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-<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***</div>
-<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hypochondriasis, by John Hill</h1>
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<hr class="full" />
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-
-<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3>
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<h2>JOHN HILL</h2>
-<h1>HYPOCHONDRIASIS</h1>
-<h3>A PRACTICAL TREATISE.</h3>
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<h3>(1766)</h3>
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<h4><i>Introduction by</i><br />
-<span class="smcap">G. S. Rousseau</span></h4>
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<h4>PUBLICATION NUMBER 135<br />
-WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY<br />
-<span class="smcap">University of California, Los Angeles</span><br />
-1969</h4>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="editors">
-<tr>
-<td align="center">
-<b>GENERAL EDITORS</b><br />
-William E. Conway, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br />
-George Robert Guffey, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-Maximillian E. Novak, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-<br />
-<br />
-<b>ASSOCIATE EDITOR</b><br />
-David S. Rodes, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-<br />
-<br />
-<b>ADVISORY EDITORS</b><br />
-Richard C. Boys, <i>University of Michigan</i><br />
-James L. Clifford, <i>Columbia University</i><br />
-Ralph Cohen, <i>University of Virginia</i><br />
-Vinton A. Dearing, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-Arthur Friedman, <i>University of Chicago</i><br />
-Louis A. Landa, <i>Princeton University</i><br />
-Earl Miner, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-Samuel H. Monk, <i>University of Minnesota</i><br />
-Everett T. Moore, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-Lawrence Clark Powell, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br />
-James Sutherland, <i>University College, London</i><br />
-H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
-Robert Vosper, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br />
-<br />
-<br />
-<b>CORRESPONDING SECRETARY</b><br />
-Edna C. Davis, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br />
-<br />
-<br />
-<b>EDITORIAL ASSISTANT</b><br />
-Mary Kerbret, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i></td></tr></table>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
-<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>"When I first dabbled in this art, the old distemper call'd
-<i>Melancholy</i> was exchang'd for <i>Vapours</i>, and afterwards for the
-<i>Hypp</i>, and at last took up the now current appellation of the
-<i>Spleen</i>, which it still retains, tho' a learned doctor of the
-west, in a little tract he hath written, divides the <i>Spleen</i> and
-<i>Vapours</i>, not only into the <i>Hypp</i>, the <i>Hyppos</i>, and the
-Hyppocons; but subdivides these divisions into the <i>Markambles</i>,
-the <i>Moonpalls</i>, the <i>Strong-Fiacs</i>, and the <i>Hockogrokles</i>."</p>
-
-<p class="right">Nicholas Robinson, <i>A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and
-Hypochondriack Melancholy</i> (London, 1729)</p></div>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p>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 <i>Hypochondriasis</i> in 1766.<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small> 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 <i>materia scripta</i> on the
-subject it makes sense to reprint Hill's <i>Hypochondriasis</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span>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.<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small> Their
-concern is apparent in both the poetry and prose of two centuries. From
-Robert Burton's Brobdingnagian exposition in <i>The Anatomy of Melancholy</i>
-(1621) to Tobias Smollett's depiction of the misanthropic and ailing
-Matthew Bramble in <i>Humphry Clinker</i> (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 <i>Reliquiae Baxterianae</i>,<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> are
-afflicted), Swift's "School of Spleen" in <i>A Tale of a Tub</i>, 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 <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i> and
-<i>Tristram Shandy</i>, Boswell's <i>Hypochondriack Papers</i> (1777-1783)
-contributed to the <i>London Magazine</i>, 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."<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> 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.<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small></p>
-
-<p>The medical background of Hill's pamphlet extends further back than the
-seventeenth century and Burton's <i>Anatomy</i>. The ancient Greeks had
-theorized about hypochondria: ὐποχόνδριασις signified a
-disorder beneath (ὐπό) the gristle (χόνδρια) and the
-disease was discussed principally in physiological terms. The belief
-that hypochondriasis was a somatic condition persisted until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> 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.<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small>
-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 <i>The Beaux'
-Stratagem</i> (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."</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>The
-Hyp: a Burlesque Poem in Five Canto's</i> (1731) and Tim Scrubb's <i>A Rod
-for the Hyp-Doctor</i> (1731) were devoted to this strain; others, like
-Malcom Flemyng's epic poem, <i>Neuropathia: sive de morbis hypochondriacis
-et hystericis, libri tres, poema medicum</i> (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'"<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small>; 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 <i>Angst</i>. It
-was also used as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> synonym for "lunacy," as the anonymous author of
-<i>Anti-Siris</i> (1744), one of the tracts in the tar-water controversy,
-informs us that "Berkeley tells his Countrymen, they are all mad, or
-<i>Hypochondriac</i>, which is but a fashionable name for Madness." Bernard
-Mandeville, the Dutch physician and author of <i>The Fable of the Bees</i>,
-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 <i>Treatise of the Hypochondriack and
-Hysteric Passions, Vulgarly Call'd the Hypo in Men and Vapours in Women</i>
-(1711). The mental causes are noted as well in an anonymous pamphlet in
-the British Museum, <i>A Treatise on the Dismal Effects of
-Low-Spiritedness</i> (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:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>...of that Disorder we call the Vapours, or <i>Hypochondria</i>; 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 <i>Hypochondria</i> 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.<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small></p></div>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> 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
-<i>Medicinal Dictionary</i> (London, 1743-45):</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>If we thoroughly consider its Nature, it will be found to be a
-spasmodico-flatulent Disorder of the <i>Primae Viae</i>, 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").</p></div>
-
-<p>This is a more technical description than Hill gives anywhere in his
-handbook, but it serves well to summarize the background of <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'the the'">the</ins> condition
-about which Sir John wrote.</p>
-
-<p>Hill's <i>Hypochondriasis</i> 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 <i>The English Malady</i> (1733) and <i>The Natural Method of Cureing the
-Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the
-Body</i> (1742) Hill knew. He is also con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>versant with some Continental
-writers on the subject, two of whom—Isaac Biberg, author of The
-<i>Oeconomy of Nature</i> (1751), and René Réaumur who had written a history
-of insects (1722)<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small>—he mentions explicitly, and with William
-Stukeley's <i>Of the Spleen</i> (1723). Internal evidence indicates that Hill
-had read or was familiar with the ideas propounded in Richard
-Blackmore's <i>Treatise of the Spleen and Vapours</i> (1725) and Nicholas
-Robinson's <i>A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack
-Melancholy</i> (1729).</p>
-
-<p>Hill's arrangement of sections is logical: he first defines the
-condition (<a href="#Page_3">I</a>), then proceeds to discuss persons most susceptible to it
-(<a href="#Page_6">II</a>), its major symptoms (<a href="#Page_12">III</a>), consequences (<a href="#Page_16">IV</a>), causes (<a href="#Page_20">V</a>), and cures
-(<a href="#Page_22">VI-VIII</a>). 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. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>) of
-the most prevalent physiological <i>symptoms</i> ("lowness of spirits, and
-inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love of solitude....
-Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness") and <i>causes</i> (the poor and damp
-English climate and the resultant clotting of blood in the spleen) of
-the illness.</p>
-
-<p>Sections <a href="#Page_20">V-VIII</a>, 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,<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small> which Smollett satirized through the mouth of
-Tabitha Bramble in <i>Humphry Clinker</i> (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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>—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. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>). 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.<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> "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. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>).</p>
-
-<p>Still more idiosyncratic, perhaps, is Hill's contention (p. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>) 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,<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small> 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 <i>apologia
-pro vita sua</i> in Augustan fashion:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>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. <a href="#Page_26">26-27</a>).</p></div>
-
-<p>Hill was forever extolling the claims of a life devoted to the study of
-nature, as we see in a late work, <i>The Virtues of British Herbs</i> (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."</p>
-
-<p>While Hill's rules and regulations regarding proper diet (<a href="#Page_31">Section VII</a>)
-are standard, several taken almost <i>verbatim et literatim</i> from Cheyne's
-list in <i>The English Malady</i> (1733), his recommendation (<a href="#Page_35">Section VIII</a>)
-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.<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> 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 <i>The British Herbal</i> (1756), <i>On the
-Virtues of Sage in Lengthening Human Life</i> (1763), <i>Centaury, the Great
-Stomachic</i> (1765), <i>Polypody</i> (1768), <i>A Method of Curing Jaundice</i>
-(1768), <i>Instances of the Virtue of Petasite Root</i> (1771), and <i>Twenty
-Five New Plants</i> (1773).<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small> 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 <i>Primitive Physick</i>
-(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 <i>London Pharmacopeia</i>. "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. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>).<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small> 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. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>).</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>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, <i>Essays on Insanity, Hypochondriasis
-and Other Nervous Affections</i> (1816), which summarizes theories of the
-malady.<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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."<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small></p>
-
-<p>University of California,<br />
-Los Angeles<br />
-</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
-<h3>NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION</h3>
-
-<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> 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, <i>Hypochondriasis; a Practical Treatise On
-the Nature and Cure of that Disorder, Commonly called the Hyp and the
-Hypo</i>. The copy in the Royal Society of Medicine contains, among other
-additions, the words "by Sir John Hill" in pencil, and "8<sup>vo</sup> Lond.
-1766," written in ink and probably a later addition.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> 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 <i>Dictionary</i>
-(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," <i>Backgrounds of English Literature 1700-1760</i> (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.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> See Samuel Clifford's <i>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</i> (London, 1716) in the British Museum.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> <i>Backgrounds of English Literature</i>, p. 179.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> See my forthcoming biography, _The Literary Quack: A Life of 'Sir'
-John Hill of London_, and John Kennedy's <i>Some Remarks on the Life and
-Writings of Dr. J—— H——, Inspector General of Great Britain</i> (London, 1752).</p>
-
-<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> For some of this background see L. J. Rather, <i>Mind and Body in
-Eighteenth Century Medicine: A Study Based on Jerome Gaub's De Regimine Mentis</i> (London, 1965), pp. 135-90 <i>passim</i>.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> <i>Science and Literature 1700-1740</i> (London, 1964), pp. 50-51.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> <i>A New Theory of Physick</i> (London, 1725), p. 56.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> Biberg was a Swedish naturalist and had studied botany under
-Linnaeus in Uppsala; Réaumur, a French botanist, had contributed papers
-to the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i> of the Royal Society in London.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> <i>The Power of Water-Dock against the Scurvy whether in the Plain
-Root or Essence....</i> (London, 1765), had been published six months
-earlier than <i>Hypochondriasis</i> and had earned Hill a handsome profit.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> I have treated aspects of this subject in my article, "Matt Bramble
-and The Sulphur Controversy in the XVIIIth Century: Medical Background
-of <i>Humphry Clinker</i>," <i>JHI</i>, XXVIII (1967), 577-90.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> See, for example, Jeremiah Waineright, <i>A Mechanical Account of the
-Non-Naturals</i> (1707); John Arbuthnot, <i>An Essay Concerning the Effects
-of Air on Human Bodies</i> (1733); Frank Nichols, <i>De Anima Medica</i> (1750).</p>
-
-<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> Hill's correspondence is not published but shall be printed as an appendix to my forthcoming biography.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> I have discussed some of these works in connection with the medical
-background of John Wesley's <i>Primitive Physick</i> (1747). See G. S.
-Rousseau, <i>Harvard Library Bulletin</i>, XVI (1968), 242-56.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> It is difficult to know with certainty when Hill first became
-interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in <i>The British
-Herbal</i> (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he opened an apothecary shop.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled <i>De Insania</i> (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, <i>Hypochondria</i> (London,
-1928), William K. Richmond, <i>The English Disease</i> (London, 1958),
-Charles Chenevix Trench, <i>The Royal Malady</i> (New York, 1964), and Ilza
-Vieth, <i>Hysteria: The History of a Disease</i> (Chicago, 1965), and "On
-Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," <i>Bulletin of the History of Medicine</i>, XXX (1956), 233-40.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> Joseph Spence, <i>Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books
-and Men</i>, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264.</p>
-
-<p>I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts in writing this introduction.</p>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h3>BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</h3>
-
-
-<p class="center">The text of this facsimile of <i>Hypochondriasis</i> is reproduced from a
-copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.</p>
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h1>HYPOCHONDRIASIS.</h1>
-<h2>A</h2>
-<h2>PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c.</h2>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.png" alt="" /></div>
-<p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
-<p> </p>
-
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect1.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h2>HYPOCHONDRIASIS.</h2>
-
-<p> </p>
-<h3>SECT. I.</h3>
-
-<h3>The <span class="smcap">Nature</span> of the <span class="smcap">Disorder</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">To</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> assistance of frequent watching it in all its
-stages.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect2.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. II.</h3>
-
-<h3>Persons Subject to it.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Fatigue</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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. <span class="smcap">Young</span>; 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!</p>
-
-<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> will,
-without due care, encrease it to the most dreaded violence.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> have no use
-unless accompanied with resolution to enforce it.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect3.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. III.</h3>
-
-<h3>The <span class="smcap">Symptoms</span> of the <span class="smcap">Disorder</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">The</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> bowels, and an unaptness to
-discharge their contents.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>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.</p>
-
-<p>I have known the temporary silence that follows upon this last <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'sympton'">symptom</ins>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect4.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. IV.</h3>
-
-<h3>The <span class="smcap">Danger</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">We</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> course of nature, what can describe; or what can stop its
-havock!</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect5_1.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. V.</h3>
-
-<h3>The Causes of the <span class="smcap">Hypochondriasis</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">The</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> 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</p>
-
-<div class="poem">
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>At midnight hour</i></span><br />
-<i>Be seen in some high lonely tower,</i><small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small></div>
-
-<p>will waste the flame of this unheeded life: and while he labours to
-unsphere the spirit of Plato<small><a href="#f18">[18]</a></small> will let loose his own.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect5_2.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. V.</h3>
-
-<h3>The Cure of the <span class="smcap">Hypochondriasis</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Let</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The bleeding of the piles, from nature's single efforts, has at once
-cured a miserable man; where their cessation was the cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> 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 <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'symptons'">symptoms</ins> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The general and universal method of cure must be by some mild and gently
-resolving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect6.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. VI.</h3>
-
-<h3>Rules of Life for Hypochondriac Persons.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Air</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>The air he breathes should be temperate; not exposed to the utmost
-violences of heat and cold, and the swift changes from one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 diarrhœas.</p>
-
-<p>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 ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>ject. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> 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!<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> search of him, he
-scatters it about the ground; which it manures.</p>
-
-<p>Nor is it the beetle alone that thus insinuates itself into the
-substance of the vegetable tribe: the tender aphide<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>'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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The more than usual exercise of this prescription will dispose him to
-more than custo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>mary sleep, let him indulge it freely; so far from
-hurting, it will help his cure.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect7.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. VII.</h3>
-
-<h3>The proper <span class="smcap">Diet</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">In</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The late Dr. <span class="smcap">Stukely</span> has told me, that one day by appointment visiting
-Sir <span class="smcap">Isaac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></span> <span class="smcap">Newton</span>, 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 <span class="smcap">Isaac</span> 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 <span class="smcap">Stukely</span> with a smile; "See says he, what we studious
-people are, I forgot I had din'd."</p>
-
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect8.png" alt="" /></div>
-<h3>SECT. VIII.</h3>
-
-<h3>The <span class="smcap">Medicine</span>.</h3>
-
-
-<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">'Tis</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="smcap">Spleen-wort</span><small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small>. 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> the good gardener who receives the honour,
-may call another by his name who gave it. We now add the term <i>smooth</i>
-to this herb, to distinguish it from another, called by the same general
-term, though not much resembling it.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="smcap">Milt-waste</span>.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
-known any longer; and they suppose 'tis added to their liquor for a
-flavour.</p>
-
-<p>The antients 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<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> 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?</p>
-
-<p>From this plant thus collected they prepared a medicine, which in a
-course of forty days scarce ever failed to make a perfect cure.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>I would not be understood to limit the little services I may this way be
-able to render<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> 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.</p>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<p class="center"><b><span class="spacer">F</span><span class="spacer">I</span><span class="spacer">N</span><span class="spacer">I</span><span class="spacer">S.</span></b></p>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<hr style="width: 30%;" />
-<p><span class="u">Footnotes:</span></p>
-
-<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> Milton's Penseroso.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> Biberg.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> Reaumur.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> ασπλενον</p>
-
-<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> Silente Luna.</p>
-
-<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> Pulvis Aureus.</p>
-
-
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3>
-
-<h3>WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK</h3>
-<h3>MEMORIAL LIBRARY</h3>
-<h3>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES</h3>
-<p> </p>
-<h4>PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT</h4>
-<p> </p>
-<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/emblem.png" alt="" /></div>
-<p> </p>
-
-<h4>1948-1949</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>16. Henry Nevil Payne, <i>The Fatal Jealousie</i> (1673).</p>
-<p class="hang">18. Anonymous, "Of Genius," in <i>The Occasional Paper</i>, Vol. III, No. 10 (1719), and Aaron Hill, Preface to <i>The Creation</i> (1720).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1949-1950</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>19. Susanna Centlivre, <i>The Busie Body</i> (1709).</p>
-<p>20. Lewis Theobald, <i>Preface to the Works of Shakespeare</i> (1734).</p>
-<p class="hang">22. Samuel Johnson, <i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i> (1749), and two <i>Rambler</i> papers (1750).</p>
-<p>23. John Dryden, <i>His Majesties Declaration Defended</i> (1681).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1951-1952</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p class="hang">31. Thomas Gray, <i>An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard</i> (1751), and <i>The Eton College Manuscript</i>.</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1952-1953</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>41. Bernard Mandeville, <i>A Letter to Dion</i> (1732).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1963-1964</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p class="hang">104. Thomas D'Urfey, <i>Wonders in the Sun; or, The Kingdom of the Birds</i> (1706).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1964-1965</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>110. John Tutchin, <i>Selected Poems</i> (1685-1700).</p>
-<p>111. Anonymous, <i>Political Justice</i> (1736).</p>
-<p>112. Robert Dodsley, <i>An Essay on Fable</i> (1764).</p>
-<p>113. T. R., <i>An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning</i> (1698).</p>
-<p class="hang">114. <i>Two Poems Against Pope</i>: Leonard Welsted, <i>One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope</i> (1730), and Anonymous, <i>The Blatant Beast</i> (1742).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1965-1966</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>115. Daniel Defoe and others, <i>Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal</i>.</p>
-<p>116. Charles Macklin, <i>The Covent Garden Theatre</i> (1752).</p>
-<p>117. Sir George L'Estrange, <i>Citt and Bumpkin</i> (1680).</p>
-<p>118. Henry More, <i>Enthusiasmus Triumphatus</i> (1662).</p>
-<p class="hang">119. Thomas Traherne, <i>Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation</i> (1717).</p>
-<p class="hang">120. Bernard Mandeville, <i>Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables</i> (1704).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1966-1967</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p class="hang">123. Edmond Malone, <i>Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Mr. Thomas Rowley</i> (1782).</p>
-<p>124. Anonymous, <i>The Female Wits</i> (1704).</p>
-<p class="hang">125. Anonymous, <i>The Scribleriad</i> (1742). Lord Hervey, <i>The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue</i> (1742).</p>
-<p class="hang">126. <i>Le Lutrin: an Heroick Poem, Written Originally in French by Monsieur Boileau: Made English by N. O.</i> (1682).</p></div>
-
-
-<h4>1967-1968</h4>
-<div class="ads">
-<p>127-</p>
-<p class="hang">128. Charles Macklin, <i>A Will and No Will, or a Bone for the Lawyers</i> (1746). <i>The New Play Criticiz'd, or The Plague of Envy</i> (1747).</p>
-<p class="hang">129. Lawrence Echard, Prefaces to <i>Terence's Comedies</i> (1694) and <i>Plautus's Comedies</i> (1694).</p>
-<p>130. Henry More, <i>Democritus Platonissans</i> (1646).</p>
-<p class="hang">131. John Evelyn, <i>The History of Sabatai Sevi, The Suppos'd Messiah of the Jews</i> (1669).</p>
-<p class="hang">132. Walter Harte, <i>An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad</i> (1730).</p></div>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 35%;" />
-<h4>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los Angeles</h4>
-
-<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3>
-
-<h5>2520 CIMARRON STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90018</h5>
-
-<p class="center"><i>General Editors:</i> William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial
-Library; George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles;
-Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles</p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>Corresponding Secretary:</i> Mrs. Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark
-Memorial Library</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Style Sheet</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<h5>Make check or money order payable to <span class="smcap">The Regents of the University of California</span></h5>
-
-<p> </p>
-<h5>REGULAR PUBLICATIONS FOR 1968-1969</h5>
-
-<p class="hang">133. John Courtenay, <i>A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral
-Character of the Late Samuel Johnson</i> (1786). Introduction by Robert E.
-Kelley.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">134. John Downes, <i>Roscius Anglicanus</i> (1708). Introduction by John
-Loftis.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">135. Sir John Hill, <i>Hypochondriasis, a Practical Treatise on the Nature
-and Cure of that Disorder Call'd the Hyp or Hypo</i> (1766). Introduction
-by G. S. Rousseau.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">136. Thomas Sheridan, <i>Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course of
-Lectures on Elocution and the English Language</i> (1759). Introduction by
-G. P. Mohrman.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">137. Arthur Murphy, <i>The Englishman From Paris</i> (1756). Introduction by
-Simon Trefman. Previously unpublished manuscript.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">138. [Catherine Trotter], <i>Olinda's Adventures</i> (1718). Introduction by
-Robert Adams Day.</p>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-<h5>SPECIAL PUBLICATION FOR 1968-1969</h5>
-
-<p><i>After <big>THE TEMPEST</big></i>. Introduction by George Robert Guffey.</p>
-
-<p>Next in the continuing series of special publications by the Society
-will be <i>After THE TEMPEST</i>, a volume including the Dryden-Davenant
-version of <i>The Tempest</i> (1670); the "operatic" <i>Tempest</i> (1674); Thomas
-Duffet's <i>Mock-Tempest</i> (1675); and the "Garrick" <i>Tempest</i> (1756), with
-an Introduction by George Robert Guffey.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p>Already published in this series are:</p>
-
-<p class="hang">1. John Ogilby, <i>The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse</i> (1668), with
-an Introduction by Earl Miner.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">2. John Gay, <i>Fables</i> (1727, 1738), with an Introduction by Vinton A.
-Dearing.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">3. Elkanah Settle, <i>The Empress of Morocco</i> (1673) with five plates;
-<i>Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco</i> (1674) by John
-Dryden, John Crowne and Thomas Shadwell; <i>Notes and Observations on the
-Empress of Morocco Revised</i> (1674) by Elkanah Settle; and <i>The Empress
-of Morocco. A Farce</i> (1674) by Thomas Duffet; with an Introduction by
-Maximillian E. Novak.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class="u">Transcriber's Notes:</span></p>
-
-<p>Long "s" has been modernized.</p>
-<p>Printer's inconsistencies have been retained.</p>
-<p>The original text contains two sections labeled "Sect. V."</p>
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***</div>
-</body>
-</html>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hypochondriasis, by John Hill</title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr { width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin solid gray;} + + p.dropcap:first-letter{float: left; padding-right: 3px; font-size: 250%; line-height: 83%; width:auto;} + .caps {text-transform:uppercase;} + + .spacer {padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;} + .ads {margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 20%;} + .hang {margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hypochondriasis, by John Hill</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>JOHN HILL</h2> +<h1>HYPOCHONDRIASIS</h1> +<h3>A PRACTICAL TREATISE.</h3> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>(1766)</h3> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4><i>Introduction by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">G. S. Rousseau</span></h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>PUBLICATION NUMBER 135<br /> +WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY<br /> +<span class="smcap">University of California, Los Angeles</span><br /> +1969</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="editors"> +<tr> +<td align="center"> +<b>GENERAL EDITORS</b><br /> +William E. Conway, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br /> +George Robert Guffey, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +Maximillian E. Novak, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>ASSOCIATE EDITOR</b><br /> +David S. Rodes, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>ADVISORY EDITORS</b><br /> +Richard C. Boys, <i>University of Michigan</i><br /> +James L. Clifford, <i>Columbia University</i><br /> +Ralph Cohen, <i>University of Virginia</i><br /> +Vinton A. Dearing, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +Arthur Friedman, <i>University of Chicago</i><br /> +Louis A. Landa, <i>Princeton University</i><br /> +Earl Miner, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +Samuel H. Monk, <i>University of Minnesota</i><br /> +Everett T. Moore, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +Lawrence Clark Powell, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br /> +James Sutherland, <i>University College, London</i><br /> +H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br /> +Robert Vosper, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>CORRESPONDING SECRETARY</b><br /> +Edna C. Davis, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>EDITORIAL ASSISTANT</b><br /> +Mary Kerbret, <i>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library</i></td></tr></table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When I first dabbled in this art, the old distemper call'd +<i>Melancholy</i> was exchang'd for <i>Vapours</i>, and afterwards for the +<i>Hypp</i>, and at last took up the now current appellation of the +<i>Spleen</i>, which it still retains, tho' a learned doctor of the +west, in a little tract he hath written, divides the <i>Spleen</i> and +<i>Vapours</i>, not only into the <i>Hypp</i>, the <i>Hyppos</i>, and the +Hyppocons; but subdivides these divisions into the <i>Markambles</i>, +the <i>Moonpalls</i>, the <i>Strong-Fiacs</i>, and the <i>Hockogrokles</i>."</p> + +<p class="right">Nicholas Robinson, <i>A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and +Hypochondriack Melancholy</i> (London, 1729)</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p>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 <i>Hypochondriasis</i> in 1766.<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small> 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 <i>materia scripta</i> on the +subject it makes sense to reprint Hill's <i>Hypochondriasis</i>, 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span>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.<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small> Their +concern is apparent in both the poetry and prose of two centuries. From +Robert Burton's Brobdingnagian exposition in <i>The Anatomy of Melancholy</i> +(1621) to Tobias Smollett's depiction of the misanthropic and ailing +Matthew Bramble in <i>Humphry Clinker</i> (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 <i>Reliquiae Baxterianae</i>,<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> are +afflicted), Swift's "School of Spleen" in <i>A Tale of a Tub</i>, 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 <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i> and +<i>Tristram Shandy</i>, Boswell's <i>Hypochondriack Papers</i> (1777-1783) +contributed to the <i>London Magazine</i>, 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."<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> 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.<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small></p> + +<p>The medical background of Hill's pamphlet extends further back than the +seventeenth century and Burton's <i>Anatomy</i>. The ancient Greeks had +theorized about hypochondria: ὐποχόνδριασις signified a +disorder beneath (ὐπό) the gristle (χόνδρια) and the +disease was discussed principally in physiological terms. The belief +that hypochondriasis was a somatic condition persisted until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> 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.<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small> +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 <i>The Beaux' +Stratagem</i> (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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>The +Hyp: a Burlesque Poem in Five Canto's</i> (1731) and Tim Scrubb's <i>A Rod +for the Hyp-Doctor</i> (1731) were devoted to this strain; others, like +Malcom Flemyng's epic poem, <i>Neuropathia: sive de morbis hypochondriacis +et hystericis, libri tres, poema medicum</i> (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'"<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small>; 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 <i>Angst</i>. It +was also used as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> synonym for "lunacy," as the anonymous author of +<i>Anti-Siris</i> (1744), one of the tracts in the tar-water controversy, +informs us that "Berkeley tells his Countrymen, they are all mad, or +<i>Hypochondriac</i>, which is but a fashionable name for Madness." Bernard +Mandeville, the Dutch physician and author of <i>The Fable of the Bees</i>, +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 <i>Treatise of the Hypochondriack and +Hysteric Passions, Vulgarly Call'd the Hypo in Men and Vapours in Women</i> +(1711). The mental causes are noted as well in an anonymous pamphlet in +the British Museum, <i>A Treatise on the Dismal Effects of +Low-Spiritedness</i> (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:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>...of that Disorder we call the Vapours, or <i>Hypochondria</i>; 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 <i>Hypochondria</i> 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.<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small></p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> 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 +<i>Medicinal Dictionary</i> (London, 1743-45):</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If we thoroughly consider its Nature, it will be found to be a +spasmodico-flatulent Disorder of the <i>Primae Viae</i>, 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").</p></div> + +<p>This is a more technical description than Hill gives anywhere in his +handbook, but it serves well to summarize the background of <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'the the'">the</ins> condition +about which Sir John wrote.</p> + +<p>Hill's <i>Hypochondriasis</i> 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 <i>The English Malady</i> (1733) and <i>The Natural Method of Cureing the +Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the +Body</i> (1742) Hill knew. He is also con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>versant with some Continental +writers on the subject, two of whom—Isaac Biberg, author of The +<i>Oeconomy of Nature</i> (1751), and René Réaumur who had written a history +of insects (1722)<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small>—he mentions explicitly, and with William +Stukeley's <i>Of the Spleen</i> (1723). Internal evidence indicates that Hill +had read or was familiar with the ideas propounded in Richard +Blackmore's <i>Treatise of the Spleen and Vapours</i> (1725) and Nicholas +Robinson's <i>A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack +Melancholy</i> (1729).</p> + +<p>Hill's arrangement of sections is logical: he first defines the +condition (<a href="#Page_3">I</a>), then proceeds to discuss persons most susceptible to it +(<a href="#Page_6">II</a>), its major symptoms (<a href="#Page_12">III</a>), consequences (<a href="#Page_16">IV</a>), causes (<a href="#Page_20">V</a>), and cures +(<a href="#Page_22">VI-VIII</a>). 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. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>) of +the most prevalent physiological <i>symptoms</i> ("lowness of spirits, and +inaptitude to motion; a disrelish of amusements, a love of solitude.... +Wild thoughts; a sense of fullness") and <i>causes</i> (the poor and damp +English climate and the resultant clotting of blood in the spleen) of +the illness.</p> + +<p>Sections <a href="#Page_20">V-VIII</a>, 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,<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small> which Smollett satirized through the mouth of +Tabitha Bramble in <i>Humphry Clinker</i> (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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>—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. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>). 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.<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> "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. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>).</p> + +<p>Still more idiosyncratic, perhaps, is Hill's contention (p. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>) 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,<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small> 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 <i>apologia +pro vita sua</i> in Augustan fashion:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>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. <a href="#Page_26">26-27</a>).</p></div> + +<p>Hill was forever extolling the claims of a life devoted to the study of +nature, as we see in a late work, <i>The Virtues of British Herbs</i> (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."</p> + +<p>While Hill's rules and regulations regarding proper diet (<a href="#Page_31">Section VII</a>) +are standard, several taken almost <i>verbatim et literatim</i> from Cheyne's +list in <i>The English Malady</i> (1733), his recommendation (<a href="#Page_35">Section VIII</a>) +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.<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> 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 <i>The British Herbal</i> (1756), <i>On the +Virtues of Sage in Lengthening Human Life</i> (1763), <i>Centaury, the Great +Stomachic</i> (1765), <i>Polypody</i> (1768), <i>A Method of Curing Jaundice</i> +(1768), <i>Instances of the Virtue of Petasite Root</i> (1771), and <i>Twenty +Five New Plants</i> (1773).<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small> 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 <i>Primitive Physick</i> +(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 <i>London Pharmacopeia</i>. "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. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>).<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small> 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. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>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, <i>Essays on Insanity, Hypochondriasis +and Other Nervous Affections</i> (1816), which summarizes theories of the +malady.<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small> 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.</p> + +<p>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."<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small></p> + +<p>University of California,<br /> +Los Angeles<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> +<h3>NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> 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, <i>Hypochondriasis; a Practical Treatise On +the Nature and Cure of that Disorder, Commonly called the Hyp and the +Hypo</i>. The copy in the Royal Society of Medicine contains, among other +additions, the words "by Sir John Hill" in pencil, and "8<sup>vo</sup> Lond. +1766," written in ink and probably a later addition.</p> + +<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> 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 <i>Dictionary</i> +(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," <i>Backgrounds of English Literature 1700-1760</i> (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.</p> + +<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> See Samuel Clifford's <i>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</i> (London, 1716) in the British Museum.</p> + +<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> <i>Backgrounds of English Literature</i>, p. 179.</p> + +<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> See my forthcoming biography, _The Literary Quack: A Life of 'Sir' +John Hill of London_, and John Kennedy's <i>Some Remarks on the Life and +Writings of Dr. J—— H——, Inspector General of Great Britain</i> (London, 1752).</p> + +<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> For some of this background see L. J. Rather, <i>Mind and Body in +Eighteenth Century Medicine: A Study Based on Jerome Gaub's De Regimine Mentis</i> (London, 1965), pp. 135-90 <i>passim</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> <i>Science and Literature 1700-1740</i> (London, 1964), pp. 50-51.</p> + +<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> <i>A New Theory of Physick</i> (London, 1725), p. 56.</p> + +<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> Biberg was a Swedish naturalist and had studied botany under +Linnaeus in Uppsala; Réaumur, a French botanist, had contributed papers +to the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i> of the Royal Society in London.</p> + +<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> <i>The Power of Water-Dock against the Scurvy whether in the Plain +Root or Essence....</i> (London, 1765), had been published six months +earlier than <i>Hypochondriasis</i> and had earned Hill a handsome profit.</p> + +<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> I have treated aspects of this subject in my article, "Matt Bramble +and The Sulphur Controversy in the XVIIIth Century: Medical Background +of <i>Humphry Clinker</i>," <i>JHI</i>, XXVIII (1967), 577-90.</p> + +<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> See, for example, Jeremiah Waineright, <i>A Mechanical Account of the +Non-Naturals</i> (1707); John Arbuthnot, <i>An Essay Concerning the Effects +of Air on Human Bodies</i> (1733); Frank Nichols, <i>De Anima Medica</i> (1750).</p> + +<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> Hill's correspondence is not published but shall be printed as an appendix to my forthcoming biography.</p> + +<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> I have discussed some of these works in connection with the medical +background of John Wesley's <i>Primitive Physick</i> (1747). See G. S. +Rousseau, <i>Harvard Library Bulletin</i>, XVI (1968), 242-56.</p> + +<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> It is difficult to know with certainty when Hill first became +interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in <i>The British +Herbal</i> (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he opened an apothecary shop.</p> + +<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled <i>De Insania</i> (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, <i>Hypochondria</i> (London, +1928), William K. Richmond, <i>The English Disease</i> (London, 1958), +Charles Chenevix Trench, <i>The Royal Malady</i> (New York, 1964), and Ilza +Vieth, <i>Hysteria: The History of a Disease</i> (Chicago, 1965), and "On +Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," <i>Bulletin of the History of Medicine</i>, XXX (1956), 233-40.</p> + +<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> Joseph Spence, <i>Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books +and Men</i>, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264.</p> + +<p>I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts in writing this introduction.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</h3> + + +<p class="center">The text of this facsimile of <i>Hypochondriasis</i> is reproduced from a +copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.png" alt="" /></div> +<h1>HYPOCHONDRIASIS.</h1> +<h2>A</h2> +<h2>PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c.</h2> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.png" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect1.png" alt="" /></div> +<h2>HYPOCHONDRIASIS.</h2> + +<p> </p> +<h3>SECT. I.</h3> + +<h3>The <span class="smcap">Nature</span> of the <span class="smcap">Disorder</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">To</span> 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> assistance of frequent watching it in all its +stages.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect2.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. II.</h3> + +<h3>Persons Subject to it.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Fatigue</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="smcap">Young</span>; 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!</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> will, +without due care, encrease it to the most dreaded violence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> have no use +unless accompanied with resolution to enforce it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> 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.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect3.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. III.</h3> + +<h3>The <span class="smcap">Symptoms</span> of the <span class="smcap">Disorder</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">The</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> bowels, and an unaptness to +discharge their contents.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>I have known the temporary silence that follows upon this last <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'sympton'">symptom</ins> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect4.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. IV.</h3> + +<h3>The <span class="smcap">Danger</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">We</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> course of nature, what can describe; or what can stop its +havock!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +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.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect5_1.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. V.</h3> + +<h3>The Causes of the <span class="smcap">Hypochondriasis</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">The</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> 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</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>At midnight hour</i></span><br /> +<i>Be seen in some high lonely tower,</i><small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small></div> + +<p>will waste the flame of this unheeded life: and while he labours to +unsphere the spirit of Plato<small><a href="#f18">[18]</a></small> will let loose his own.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect5_2.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. V.</h3> + +<h3>The Cure of the <span class="smcap">Hypochondriasis</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Let</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The bleeding of the piles, from nature's single efforts, has at once +cured a miserable man; where their cessation was the cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> 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 <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'symptons'">symptoms</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The general and universal method of cure must be by some mild and gently +resolving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect6.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. VI.</h3> + +<h3>Rules of Life for Hypochondriac Persons.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">Air</span> 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.</p> + +<p>The air he breathes should be temperate; not exposed to the utmost +violences of heat and cold, and the swift changes from one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 diarrhœas.</p> + +<p>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 ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>ject. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> 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!<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> search of him, he +scatters it about the ground; which it manures.</p> + +<p>Nor is it the beetle alone that thus insinuates itself into the +substance of the vegetable tribe: the tender aphide<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small>, 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.</p> + +<p>'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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The more than usual exercise of this prescription will dispose him to +more than custo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>mary sleep, let him indulge it freely; so far from +hurting, it will help his cure.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect7.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. VII.</h3> + +<h3>The proper <span class="smcap">Diet</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">In</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The late Dr. <span class="smcap">Stukely</span> has told me, that one day by appointment visiting +Sir <span class="smcap">Isaac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></span> <span class="smcap">Newton</span>, 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 <span class="smcap">Isaac</span> 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 <span class="smcap">Stukely</span> with a smile; "See says he, what we studious +people are, I forgot I had din'd."</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sect8.png" alt="" /></div> +<h3>SECT. VIII.</h3> + +<h3>The <span class="smcap">Medicine</span>.</h3> + + +<p class='dropcap'><span class="caps">'Tis</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="smcap">Spleen-wort</span><small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small>. 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> the good gardener who receives the honour, +may call another by his name who gave it. We now add the term <i>smooth</i> +to this herb, to distinguish it from another, called by the same general +term, though not much resembling it.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="smcap">Milt-waste</span>.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +known any longer; and they suppose 'tis added to their liquor for a +flavour.</p> + +<p>The antients 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<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small>. 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.</p> + +<p>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<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> 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?</p> + +<p>From this plant thus collected they prepared a medicine, which in a +course of forty days scarce ever failed to make a perfect cure.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I would not be understood to limit the little services I may this way be +able to render<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><b><span class="spacer">F</span><span class="spacer">I</span><span class="spacer">N</span><span class="spacer">I</span><span class="spacer">S.</span></b></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 30%;" /> +<p><span class="u">Footnotes:</span></p> + +<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> Milton's Penseroso.</p> + +<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> Biberg.</p> + +<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> Reaumur.</p> + +<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> ασπλενον</p> + +<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> Silente Luna.</p> + +<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> Pulvis Aureus.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3> + +<h3>WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK</h3> +<h3>MEMORIAL LIBRARY</h3> +<h3>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT</h4> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/emblem.png" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> + +<h4>1948-1949</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>16. Henry Nevil Payne, <i>The Fatal Jealousie</i> (1673).</p> +<p class="hang">18. Anonymous, "Of Genius," in <i>The Occasional Paper</i>, Vol. III, No. 10 (1719), and Aaron Hill, Preface to <i>The Creation</i> (1720).</p></div> + + +<h4>1949-1950</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>19. Susanna Centlivre, <i>The Busie Body</i> (1709).</p> +<p>20. Lewis Theobald, <i>Preface to the Works of Shakespeare</i> (1734).</p> +<p class="hang">22. Samuel Johnson, <i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i> (1749), and two <i>Rambler</i> papers (1750).</p> +<p>23. John Dryden, <i>His Majesties Declaration Defended</i> (1681).</p></div> + + +<h4>1951-1952</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p class="hang">31. Thomas Gray, <i>An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard</i> (1751), and <i>The Eton College Manuscript</i>.</p></div> + + +<h4>1952-1953</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>41. Bernard Mandeville, <i>A Letter to Dion</i> (1732).</p></div> + + +<h4>1963-1964</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p class="hang">104. Thomas D'Urfey, <i>Wonders in the Sun; or, The Kingdom of the Birds</i> (1706).</p></div> + + +<h4>1964-1965</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>110. John Tutchin, <i>Selected Poems</i> (1685-1700).</p> +<p>111. Anonymous, <i>Political Justice</i> (1736).</p> +<p>112. Robert Dodsley, <i>An Essay on Fable</i> (1764).</p> +<p>113. T. R., <i>An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning</i> (1698).</p> +<p class="hang">114. <i>Two Poems Against Pope</i>: Leonard Welsted, <i>One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope</i> (1730), and Anonymous, <i>The Blatant Beast</i> (1742).</p></div> + + +<h4>1965-1966</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>115. Daniel Defoe and others, <i>Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal</i>.</p> +<p>116. Charles Macklin, <i>The Covent Garden Theatre</i> (1752).</p> +<p>117. Sir George L'Estrange, <i>Citt and Bumpkin</i> (1680).</p> +<p>118. Henry More, <i>Enthusiasmus Triumphatus</i> (1662).</p> +<p class="hang">119. Thomas Traherne, <i>Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation</i> (1717).</p> +<p class="hang">120. Bernard Mandeville, <i>Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables</i> (1704).</p></div> + + +<h4>1966-1967</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p class="hang">123. Edmond Malone, <i>Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Mr. Thomas Rowley</i> (1782).</p> +<p>124. Anonymous, <i>The Female Wits</i> (1704).</p> +<p class="hang">125. Anonymous, <i>The Scribleriad</i> (1742). Lord Hervey, <i>The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue</i> (1742).</p> +<p class="hang">126. <i>Le Lutrin: an Heroick Poem, Written Originally in French by Monsieur Boileau: Made English by N. O.</i> (1682).</p></div> + + +<h4>1967-1968</h4> +<div class="ads"> +<p>127-</p> +<p class="hang">128. Charles Macklin, <i>A Will and No Will, or a Bone for the Lawyers</i> (1746). <i>The New Play Criticiz'd, or The Plague of Envy</i> (1747).</p> +<p class="hang">129. Lawrence Echard, Prefaces to <i>Terence's Comedies</i> (1694) and <i>Plautus's Comedies</i> (1694).</p> +<p>130. Henry More, <i>Democritus Platonissans</i> (1646).</p> +<p class="hang">131. John Evelyn, <i>The History of Sabatai Sevi, The Suppos'd Messiah of the Jews</i> (1669).</p> +<p class="hang">132. Walter Harte, <i>An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad</i> (1730).</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> +<h4>William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los Angeles</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Augustan Reprint Society</span></h3> + +<h5>2520 CIMARRON STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90018</h5> + +<p class="center"><i>General Editors:</i> William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial +Library; George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles; +Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Corresponding Secretary:</i> Mrs. Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark +Memorial Library</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Style Sheet</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h5>Make check or money order payable to <span class="smcap">The Regents of the University of California</span></h5> + +<p> </p> +<h5>REGULAR PUBLICATIONS FOR 1968-1969</h5> + +<p class="hang">133. John Courtenay, <i>A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral +Character of the Late Samuel Johnson</i> (1786). Introduction by Robert E. +Kelley.</p> + +<p class="hang">134. John Downes, <i>Roscius Anglicanus</i> (1708). Introduction by John +Loftis.</p> + +<p class="hang">135. Sir John Hill, <i>Hypochondriasis, a Practical Treatise on the Nature +and Cure of that Disorder Call'd the Hyp or Hypo</i> (1766). Introduction +by G. S. Rousseau.</p> + +<p class="hang">136. Thomas Sheridan, <i>Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course of +Lectures on Elocution and the English Language</i> (1759). Introduction by +G. P. Mohrman.</p> + +<p class="hang">137. Arthur Murphy, <i>The Englishman From Paris</i> (1756). Introduction by +Simon Trefman. Previously unpublished manuscript.</p> + +<p class="hang">138. [Catherine Trotter], <i>Olinda's Adventures</i> (1718). Introduction by +Robert Adams Day.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h5>SPECIAL PUBLICATION FOR 1968-1969</h5> + +<p><i>After <big>THE TEMPEST</big></i>. Introduction by George Robert Guffey.</p> + +<p>Next in the continuing series of special publications by the Society +will be <i>After THE TEMPEST</i>, a volume including the Dryden-Davenant +version of <i>The Tempest</i> (1670); the "operatic" <i>Tempest</i> (1674); Thomas +Duffet's <i>Mock-Tempest</i> (1675); and the "Garrick" <i>Tempest</i> (1756), with +an Introduction by George Robert Guffey.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>Already published in this series are:</p> + +<p class="hang">1. John Ogilby, <i>The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse</i> (1668), with +an Introduction by Earl Miner.</p> + +<p class="hang">2. John Gay, <i>Fables</i> (1727, 1738), with an Introduction by Vinton A. +Dearing.</p> + +<p class="hang">3. Elkanah Settle, <i>The Empress of Morocco</i> (1673) with five plates; +<i>Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco</i> (1674) by John +Dryden, John Crowne and Thomas Shadwell; <i>Notes and Observations on the +Empress of Morocco Revised</i> (1674) by Elkanah Settle; and <i>The Empress +of Morocco. A Farce</i> (1674) by Thomas Duffet; with an Introduction by +Maximillian E. Novak.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="u">Transcriber's Notes:</span></p> + +<p>Long "s" has been modernized.</p> +<p>Printer's inconsistencies have been retained.</p> +<p>The original text contains two sections labeled "Sect. V."</p> +<p>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.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30099 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |