition in _The Anatomy of Melancholy_ +(1621) to Tobias Smollett's depiction of the misanthropic and ailing +Matthew Bramble in _Humphry Clinker_ (1771), and, of course, well into +the nineteenth century, afflicted heroes and weeping heroines populate +the pages of England's literature. There is scarcely a decade in the +period 1600-1800 that does not contribute to the literature of +melancholy; so considerable in number are the works that could be placed +under this heading that it actually makes sense to speak of the +"literature of melancholy." A kaleidoscopic survey of this literature +(exclusive of treatises written on the subject) would include mention of +Milton's "Il Penseroso" and "L'Allegro," the meditative Puritan and +nervous Anglican thinkers of the Restoration (many of whose narrators, +such as Richard Baxter, author of the _Reliquiae Baxterianae_,[3] are +afflicted), Swift's "School of Spleen" in _A Tale of a Tub_, Pope's +hysterical Belinda in the "Cave of Spleen," the melancholic "I" of +Samuel Richardson's correspondence, Gray's leucocholy, the +psychosomatically ailing characters of _The Vicar of Wakefield_ and +_Tristram Shandy_, Boswell's _Hypochondriack Papers_ (1777-1783) +contributed to the _London Magazine_, and such "sensible" and +"sensitive" women as Mrs. Bennett and Miss Bates in the novels of Jane +Austen. So great in bulk is this literature in the mid eighteenth +century, that C. A. Moore has written, "statistically, this deserves to +be called the Age of Melancholy."[4] The vastness of this literature is +sufficient to justify the reprinting of an unavailable practical +handbook on the subject by a prolific author all too little known.[5] + +The medical background of Hill's pamphlet extends further back than the +seventeenth century and Burton's _Anatomy_. The ancient Greeks had +theorized about hypochondria: hypochondriasis signified a disorder +beneath (hypo) the gristle (chondria) and the disease was discussed +principally in physiological terms. The belief that hypochondriasis was +a somatic condition persisted until the second half of the seventeenth +century at which time an innovation was made by Dr. Thomas Sydenham. In +addition to showing that hypochondriasis and hysteria (thought previously +by Sydenham to afflict women only) were the same disease, Sydenham noted +that the external cause of both was a mental disturbance and not a +physiological one. He also had a theory that the internal and immediate +cause was a disorder of the animal spirits arising from a clot and +resulting in pain, spasms, and bodily disorders. By attributing the +onset of the malady to mental phenomena and not to obstructions of the +spleen or viscera, Sydenham was moving towards a psychosomatic theory of +hypochondriasis, one that was to be debated in the next century in +England, Holland, and France.[6] Sydenham's influence on the physicians +of the eighteenth century was profound: Cheyne in England, Boerhaave in +Holland, La Mettrie in France. Once the theory of the nervous origins of +hypochondria gained ground--here I merely note coincidence, not historical +cause and effect--the disease became increasingly fashionable in England, +particularly among the polite, the aristocratic, and the refined. Students +of the drama will recall Scrub's denial in _The Beaux' Stratagem_ (1707) +of the possibility that Archer has the spleen and Mrs. Sullen's +interjection, "I thought that distemper had been only proper to people of +quality." + +Toward the middle of the eighteenth century, hypochondria was so +prevalent in people's minds and mouths that it soon assumed the +abbreviated name "the hyp." Entire poems like William Somervile's _The +Hyp: a Burlesque Poem in Five Canto's_ (1731) and Tim Scrubb's _A Rod +for the Hyp-Doctor_ (1731) were devoted to this strain; others, like +Malcom Flemyng's epic poem, _Neuropathia: sive de morbis hypochondriacis +et hystericis, libri tres, poema medicum_ (1740), were more technical +and scientific. Professor Donald Davie has written that he has often +"heard old fashioned and provincial persons [in England and Scotland] +even in [my] own lifetime say, 'Oh, you give me the hyp,' where we +should say 'You give me a pain in the neck'"[7]; and I myself have heard +the expression, "You give me the pip," where "pip" may be a corruption +of "hyp." As used in the early eighteenth century, the term "hyp" was +perhaps not far from what our century has learned to call _Angst_. It +was also used as a synonym for "lunacy," as the anonymous author of +_Anti-Siris_ (1744), one of the tracts in the tar-water controversy, +informs us that "Berkeley tells his Countrymen, they are all mad, or +_Hypochondriac_, which is but a fashionable name for Madness." Bernard +Mandeville, the Dutch physician and author of _The Fable of the Bees_, +seems to have understood perfectly well that hypochondriasis is a +condition encompassing any number of diseases and not a specific and +readily definable ailment; a condition, moreover, that hovers +precariously and bafflingly in limbo between mind and body, and he +stressed this as the theme of his _Treatise of the Hypochondriack and +Hysteric Passions, Vulgarly Call'd the Hypo in Men and Vapours in Women_ +(1711). The mental causes are noted as well in an anonymous pamphlet in +the British Museum, _A Treatise on the Dismal Effects of +Low-Spiritedness_ (1750) and are echoed in many similar early and +mid-eighteenth century works. Some medical writers of the age, like +Nicholas Robinson, had reservations about the external mental bases of +the hyp and preferred to discuss the condition in terms of internal +physiological causes: + + ...of that Disorder we call the Vapours, or _Hypochondria_; for + they have no material distinctive Characters, but what arise from + the same Disease affecting different Sexes, and the Vapours in + Women are term'd the _Hypochondria_ in Men, and they proceed from + the Contraction of the Vessels being depress'd a little beneath the + Balance of Nature, and the Relaxation of the Nerves at the same + Time, which creates that Uneasiness and Melancholy that naturally + attends Vapours, and which generally is an Intemperature of the + whole Body, proceeding from a Depression of the Solids beneath the + Balance of Nature; but the Intemperature of the Parts is that + Peculiar Disposition whereby they favour any Disease.[8] + + +But the majority of medical thinkers had been persuaded that the +condition was psychosomatic, and this belief was supported by research +on nerves by important physicians in the 1740's and 1750's: the Monro +brothers in London, Robert Whytt in Edinburgh, Albrecht von Haller in +Leipzig. By mid century the condition known as the hyp was believed to +be a real, not an imaginary ailment, common, peculiar in its +manifestations, and indefinable, almost impossible to cure, producing +very real symptoms of physical illness, and said to originate sometimes +in depression and idleness. It was summed up by Robert James in his +_Medicinal Dictionary_ (London, 1743-45): + + If we thoroughly consider its Nature, it will be found to be a + spasmodico-flatulent Disorder of the _Primae Viae_, that is, of the + Stomach and Intestines, arising from an Inversion or Perversion of + their peristaltic Motion, and, by the mutual consent of the Parts, + throwing the whole nervous System into irregular Motions, and + disturbing the whole Oeconomy of the Functions.... no part or + Function of the Body escapes the Influence of this tedious and long + protracted Disease, whose Symptoms are so violent and numerous, + that it is no easy Task either to enumerate or account for them.... + No disease is more troublesome, either to the Patient or Physician, + than hypochondriac Disorders; and it often happens, that, thro' the + Fault of both, the Cure is either unnecessarily protracted, or + totally frustrated; for the Patients are so delighted, not only + with a Variety of Medicines, but also of Physicians.... On the + contrary, few physicians are sufficiently acquainted with the true + Genius and Nature of this perplexing Disorder; for which Reason + they boldly prescribe almost everything contained in the Shops, not + without an irreparable Injury to the Patient (article on + "Hypochondriacus Morbis"). + +This is a more technical description than Hill gives anywhere in his +handbook, but it serves well to summarize the background of the condition +about which Sir John wrote. + +Hill's _Hypochondriasis_ adds little that is new to the theory of the +disease. It incorporates much of the thinking set forth by the writings +mentioned above, particularly those of George Cheyne, whose medical +works _The English Malady_ (1733) and _The Natural Method of Cureing the +Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the +Body_ (1742) Hill knew. He is also conversant with some Continental +writers on the subject, two of whom--Isaac Biberg, author of The +_Oeconomy of Nature_ (1751), and René Réaumur who had written a history +of insects (1722)[9]--he mentions explicitly, and with William +Stukeley's _Of the Spleen_ (1723). Internal evidence indicates that Hill +had read or was familiar with the ideas propounded in Richard +Blackmore's _Treatise of the Spleen and Vapours_ (1725) and Nicholas +Robinson's _A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack +Melancholy_ (1729). + +Hill's arrangement of sections is logical: he first defines the +condition (I), then proceeds to discuss persons most susceptible to it +(II), its major symptoms (III), consequences (IV), causes (V), and cures +(VI-VIII). In the first four sections almost every statement is +commonplace and requires no commentary (for example, Hill's opening +remark: "To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and +cruel. It is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by +thickened and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver, +and other parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick +scarce knows one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure.") His +belief that the condition afflicts sedentary persons, particularly +students, philosophers, theologians, and that it is not restricted to +women alone--as some contemporary thinkers still maintained--is also +impossible to trace to a single source, as is his description (p. 12) of +the most prevalent physiological _symptoms_ ("lowness of spirits, and +inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love of solitude.... +Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness") and _causes_ (the poor and damp +English climate and the resultant clotting of blood in the spleen) of +the illness. + +Sections V-VIII, dealing with causes and cures, are less commonplace and +display some of Hill's eccentricities as a writer and thinker. He uses +the section entitled "Cures" as a means to peddle his newly discovered +cure-all, water dock,[10] which Smollett satirized through the mouth of +Tabitha Bramble in _Humphry Clinker_ (1771). Hill also rebelled against +contemporary apothecaries and physicians who prescribed popular +medicines--such as Berkeley's tar-water, Dover's mercury powders, and +James's fever-powders--as universal panaceas for the cure of the hyp. +"No acrid medicine must be directed, for that may act too hastily, +dissolve the impacted matter at once, and let it loose, to the +destruction of the sufferer; no antimonial, no mercurial, no martial +preparation must be taken; in short, no chymistry: nature is the shop +that heaven has set before us, and we must seek our medicine there" +(p. 24). However scientifically correct Hill may have been in minimizing +the efficacy of current pills and potions advertised as remedies for the +hyp, he was unusual for his time in objecting so strongly to them. Less +eccentric was his allegiance to the "Ancients" rather than to the +"Moderns" so far as chemical treatment (i.e., restoration of the humours +by chemical rearrangement) of hypochondriasis is concerned.[11] "The +venerable ancients," Hill writes, "who knew not this new art, will lead +us in the search; and (faithful relators as they are of truth) will tell +us whence we may deduce our hope; and what we are to fear" (p. 24). + +Still more idiosyncratic, perhaps, is Hill's contention (p. 25) that the +air of dry, high grounds worsens the condition of the patient. Virtually +every writer I have read on the subject believed that onset of the hyp +was caused by one of the six non-naturals--air, diet, lack of sufficient +sleep, too little or too much exercise, defective evacuation, the +passions of the mind; and although some medical writers emphasized the +last of these,[12] few would have concurred with Hill that the fetid air +of London was less harmful than the clearer air at Highgate. All readers +of the novel of the period will recall the hypochondriacal Matt +Bramble's tirade against the stench of London air. Beliefs of the +variety here mentioned cause me to question Hill's importance in the +history of medicine; there can be no question about his contributions to +the advancement of the science of botany through popularization of +Linnaeus' system of bisexual classification, but Hill's medical +importance is summarized best as that of a compiler. His recommendation +of the study of botany as a cure for melancholics is sensible but verges +on becoming "a digression in praise of the author," a poetic _apologia +pro vita sua_ in Augustan fashion: + + For me, I should advise above all other things the study of nature. + Let him begin with plants: he will here find a continual pleasure, + and continual change; fertile of a thousand useful things; even of + the utility we are seeking here. This will induce him to walk; and + every hedge and hillock, every foot-path side, and thicket, will + afford him some new object. He will be tempted to be continually in + the air; and continually to change the nature and quality of the + air, by visiting in succession the high lands and the low, the + lawn, the heath, the forest. He will never want inducement to be + abroad; and the unceasing variety of the subjects of his + observation, will prevent his walking hastily: he will pursue his + studies in the air; and that contemplative turn of mind, which in + his closet threatened his destruction, will thus become the great + means of his recovery (pp. 26-27). + +Hill was forever extolling the claims of a life devoted to the study of +nature, as we see in a late work, _The Virtues of British Herbs_ (1770). +Judicious as is the logic of this recommendation, one cannot help but +feel that the emphasis here is less on diversion as a cure and more on +the botanic attractions of "every hedge and hillock, every foot-path +side, and thicket." + +While Hill's rules and regulations regarding proper diet (Section VII) +are standard, several taken almost _verbatim et literatim_ from Cheyne's +list in _The English Malady_ (1733), his recommendation (Section VIII) +of "Spleen-Wort" as the best medicine for the hypochondriac patient is +not. Since Hill devotes so much space to the virtues of this herb and +concludes his work extolling this plant, a word should be said about it. +Throughout his life he was an active botanist. Apothecary, physician, +and writer though he was, it was ultimately botany that was his ruling +passion, as is made abundantly clear in his correspondence.[13] Wherever +he lived--whether in the small house in St. James's Street or in the +larger one on the Bayswater Road--he cultivated an herb garden that +flattered his knowledge and ability. Connoisseurs raved about its +species and considered it one of the showpieces of London. His arrogant +personality alone prevented him from becoming the first Keeper of the +Apothecary's Garden in Chelsea, although he was for a time +superintendent to the Dowager Princess of Wales's gardens at Kensington +Palace and at Kew. His interest in cultivation of herbs nevertheless +continued; over the years Hill produced more than thirty botanical +works, many of them devoted to the medical virtues of rare herbs such as +"Spleen-Wort." Among these are _The British Herbal_ (1756), _On the +Virtues of Sage in Lengthening Human Life_ (1763), _Centaury, the Great +Stomachic_ (1765), _Polypody_ (1768), _A Method of Curing Jaundice_ +(1768), _Instances of the Virtue of Petasite Root_ (1771), and _Twenty +Five New Plants_ (1773).[14] It is therefore not surprising that he +should believe a specific herb to be the best remedy for a complicated +medical condition. Nor is his reference to the Ancients as authority for +the herbal pacification of an inflamed spleen surprising in the light of +his researches: he was convinced that every illness could be cured by +taking an appropriate herb or combination of herbs. Whereas a few +nonmedical writers--such as John Wesley in _Primitive Physick_ +(1747)--had advocated the taking of one or two herbs in moderate dosage +as anti-hysterics (the eighteenth-century term for all cures of the +hyp), no medical writer of the century ever promoted the use of herbs to +the extent that Hill did. In fairness to him, it is important to note +that his herbal remedies were harmless and that many found their way +into the official _London Pharmacopeia_. "The virtues of this smooth +Spleen-wort," he insists, "have stood the test of ages; and the plant +every where retained its name and credit: and one of our good +herbarists, who had seen a wonderful case of a swoln spleen, so big, and +hard as to be felt with terror, brought back to a state of nature by it" +(p. 37).[15] The greatest portion of Hill's concluding section combines +advertisement for the powder medicine he was himself manufacturing at a +handsome profit together with a protest against competing apothecaries: +"An intelligent person was directed to go to the medicinal herb shops in +the several markets, and buy some of this Spleen-wort; the name was +written, and shewn to every one; every shop received his money, and +almost every one sold a different plant, under the name of this: but +what is very striking, not one of them the right" (p. 42). + +Treatises on hypochondriasis did not cease to be printed after Hill's in +1766, but continued to issue from the presses into the nineteenth +century. A good example of this is the tome by John Reid, physician to +the Finsbury Dispensary in London, _Essays on Insanity, Hypochondriasis +and Other Nervous Affections_ (1816), which summarizes theories of the +malady.[16] A bibliographical study of such works would probably reveal +a larger number of titles in the nineteenth century than in the previous +one, but by this time the nature and definition of hypochondria had +changed significantly. + +If John Hill's volume is not an important contribution in the history of +medicine, it is a lucid and brief exposition of many of the best ideas +that had been thought and written on the hyp, with the exception of his +uninhibited prescribing of herbal medicines as cure-alls. An +understanding of this disease is essential for readers of neoclassical +English literature, especially when we reflect upon the fact that some +of the best literature of the period was composed by writers whom it +afflicted. It is perhaps not without significance that the greatest poet +of the Augustan age, Alexander Pope, thought it necessary as he lay on +his deathbed in May 1744 to exclaim with his last breath, "I never was +hippish in my whole life."[17] + + University of California, + Los Angeles + + + + +NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION + + +[1] The text here reproduced is that of the copy in the Library of the +Royal Society of Medicine, London. Title pages of different copies of +the first edition of 1766 vary. For example, the title page of the copy +in the British Museum reads, _Hypochondriasis; a Practical Treatise On +the Nature and Cure of that Disorder, Commonly called the Hyp and the +Hypo_. The copy in the Royal Society of Medicine contains, among other +additions, the words "by Sir John Hill" in pencil, and "8vo Lond. +1766," written in ink and probably a later addition. + +[2] Melancholy, hypochondriasis, and the spleen were considered in the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to be one complex condition, a +malady rather than a malaise, which is but a symptom. Distinctions among +these, of interest primarily to medical historians, cannot be treated +here. As good a definition as any is found in Dr. Johnson's _Dictionary_ +(1755): "Hypochondriacal.... 1. Melancholy; disordered in the +imagination.... 2. Producing melancholy...." The literature of +melancholy has been surveyed in part by C. A. Moore, "The English +Malady," _Backgrounds of English Literature 1700-1760_ (Minneapolis, +1953), pp. 179-235. In medical parlance, "hypochondria" means the soft +parts of the body below the costal cartilages, and the singular form of +the word, "hypochondrium," means the viscera situated in the +hypochondria, i.e., the liver, gall bladder, and spleen. + +[3] See Samuel Clifford's _The Signs and Causes of Melancholy, with +directions suited to the case of those who are afflicted with it. +Collected out of the works of Mr. Richard Baxter_ (London, 1716) in the +British Museum. + +[4] _Backgrounds of English Literature_, p. 179. + +[5] See my forthcoming biography, _The Literary Quack: A Life of 'Sir' +John Hill of London_, and John Kennedy's _Some Remarks on the Life and +Writings of Dr. J---- H----, Inspector General of Great Britain_ +(London, 1752). + +[6] For some of this background see L. J. Rather, _Mind and Body in +Eighteenth Century Medicine: A Study Based on Jerome Gaub's De Regimine +Mentis_ (London, 1965), pp. 135-90 _passim_. + +[7] _Science and Literature 1700-1740_ (London, 1964), pp. 50-51. + +[8] _A New Theory of Physick_ (London, 1725), p. 56. + +[9] Biberg was a Swedish naturalist and had studied botany under +Linnaeus in Uppsala; Réaumur, a French botanist, had contributed papers +to the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society in London. + +[10] _The Power of Water-Dock against the Scurvy whether in the Plain +Root or Essence...._ (London, 1765), had been published six months +earlier than _Hypochondriasis_ and had earned Hill a handsome profit. + +[11] I have treated aspects of this subject in my article, "Matt Bramble +and The Sulphur Controversy in the XVIIIth Century: Medical Background +of _Humphry Clinker_," _JHI_, XXVIII (1967), 577-90. + +[12] See, for example, Jeremiah Waineright, _A Mechanical Account of the +Non-Naturals_ (1707); John Arbuthnot, _An Essay Concerning the Effects +of Air on Human Bodies_ (1733); Frank Nichols, _De Anima Medica_ (1750). + +[13] Hill's correspondence is not published but shall be printed as an +appendix to my forthcoming biography. + +[14] I have discussed some of these works in connection with the medical +background of John Wesley's _Primitive Physick_ (1747). See G. S. +Rousseau, _Harvard Library Bulletin_, XVI (1968), 242-56. + +[15] It is difficult to know with certainty when Hill first became +interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in _The British +Herbal_ (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he +opened an apothecary shop. + +[16] Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled _De Insania_ (1798), +contains materials on the relationship of the imagination to all forms +of mental disturbance. Secondary literature on hypochondria is +plentiful. Works include: R. H. Gillespie, _Hypochondria_ (London, +1928), William K. Richmond, _The English Disease_ (London, 1958), +Charles Chenevix Trench, _The Royal Malady_ (New York, 1964), and Ilza +Vieth, _Hysteria: The History of a Disease_ (Chicago, 1965), and "On +Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," _Bulletin of the History of +Medicine_, XXX (1956), 233-40. + +[17] Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books +and Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264. + +I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts +in writing this introduction. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The text of this facsimile of _Hypochondriasis_ is reproduced from a +copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. + + + + + HYPOCHONDRIASIS. + + A + + PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c. + + + +HYPOCHONDRIASIS. + + +SECT. I. + +The NATURE of the DISORDER. + + +To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and cruel. It +is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by thickened +and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver, and other +parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick scarce knows +one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure. + +The blood is a mixture of many fluids, which, in a state of health, are +so combined, that the whole passes freely through its appointed vessels; +but if by the loss of the thinner parts, the rest becomes too gross to +be thus carried through, it will stop where the circulation has least +power; and having thus stopped it will accumulate; heaping by degrees +obstruction on obstruction. + +Health and chearfulness, and the quiet exercise of mind, depend upon a +perfect circulation: is it a wonder then, when this becomes impeded the +body looses of its health, and the temper of its sprightliness? to be +otherwise would be the miracle; and he inhumanly insults the afflicted, +who calls all this a voluntary frowardness. Its slightest state brings +with it sickness, anguish and oppression; and innumerable ills follow +its advancing steps, unless prevented by timely care; till life itself +grows burthensome. + +The disease was common in antient Greece; and her physicians understood +it, better than those perhaps of later times, in any other country; who +though happy in many advantages these fathers of the science could not +have, yet want the great assistance of frequent watching it in all its +stages. + +Those venerable writers have delivered its nature, and its cure: in the +first every thing now shews they were right; and what they have said as +to the latter will be found equally true and certain. This, so far as +present experience has confirmed it, and no farther, will be here laid +before the afflicted in a few plain words. + + + + +SECT. II. + +Persons Subject to it. + + +Fatigue of mind, and great exertion of its powers often give birth to +this disease; and always tend to encrease it. The finer spirits are +wasted by the labour of the brain: the Philosopher rises from his study +more exhausted than the Peasant leaves his drudgery; without the benefit +that he has from exercise. Greatness of mind, and steady virtue; +determined resolution, and manly firmness, when put in action, and +intent upon their object, all also lead to it: perhaps whatever tends to +the ennobling of the soul has equal share in bringing on this weakness +of the body. + +From this we may learn easily who are the men most subject to it; the +grave and studious, those of a sedate temper and enlarged understanding, +the learned and wise, the virtuous and the valiant: those whom it were +the interest of the world to wish were free from this and every other +illness; and who perhaps, except for this alloy, would have too large a +portion of human happiness. + +Though these are most, it is not these alone, who are subject to it. +There are countries where it is endemial, and in other places some have +the seeds of it in their constitution; and in some it takes rise from +accidents. In these last it is the easiest of cure; and in the first +most difficult. + +Beside the Greeks already named, the Jews of old time were heavily +afflicted with this disease; and in their descendants to this day it is +often constitutional: the Spaniards have it almost to a man; and so have +the American Indians. Perhaps the character of these several nations may +be connected with it. The steady honour, and firm valour of the +Spaniard, very like that of the ancient Doric nation, who followed the +flute not the trumpet to the field; and met the enemy, not with shouts +and fury, but with a determined virtue: it is the temper of the +Hypochondriac to be slow, but unmoveably resolved: the Jew has shewn +this mistakenly, but almost miraculously; and the poor Indian, untaught +as he is, faces all peril with composure, and sings his death-song with +an unalter'd countenance. + +Among particular persons the most inquiring and contemplative are those +who suffer oftenest by this disease; and of all degrees of men I think +the clergy. I do not mean the hunting, shooting, drinking clergy, who +bear the tables of the great; but the retir'd and conscientious; such as +attend in midnight silence to their duty; and seek in their own cool +breasts, or wheresoever else they may be found, new admonitions for an +age plunged in new vices. To this disease we owe the irreparable loss of +Dr. YOUNG; and the present danger of many other the best and most +improved amongst us. May what is here to be proposed assist in their +preservation! + +The Geometrician or the learned Philosopher of whatever denomination, +whose course of study fixes his eye for ever on one object, his mind +intensely and continually employed upon one thought, should be warned +also that he is in danger; or if he find himself already afflicted, he +should be told that the same course of life, which brought it on, will, +without due care, encrease it to the most dreaded violence. + +The middle period of life is that in which there is the greatest danger +of an attack from this disease; and the latter end of autumn, when the +summer heats have a little time been over, is the season when in our +climate its first assaults are most to be expected. The same time of the +year always increases the disorder in those who have been before +afflicted with it; and it is a truth must be confessed, that from its +first attack the patient grows continually, though slowly, worse; unless +a careful regimen prevent it. + +The constitutions most liable to this obstruction are the lean, and dark +complexioned; the grave and sedentary. Let such watch the first +symptoms; and obviate, (as they may with ease) that which it will be +much more difficult to remove. + +It is happy a disease, wherein the patient must do a great deal for +himself, falls, for the most part, upon those who have the powers of +reason strongest. Let them only be aware of this, that the distemper +naturally disposes them to inactivity; and reason will have no use +unless accompanied with resolution to enforce it. + +Though the physician can do something toward the cure, much more depends +upon the patient; and here his constancy of mind will be employed most +happily. No one is better qualified to judge on a fair hearing what +course is the most fit; and having made that choice, he must with +patience wait its good effects. Diseases that come on slowly must have +time for curing; an attention to the first appearances of the disorder +will be always happiest; because when least established it is easiest +overthrown: but when that happy period has been neglected, he must wait +the effects of such a course as will dilute and melt the obstructing +matter gradually; for till that be done it is not only vain, but +sometimes dangerous, to attempt its expulsion from the body. + +The blood easily separates itself into the grosser and the thinner +parts: we see this in bleeding; and from the toughness of the red cake +may guess how very difficult it will be to dissolve a substance of like +firmness in the vessels of the body. That it can thus become thickened +within the body, a Pleurisy shews us too evidently: in that case it is +brought on suddenly, and with inflammation; in this other, slowly and +without; and here, even before it forms the obstruction, can bring on +many mischiefs. Various causes can produce the same effect, but that in +all cases operates most durably, which operates most slowly. The watery +part of the blood is its mild part; in the remaining gross matter of it, +are acrid salts and burning oils, and these, when destitute of that +happy dilution nature gives them in a healthy body, are capable of doing +great mischief to the tender vessels in which they are kept stagnant. + + + + +SECT. III. + +The SYMPTOMS of the DISORDER. + + +The first and lightest of the signs that shew this illness are a lowness +of spirits, and inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love +of solitude and a habit of thinking, even on trifling subjects, with too +much steadiness. A very little help may combat these: but if that +indolence which is indeed a part of the disorder, will neglect them; +worse must be expected soon to follow. + +Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness, weight, and oppression in the body, +a want of appetite, or, what is worse, an appetite without digestion; +for these are the conditions of different states of the disease, a +fullness and a difficulty of breathing after meals, a straitness of the +breast, pains and flatulencies in the bowels, and an unaptness to +discharge their contents. + +The pulse becomes low, weak, and unequal; and there are frequent +palpitations of the heart, a little dark-coloured urine is voided at +some times; and a flood of colourless and insipid at others; relieving +for a moment, but increasing the distemper: there is in some cases also +a continual teazing cough, with a choaking stoppage in the throat at +times; then heartburn, sickness, hardness of the belly, and a costive +habit, or a tormenting and vain irritation. + +The lips turn pale, the eyes loose their brightness and by degrees the +white grows as it were greenish, the gums want their due firmness, with +their proper colour; and an unpleasing foulness grows upon the teeth: +the inside of the mouth is pale and furred, and the throat dry and +husky: the colour of the skin is pale (though there are periods when the +face is florid) and as the obstruction gathers ground, and more affects +the liver, the whole body becomes yellow, tawny, greenish, and at length +of that deep and dusky hue, to which men of swift imagination have given +the name of blackness. + +These symptoms do not all appear in any one period of the disease, or in +one case, but at one time or other all of them, as well as those which +follow: the flesh becomes cold to the touch, though the patient does not +himself perceive it; the limbs grow numbed and torpid, the breathing +dull and slow, and the voice hollow; and usually the appetite in this +period declines, and comes almost to nothing: night sweats come on, +black swellings appear on the veins, the flesh wastes and the breast +becomes flat and hollow: the mouth is full of a thin spittle, the head +is dizzy and confus'd, and sometimes there is an unconquerable numbness +in the organs of speech. + +I have known the temporary silence that follows upon this last symptom +become a jest to the common herd; and the unhappy patient, instead of +compassion and assistance, receive the reproof of sullenness, from those +who should have known and acted better. + +About twenty years ago I met on a visit at Catthorpe in Leicestershire a +young gentleman of distinguished learning and abilities, who at certain +times was speechless. The vulgar thought it a pretence: and a jocose +lady, where he was at tea with company, putting him as she said to a +trial, poured out a dish very strong and without sugar. He drank it and +returned the cup with a bow of great reserve, and his eye bent on the +ground: she then filled the cup with sugar, and pouring weak tea on it, +sent it him: he drank that too, looked at her steadily, and blushed for +her. The lady declared the man was dumb; the rest thought him perverse, +and obstinate; but a constant and steady perseverance in an easy method +cured him. + +All these are miseries which the disease, while it retains its natural +form, can bring upon the patient; and thus he will in time be worn out, +and led miserably, though slowly, to the grave. Let him not indulge his +inactivity so far as to give way to this, because it is represented as +far off; the disease may suddenly and frightfully change its nature; and +swifter evils follow. + + + + +SECT. IV. + +The DANGER. + + +We have done with the obstruction considered in itself; but this, though +often unsurmountable by art, at least by the methods now in use, will be +sometimes broken through at once by nature, or by accidents; and bring +on fatal evils. These are strictly different diseases, and are no +otherway concerned here, than as the consequences of that of which we +are treating. + +The thick and glutinous blood which has so long stagnated in the spleen, +will have in that time altered its nature, and acquired a very great +degree of acrimony: while it lies dormant, this does no more mischiefs, +than those named already; but when violent exercise, a fit of outrageous +anger, or any thing else that suddenly shocks and disturbs the frame, +puts it in motion, it melts at once into a kind of liquid putrefaction. +Being now thin, it mixes itself readily with the blood again, and brings +on putrid fevers; destroys the substance of the spleen itself, or being +thrown upon some other of the viscera, corrodes them, and leads on this +way a swift and miserable death. If it fall upon the liver, its tender +pulpy substance is soon destroyed, jaundices beyond the help of art +first follow, then dropsies and all their train of misery; if on lungs, +consumptions; if on the brain, convulsions, epilepsy, palsy, apoplexy; +if on the surface, leprosy. + +The intention of cure is to melt this coagulation softly, not to break +it violently; and then to give it a very gentle passage through the +bowels. There is no safe way for it to take but that; and even that when +urged too far may bring on fatal dysenteries. + +Let none wonder at the sudden devastation which sometimes arises from +this long stagnant matter, when liquified too hastily: how long, how +many years the impacted matter will continue quiet in a schirrous tumour +of the breast; but being once put in motion, whether from accident, or +in the course of nature, what can describe; or what can stop its +havock! + +Instances of the other are too frequent. A nobleman the other day died +paralytick: dissection shewed a spleen consumed by an abscess, formed +from the dissolved matter of such an obstruction: and 'tis scarce longer +since, a learned gentleman, who had been several years lost to his +friends, by the extreams of a Hypochondriacal disorder, seem'd gradually +without assistance to recover: but the lungs suffered while the spleen +was freed; and he died very soon of what is called a galloping +consumption. + +When the obstruction is great and of long continuance, if it be thus +hastily moved, the consequence is, equally, a sudden and a miserable +death, whether, like the matter of a cancer, it remains in its place; or +like that of a bad small pox, be thrown upon some other vital part. + +Let not the patient be too much alarmed; this is laid down to caution, +not to terrify him: it is fit he should know his danger, and attend to +it; for the prevention is easy; and the cure, even of the most advanced +stages, when undertaken by gentle means, is not at all impracticable: to +assist the physician, let him look into himself, and recollect the +source of his complaint. This he may judge of from the following +notices. + + + + +SECT. V. + +The Causes of the HYPOCHONDRIASIS. + + +The obstruction which forms this disease, may take its origin from +different accidents: a fever ill cured has often caused it; or the +piles, which had been used to discharge largely, ceasing; a marshy soil, +poisoned with stagnant water, has given it to some persons; and altho' +indolence and inactivity are oftenest at the root, yet it has arisen +from too great exercise. + +Real grief has often brought it on; and even love, for sometimes that is +real. Study and fixed attention of the mind have been accused before; +and add to these the stooping posture of the body, which most men use, +though none should use it, in writing and in reading. This has +contributed too much to it; but of all other things night studies are +the most destructive. The steady stillness, and dusky habit of all +nature in those hours, enforce, encourage, and support that settled +gloom, which rises from fixt thought; and sinks the body to the grave; +even while it carries up the mind to heaven. He who would have his lamp + + _At midnight hour + Be seen in some high lonely tower,_[18] + +will waste the flame of this unheeded life: and while he labours to +unsphere the spirit of Plato[18] will let loose his own. + + + + +SECT. VI. + +The Cure of the HYPOCHONDRIASIS. + + +Let him who would escape the mischiefs of an obstructed spleen, avoid +the things here named: and let him who suffers from the malady, +endeavour to remember to which of them it has been owing; for half the +hope depends upon that knowledge. + +Nature has sometimes made a cure herself, and we should watch her ways; +for art never is so right as when it imitates her: sometimes the +patient's own resolution has set him free. This is always in his power, +and at all times will do wonders. + +The bleeding of the piles, from nature's single efforts, has at once +cured a miserable man; where their cessation was the cause of the +disorder. A leprosy has appeared upon the skin, and all the symptoms of +the former sickness vanished. This among the Jews happened often: both +diseases we know were common among them: and I have here seen something +very like it: Water-Dock has thrown out scorbutic eruptions, and all the +former symptoms of an Hypochondriacal disorder have disappeared: +returning indeed when these were unadvisedly struck in; but keeping off +entirely when they were better treated. A natural purging unsuppressed +has sometimes done the same good office: but this is hazardous. + +It is easy to be directed from such instances; only let us take the +whole along with us. Bleeding would have answered nature's purpose, if +she could not have opened of herself the hæmorrhoidal vessels; but he +who should give medicines for that purpose, might destroy his patient by +too great disturbance. If a natural looseness may perform the cure, so +may an artificial; when the original source of the disorder points that +way. But these are helps that take place only in particular cases. + +The general and universal method of cure must be by some mild and gently +resolving medicine, under the influence of which the obstructing matter +may be voided that, or some other way with safety. The best season to +undertake this is the autumn, but even here there must be caution. + +In the first place, no strong evacuating remedy must be given; for that, +by carrying off the thinner parts of the juices, will tend to thicken +the remainder; and certainly encrease the distemper. No acrid medicine +must be directed, for that may act too hastily, dissolve the impacted +matter at once, and let it loose, to the destruction of the sufferer; no +antimonial, no mercurial, no martial preparation must be taken; in +short, no chymistry: nature is the shop that heaven has set before us, +and we must seek our medicine there. The venerable ancients, who knew +not this new art, will lead us in the search; and (faithful relators as +they are of truth) will tell us whence we may deduce our hope; and what +we are to fear. + +But prior to the course of any medicine, and as an essential to any good +hope from it, the patient must prescribe himself a proper course of +life, and a well chosen diet: let us assist him in his choice; and speak +of this first, as it comes first in order. + + + + +SECT. VI. + +Rules of Life for Hypochondriac Persons. + + +Air and exercise, as they are the best preservers of health, and +greatest assistants in the cure of all long continued diseases, will +have their full effect in this; but there requires some caution in the +choice, and management of them. It is common to think the air of high +grounds best; but experience near home shews otherwise: the +Hypochondriac patient is always worse at Highgate even than in London. + +The air he breathes should be temperate; not exposed to the utmost +violences of heat and cold, and the swift changes from one to the +other; which are most felt on those high grounds. The side of a hill is +the best place for him: and though wet grounds are hurtful; yet let +there be the shade of trees, to tempt him often to a walk; and soften by +their exhalation the over dryness of the air. + +The exercise he takes should be frequent; but not violent. Motion +preserves the firmness of the parts, and elasticity of the vessels; it +prevents that aggregation of thick humours which he is most to fear. A +sedentary life always produces weakness, and that mischief always +follows: weak eyes are gummy, weak lungs are clogged with phlegm, and +weak bowels waste themselves in vapid diarrhoeas. + +Let him invite himself abroad, and let his friends invite him by every +innocent inducement. For me, I should advise above all other things the +study of nature. Let him begin with plants: he will here find a +continual pleasure, and continual change; fertile of a thousand useful +things; even of the utility we are seeking here. This will induce him to +walk; and every hedge and hillock, every foot-path side, and thicket, +will afford him some new object. He will be tempted to be continually +in the air, and continually to change the nature and quality of the air, +by visiting in succession the high lands and the low, the lawn, the +heath, the forest. He will never want inducement to be abroad; and the +unceasing variety of the subjects of his observation, will prevent his +walking hastily: he will pursue his studies in the air; and that +contemplative turn of mind, which in his closet threatened his +destruction, will thus become the great means of his recovery. + +If the mind tire upon this, from the repeated use, another of nature's +kingdoms opens itself at once upon him; the plant he is weary of +observing, feeds some insect he may examine; nor is there a stone that +lies before his foot, but may afford instruction and amusement. + +Even what the vulgar call the most abject things will shew a wonderful +utility; and lead the mind, in pious contemplation higher than the +stars. The poorest moss that is trampled under foot, has its important +uses: is it at the bottom of a wood we find it? why there it shelters +the fallen seeds; hides them from birds, and covers them from frost; +and thus becomes the foster father of another forest! creeps it along +the surface of a rock? even there its good is infinite! its small roots +run into the stone, and the rains make their way after them; the moss +having lived its time dies; it rots and with the mouldered fragments of +the stone forms earth; wherein, after a few successions, useful plants +may grow, and feed more useful cattle![19] + +Is there a weed more humble in its aspect, more trampled on, or more +despised than knot grass! no art can get the better of its growth, no +labour can destroy it; 'twere pity if they could, for the thing lives +where nothing would of use to us; and its large and most wonderfully +abundant seeds, feed in hard winters, half the birds of Heaven. + +What the weak moss performs upon the rock the loathed toadstool brings +about in timber: is an oak dead where man's eye will not find it? this +fungus roots itself upon the bark, and rots the wood beneath it; hither +the beetle creeps for shelter, and for sustenance; him the woodpecker +follows as his prey; and while he tears the tree in search of him, he +scatters it about the ground; which it manures. + +Nor is it the beetle alone that thus insinuates itself into the +substance of the vegetable tribe: the tender aphide[20], whom a touch +destroys, burrows between the two skins of a leaf, for shelter from his +winged enemies; tracing, with more than Dedalæan art, his various +meanders; and veining the green surface with these white lines more +beautifully than the best Ægyptian marble. + +'Twere endless to proceed; nor is it needful: one object will not fail +to lead on to another, and every where the goodness of his God will +shine before him even in what are thought the vilest things; his +greatness in the lead of them. + +Let him pursue these thoughts, and seek abroad the objects and the +instigations to them: but let him in these and all other excursions +avoid equally the dews of early morning, and of evening. + +The more than usual exercise of this prescription will dispose him to +more than customary sleep, let him indulge it freely; so far from +hurting, it will help his cure. + +Let him avoid all excesses: drink need scarce be named, for we are +writing to men of better and of nobler minds, than can be tempted to +that humiliating vice. Those who in this disorder have too great an +appetite, must not indulge it; much eaten was never well digested: but +of all excesses the most fatal in this case is that of venery. It is the +excess we speak of. + + + + +SECT. VII. + +The proper DIET. + + +In the first place acids must be avoided carefully; and all things that +are in a state of fermentation, for they will breed acidity. Provisions +hardened by salting never should be tasted; much less those cured by +smoaking, and by salting. Bacon is indigestible in an Hypochondriac +stomach; and hams, impregnated as is now the custom, with acid fumes +from the wood fires over which they are hung, have that additional +mischief. + +Milk ought to be a great article in the diet: and even in this there +should be choice. The milk of grass-fed cows has its true quality: no +other. There are a multitude of ways in which this may be made a part +both of our foods and drinks, and they should all be used. + +The great and general caution is that the diet be at all times of a kind +loosening and gently stimulating; light but not acrid. Veal, lamb, +fowls, lobsters, crabs, craw-fish, fresh water fish and mutton broth, +with plenty of boiled vegetables, are always right; and give enough +variety. + +Raw vegetables are all bad: sour wines, old cheese, and bottled beer are +things never to be once tasted. Indeed much wine is wrong, be it of what +kind soever. It is the first of cordials; and as such I would have it +taken in this disease when it is wanted: plainly as a medicine, rather +than a part of diet. Malt liquor carefully chosen is certainly the best +drink. This must be neither new, nor tending to sourness; perfectly +clear, and of a moderate strength: it is the native liquor of our +country, and the most healthful. + +Too much tea weakens; and even sugar is in this disorder hurtful: but +honey may supply its place in most things; and this is not only harmless +but medicinal; a very powerful dissolvent of impacted humours, and a +great deobstruent. + +What wine is drank should be of some of the sweet kinds. Old Hock has +been found on enquiry to yield more than ten times the acid of the sweet +wines; and in red Port, at least in what we are content to call so, +there is an astringent quality, that is most mischievous in these cases: +it is said there is often alum in it: how pregnant with mischief that +must be to persons whose bowels require to be kept open, is most +evident. Summer fruits perfectly ripe are not only harmless but +medicinal; but if eaten unripe they will be very prejudicial. A light +supper, which will leave an appetite for a milk breakfast, is always +right; this will not let the stomach be ravenous for dinner, as it is +apt to be in those who make that their only meal. + +One caution more must be given, and it may seem a strange one: it is +that the patient attend regularly to his hours of eating. We have to do +with men for the most part whose soul is the great object of their +regard; but let them not forget they have a body. + +The late Dr. STUKELY has told me, that one day by appointment visiting +Sir ISAAC NEWTON, the servant told him, he was in his study. No one was +permitted to disturb him there; but as it was near dinner time, the +visitor sat down to wait for him. After a time dinner was brought in; a +boil'd chicken under a cover. An hour pass'd, and Sir ISAAC did not +appear. The doctor eat the fowl, and covering up the empty dish, bad +them dress their master another. Before that was ready, the great man +came down; he apologiz'd for his delay, and added, "give me but leave to +take my short dinner, and I shall be at your service; I am fatigued and +faint." Saying this, he lifted up the cover; and without any emotion, +turned about to STUKELY with a smile; "See says he, what we studious +people are, I forgot I had din'd." + + + + +SECT. VIII. + +The MEDICINE. + + +'Tis the ill fate of this disease, more than of all others to be +misunderstood at first, and thence neglected; till the physician shakes +his head at a few first questions. None steals so fatally upon the +sufferer: its advances are by very slow degrees; but every day it grows +more difficult of cure. + +That this obstruction in the spleen is the true malady, the cases +related by the antients, present observation, and the unerring +testimonies of dissections leave no room to doubt. Being understood, the +path is open where to seek a remedy: and our best guides in this, as in +the former instance, will be those venerable Greeks; who saw a thousand +of these cases, where we see one; and with less than half our theory, +cured twice as many patients. + +One established doctrine holds place in all these writers; that whatever +by a hasty fermentation dissolves the impacted matter of the +obstruction, and sends it in that state into the blood, does incredible +mischief: but that whatever medicine softens it by slow degrees, and, as +it melts, delivers it to the bowels without disturbance; will cure with +equal certainty and safety. + +For this good purpose, they knew and tried a multitude of herbs; but in +the end they fixed on one: and on their repeated trials of this, they +banished all the rest. This stood alone for the cure of the disease; and +from its virtue received the name of SPLEEN-WORT[21]. O wise and happy +Greeks! authors of knowledge and perpetuators of it! With them the very +name they gave a plant declared its virtues: with us, a writer calls a +plant from some friend; that the good gardener who receives the honour, +may call another by his name who gave it. We now add the term _smooth_ +to this herb, to distinguish it from another, called by the same general +term, though not much resembling it. + +The virtues of this smooth Spleen-wort have flood the test of ages; and +the plant every where retained its name and credit: and one of our good +herbalists, who had seen a wonderful case of a swoln spleen, so big, and +hard as to be felt with terror, brought back to a state of nature by it; +and all the miserable symptoms vanish; thought Spleen-wort not enough +expressive of its excellence; but stamp'd on it the name of MILT-WASTE. + +In the Greek Islands now, the use of it is known to every one; and even +the lazy monks who take it, are no longer splenetic. In the west of +England, the rocks are stripped of it with diligence; and every old woman +tells you how charming that leaf is for bookish men: in Russia they use +a plant of this kind in their malt liquor: it came into fashion there +for the cure of this disease; which from its constant use is scarce +known any longer; and they suppose 'tis added to their liquor for a +flavour. + +The ancients held it in a kind of veneration; and used what has been +called a superstition in the gathering it. It was to be taken up with a +sharp knife, without violence, and laid upon the clean linen: no time +but the still darkness of the night was proper, and even the moon was +not to shine upon it[22]. I know they have been ridiculed for this; for +nothing is so vain as learned ignorance: but let me be permitted once to +vindicate them. + +The plant has leaves that can close in their sides; and their under part +is covered thick with a yellow powder, consisting of the seeds, and seed +vessels: in these they knew the virtue most resided: this was the golden +dust[23] they held so valuable; and this they knew they could not be too +cautious to preserve. They were not ignorant of the sleep of plants; a +matter lately spoken of by some, as if a new discovery; and being +sensible that light, a dry air, an expanded leaf, and a tempestuous +season, were the means of losing this fine dust; and knowing also that +darkness alone brought on that closing of the leaf which thence has +been called sleep; and which helped to defend and to secure it, they +therefore took such time, and used such means as could best preserve the +plant entire; and even save what might be scattered from it.--And now +where is their superstition? + +From this plant thus collected they prepared a medicine, which in a +course of forty days scarce ever failed to make a perfect cure. + +We have the plant wild with us; and till the fashion of rough chemical +preparations took off our attention from these gentler remedies, it was +in frequent use and great repute. I trust it will be so again: and many +thank me for restoring it to notice. + +Spleen-wort gives out its virtues freely in a tincture; and a small dose +of this, mixing readily with the blood and juices, gradually dissolves +the obstruction; and by a little at a time delivers its contents to be +thrown off without pain, from the bowels. Let this be done while the +viscera are yet sound and the cure is perfect. More than the forty days +of the Greek method is scarce ever required; much oftener two thirds of +that time suffice; and every day, from the first dose of it, the patient +feels the happy change that is growing in his constitution. His food no +more turns putrid on his stomach, but yields its healthful nourishment. +The swelling after meals therefore vanishes; and with that goes the +lowness, and anxiety, the difficult breath, and the distracting cholick: +he can bear the approach of rainy weather without pain; he finds himself +more apt for motion, and ready to take that exercise which is to be +assistant in his cure; life seems no longer burthensome. His bowels get +into the natural condition of health, and perform their office once at +least a day; better if a little more: the dull and dead colour of his +skin goes off, his lips grow red again, and every sign of health +returns. + +Let him who takes the medicine, say whether any thing here be +exaggerated. Let him, if he pleases to give himself the trouble, talk +over with me, or write to me, this gradual decrease of his complaints, +as he proceeds in his cure. My uncertain state of health does not +permit me to practise physic in the usual way, but I am very desirous to +do what good I can, and shall never refuse my advice, such as it may be, +to any person rich or poor, in whatever manner he may apply for it. I +shall refer him to no apothecary, whose bills require he should be +drenched with potions; but tell him, in this as in all other cases, +where to find some simple herb; which he may if he please prepare +himself; or if he had rather spare that trouble, may have it so prepared +from me. + +With regard to Spleen-wort, no method of using it is more effectual than +simply taking it in powder; the only advantage of a tincture, is that a +proper dose may be given, and yet the stomach not be loaded with so +large a quantity: it is an easier and pleasanter method, and nothing +more. + +If any person choose to take it in the other way, I should still wish +him once at least to apply to me; that he may be assured what he is +about to take is the right plant. Abuses in medicines are at this time +very great, and in no instance worse than what relates to herbs. The +best of our physicians have complained upon this head with warmth, but +without redress: they know the virtues and the value of many of our +native plants, but dread to prescribe them; lest some wrong thing should +be administered in their place; perhaps inefficacious, perhaps +mischievous, nay it may be fatal. The few simple things I direct are +always before me; and it will at all times be a pleasure to me, in this +and any other instance, to see whether what any person is about to take +be right. I have great obligations to the public, and this is the best +return that I know how to make. + +To see the need of such a caution, hear a transaction but of yesterday! +An intelligent person was directed to go to the medicinal herb shops in +the several markets, and buy some of this Spleen-wort; the name was +written, and shewn to every one; every shop received his money, and +almost every one sold a different plant, under the name of this: but +what is very striking, not one of them the right. Such is the chance of +health in those hands through which the best means of it usually pass; +even in the most regular course of application. + +I would not be understood to limit the little services I may this way be +able to render the afflicted, to this single instance; much less to +propose to myself any advantages from it. Whoever pleases will be +welcome to me, upon any such occasion; and whatever be the herb on which +he places a dependance, he shall be shewn it growing. I once recommended +a garden to be established for this use, at the public expence: one +great person has put it in my power to answer all its purposes. + + + F I N I S. + + + + +THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY + + +WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY + +UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES + +PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT + + +1948-1949 + +16. Henry Nevil Payne, _The Fatal Jealousie_ (1673). + +18. Anonymous, "Of Genius," in _The Occasional Paper_, Vol. III, No. 10 +(1719), and Aaron Hill, Preface to _The Creation_ (1720). + + +1949-1950 + +19. Susanna Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709). + +20. Lewis Theobald, _Preface to the Works of Shakespeare_ (1734). + +22. Samuel Johnson, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and two +_Rambler_ papers (1750). + +23. John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681). + + +1951-1952 + +31. Thomas Gray, _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard_ (1751), and +_The Eton College Manuscript_. + + +1952-1953 + +41. Bernard Mandeville, _A Letter to Dion_ (1732). + + +1963-1964 + +104. Thomas D'Urfey, _Wonders in the Sun; or, The Kingdom of the Birds_ +(1706). + + +1964-1965 + +110. John Tutchin, _Selected Poems_ (1685-1700). + +111. Anonymous, _Political Justice_ (1736). + +112. Robert Dodsley, _An Essay on Fable_ (1764). + +113. T. R., _An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning_ (1698). + +114. _Two Poems Against Pope_: Leonard Welsted, _One Epistle to Mr. A. +Pope_ (1730), and Anonymous, _The Blatant Beast_ (1742). + + +1965-1966 + +115. Daniel Defoe and others, _Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal_. + +116. Charles Macklin, _The Covent Garden Theatre_ (1752). + +117. Sir George L'Estrange, _Citt and Bumpkin_ (1680). + +118. Henry More, _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_ (1662). + +119. Thomas Traherne, _Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation_ +(1717). + +120. Bernard Mandeville, _Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables_ +(1704). + + +1966-1967 + +123. Edmond Malone, _Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Mr. +Thomas Rowley_ (1782). + +124. Anonymous, _The Female Wits_ (1704). + +125. Anonymous, _The Scribleriad_ (1742). Lord Hervey, _The Difference +Between Verbal and Practical Virtue_ (1742). + +126. _Le Lutrin: an Heroick Poem, Written Originally in French by +Monsieur Boileau: Made English by N. O._ (1682). + + +1967-1968 + +127- + +128. Charles Macklin, _A Will and No Will, or a Bone for the Lawyers_ +(1746). _The New Play Criticiz'd, or The Plague of Envy_ (1747). + +129. Lawrence Echard, Prefaces to _Terence's Comedies_ (1694) and +_Plautus's Comedies_ (1694). + +130. Henry More, _Democritus Platonissans_ (1646). + +131. John Evelyn, _The History of Sabatai Sevi, The Suppos'd Messiah of +the Jews_ (1669). + +132. Walter Harte, _An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad_ +(1730). + +Publications of the first fifteen years of the Society (numbers 1-90) +are available in paperbound units of six issues at $16.00 per unit, from +the Kraus Reprint Company, 16 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017. + +Publications in print are available at the regular membership rate of +$5.00 yearly. Prices of single issues may be obtained upon request. +Subsequent publications may be checked in the annual prospectus. + +William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los +Angeles + +THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY + +2520 CIMARRON STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90018 + +_General Editors:_ William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial +Library; George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles; +Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles + +_Corresponding Secretary:_ Mrs. Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark +Memorial Library + +The Society's purpose is to publish rare Restoration and +eighteenth-century works (usually as facsimile reproductions). All +income of the Society is devoted to defraying costs of publication and +mailing. + +Correspondence concerning memberships in the United States and Canada +should be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary at the William +Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles, +California. Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed +to the General Editors at the same address. Manuscripts of introductions +should conform to the recommendations of the MLA _Style Sheet_. The +membership fee is $5.00 a year in the United States and Canada and +£1.16.6 in Great Britain and Europe. British and European prospective +members should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. +Copies of back issues in print may be obtained from the Corresponding +Secretary. + +Publications of the first fifteen years of the Society (numbers 1-90) +are available in paperbound units of six issues at $16.00 per unit, from +the Kraus Reprint Company, 16 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017. + +Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF +CALIFORNIA + + +REGULAR PUBLICATIONS FOR 1968-1969 + +133. John Courtenay, _A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral +Character of the Late Samuel Johnson_ (1786). Introduction by Robert E. +Kelley. + +134. John Downes, _Roscius Anglicanus_ (1708). Introduction by John +Loftis. + +135. Sir John Hill, _Hypochondriasis, a Practical Treatise on the Nature +and Cure of that Disorder Call'd the Hyp or Hypo_ (1766). Introduction +by G. S. Rousseau. + +136. Thomas Sheridan, _Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course of +Lectures on Elocution and the English Language_ (1759). Introduction by +G. P. Mohrman. + +137. Arthur Murphy, _The Englishman From Paris_ (1756). Introduction by +Simon Trefman. Previously unpublished manuscript. + +138. [Catherine Trotter], _Olinda's Adventures_ (1718). Introduction by +Robert Adams Day. + + +SPECIAL PUBLICATION FOR 1968-1969 + +_After THE TEMPEST_. Introduction by George Robert Guffey. + +Next in the continuing series of special publications by the Society +will be _After THE TEMPEST_, a volume including the Dryden-Davenant +version of _The Tempest_ (1670); the "operatic" _Tempest_ (1674); Thomas +Duffet's _Mock-Tempest_ (1675); and the "Garrick" _Tempest_ (1756), with +an Introduction by George Robert Guffey. + +Already published in this series are: + +1. John Ogilby, _The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse_ (1668), with +an Introduction by Earl Miner. + +2. John Gay, _Fables_ (1727, 1738), with an Introduction by Vinton A. +Dearing. + +3. Elkanah Settle, _The Empress of Morocco_ (1673) with five plates; +_Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco_ (1674) by John +Dryden, John Crowne and Thomas Shadwell; _Notes and Observations on the +Empress of Morocco Revised_ (1674) by Elkanah Settle; and _The Empress +of Morocco. A Farce_ (1674) by Thomas Duffet; with an Introduction by +Maximillian E. Novak. + +Price to members of the Society, $2.50 for the first copy of each title, +and $3.25 for additional copies. Price to non-members, $4.00. Standing +orders for this continuing series of Special Publications will be +accepted. British and European orders should be addressed to B. H. +Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[18] Milton's Penseroso. + +[19] Biberg. + +[20] Reaumur. + +[21] asplenon + +[22] Silente Luna. + +[23] Pulvis Aureus. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + Long "s" has been modernized. + + Page 21 contains two markers referring to the same footnote. + + The original text contains two sections labeled "Sect. V." + + Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + + Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate + both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as + presented in the original text. + + The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these + letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + The following misprints have been corrected: + "the the" corrected to "the" (page v) + "sympton" corrected to "symptom" (page 14) + "symptons" corrected to "symptoms" (page 23) + + Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in + spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been + retained. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 *** |