The Anatomy of Melancholy. Robert Burton
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spirits first, and after humours, by which we are preserved, and the constitution of our body, Fernelius and others will show you. I hasten to the thing itself: and first of such diet as offends in substance.
Beef.] Beef, a strong and hearty meat (cold in the first degree, dry in the second, saith Gal. l. 3. c. 1. de alim. fac.) is condemned by him and all succeeding Authors, to breed gross melancholy blood: good for such as are sound, and of a strong constitution, for labouring men if ordered aright, corned, young, of an ox (for all gelded meats in every species are held best), or if old, [1350]such as have been tired out with labour, are preferred. Aubanus and Sabellicus commend Portugal beef to be the most savoury, best and easiest of digestion; we commend ours: but all is rejected, and unfit for such as lead a resty life, any ways inclined to melancholy, or dry of complexion: Tales (Galen thinks) de facile melancholicis aegritudinibus capiuntur.
Pork.] Pork, of all meats, is most nutritive in his own nature, [1351] but altogether unfit for such as live at ease, are any ways unsound of body or mind: too moist, full of humours, and therefore noxia delicatis, saith Savanarola, ex earum usu ut dubitetur an febris quartana generetur: naught for queasy stomachs, insomuch that frequent use of it may breed a quartan ague.
Goat.] Savanarola discommends goat's flesh, and so doth [1352]Bruerinus, l. 13. c. 19, calling it a filthy beast, and rammish: and therefore supposeth it will breed rank and filthy substance; yet kid, such as are young and tender, Isaac accepts, Bruerinus and Galen, l. 1. c. 1. de alimentorum facultatibus.
Hart.] Hart and red deer [1353]hath an evil name: it yields gross nutriment: a strong and great grained meat, next unto a horse. Which although some countries eat, as Tartars, and they of China; yet [1354] Galen condemns. Young foals are as commonly eaten in Spain as red deer, and to furnish their navies, about Malaga especially, often used; but such meats ask long baking, or seething, to qualify them, and yet all will not serve.
Venison, Fallow Deer.] All venison is melancholy, and begets bad blood; a pleasant meat: in great esteem with us (for we have more parks in England than there are in all Europe besides) in our solemn feasts. 'Tis somewhat better hunted than otherwise, and well prepared by cookery; but generally bad, and seldom to be used.
Hare.] Hare, a black meat, melancholy, and hard of digestion, it breeds incubus, often eaten, and causeth fearful dreams, so doth all venison, and is condemned by a jury of physicians. Mizaldus and some others say, that hare is a merry meat, and that it will make one fair, as Martial's epigram testifies to Gellia; but this is per accidens, because of the good sport it makes, merry company and good discourse that is commonly at the eating of it, and not otherwise to be understood.
Conies.] [1355]Conies are of the nature of hares. Magninus compares them to beef, pig, and goat, Reg. sanit. part. 3. c. 17; yet young rabbits by all men are approved to be good.
Generally, all such meats as are hard of digestion breed melancholy. Areteus, lib. 7. cap. 5, reckons up heads and feet, [1356]bowels, brains, entrails, marrow, fat, blood, skins, and those inward parts, as heart, lungs, liver, spleen, &c. They are rejected by Isaac, lib. 2. part. 3, Magninus, part. 3. cap. 17, Bruerinus, lib. 12, Savanarola, Rub. 32. Tract. 2.
Milk.] Milk, and all that comes of milk, as butter and cheese, curds, &c., increase melancholy (whey only excepted, which is most wholesome): [1357]some except asses' milk. The rest, to such as are sound, is nutritive and good, especially for young children, but because soon turned to corruption, [1358]not good for those that have unclean stomachs, are subject to headache, or have green wounds, stone, &c. Of all cheeses, I take that kind which we call Banbury cheese to be the best, ex vetustis pessimus, the older, stronger, and harder, the worst, as Langius discourseth in his Epistle to Melancthon, cited by Mizaldus, Isaac, p. 5. Gal. 3. de cibis boni succi. &c.
Fowl.] Amongst fowl, [1359]peacocks and pigeons, all fenny fowl are forbidden, as ducks, geese, swans, herons, cranes, coots, didappers, water-hens, with all those teals, curs, sheldrakes, and peckled fowls, that come hither in winter out of Scandia, Muscovy, Greenland, Friesland, which half the year are covered all over with snow, and frozen up. Though these be fair in feathers, pleasant in taste, and have a good outside, like hypocrites, white in plumes, and soft, their flesh is hard, black, unwholesome, dangerous, melancholy meat; Gravant et putrefaciant stomachum, saith Isaac, part. 5. de vol., their young ones are more tolerable, but young pigeons he quite disapproves.
Fishes.] Rhasis and [1360]Magninus discommend all fish, and say, they breed viscosities, slimy nutriment, little and humorous nourishment. Savanarola adds, cold, moist: and phlegmatic, Isaac; and therefore unwholesome for all cold and melancholy complexions: others make a difference, rejecting only amongst freshwater fish, eel, tench, lamprey, crawfish (which Bright approves, cap. 6), and such as are bred in muddy and standing waters, and have a taste of mud, as Franciscus Bonsuetus poetically defines, Lib. de aquatilibus.
"Nam pisces omnes, qui stagna, lacusque frequentant,
Semper plus succi deterioris habent."
"All fish, that standing pools, and lakes frequent,
Do ever yield bad juice and nourishment."
Lampreys, Paulus Jovius, c. 34. de piscibus fluvial., highly magnifies, and saith, None speak against them, but inepti et scrupulosi, some scrupulous persons; but [1361]eels, c. 33, "he abhorreth in all places, at all times, all physicians detest them, especially about the solstice." Gomesius, lib. 1. c. 22, de sale, doth immoderately extol sea-fish, which others as much vilify, and above the rest, dried, soused, indurate fish, as ling, fumados, red-herrings, sprats, stock-fish, haberdine, poor-John, all shellfish. [1362]Tim. Bright excepts lobster and crab. Messarius commends salmon, which Bruerinus contradicts, lib. 22. c. 17. Magninus rejects conger, sturgeon, turbot, mackerel, skate.
Carp is a fish of which I know not what to determine. Franciscus Bonsuetus accounts it a muddy fish. Hippolitus Salvianus, in his Book de Piscium natura et praeparatione, which was printed at Rome in folio, 1554, with most elegant pictures, esteems carp no better than a slimy watery meat. Paulus Jovius on the other side, disallowing tench, approves of it; so doth Dubravius in his Books of Fishponds. Freitagius [1363]extols it for an excellent wholesome meat, and puts it amongst the fishes of the best rank; and so do most of our country gentlemen, that store their ponds almost with no other fish. But this controversy is easily decided, in my judgment, by Bruerinus, l. 22. c. 13. The difference riseth from the site and nature of pools, [1364]sometimes muddy, sometimes sweet; they are in taste as the place is from whence they be taken. In like manner almost we may conclude of other fresh fish. But see more in Rondoletius, Bellonius, Oribasius, lib. 7. cap. 22, Isaac, l. 1, especially Hippolitus Salvianus, who is instar omnium solus, &c. Howsoever they may be wholesome and approved, much use of them is not good; P. Forestus, in his medicinal observations, [1365]relates, that Carthusian friars, whose living is most part fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other order, and that he found by experience, being sometimes their physician ordinary at Delft, in Holland. He exemplifies it with an instance of one Buscodnese, a Carthusian of a ruddy colour, and well liking, that by solitary living, and fish-eating, became so misaffected.
Herbs.] Amongst herbs to be eaten I find gourds, cucumbers, coleworts, melons, disallowed, but especially cabbage. It causeth troublesome dreams, and sends up black vapours to the brain. Galen, loc. affect. l. 3. c. 6, of all herbs condemns cabbage; and Isaac, lib. 2. c. 1. Animae gravitatem facit, it brings heaviness to the soul. Some are of opinion that all raw herbs and salads breed melancholy blood, except bugloss and lettuce. Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2, speaks against all herbs and worts, except borage, bugloss, fennel, parsley, dill, balm, succory. Magninus, regim. sanitatis, part. 3. cap. 31. Omnes herbae simpliciter malae, via cibi; all herbs are simply evil to feed on (as he thinks). So did that scoffing cook in [1366]Plautus hold:
"Non ego coenam condio ut alii coqui solent,
Qui mihi condita prata in patinis proferunt,
Boves qui convivas faciunt, herbasque aggerunt."