The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton

13. subtil. "It mends the substance, and savour of it," but it is a paradox. Such beer may be stronger, but not so wholesome as the other, as [1388]Jobertus truly justifieth out of Galen, Paradox, dec. 1. Paradox 5, that the seething of such impure waters doth not purge or purify them, Pliny, lib. 31. c. 3, is of the same tenet, and P. Crescentius, agricult. lib. 1. et lib. 4. c. 11. et c. 45. Pamphilius Herilachus, l. 4. de not. aquarum, such waters are naught, not to be used, and by the testimony of [1389]Galen, "breed agues, dropsies, pleurisies, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the eyes, cause a bad temperature, and ill disposition of the whole body, with bad colour." This Jobertus stiffly maintains, Paradox, lib. 1. part. 5, that it causeth blear eyes, bad colour, and many loathsome diseases to such as use it: this which they say, stands with good reason; for as geographers relate, the water of Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to their bodies." So that they that use filthy, standing, ill-coloured, thick, muddy water, must needs have muddy, ill-coloured, impure, and infirm bodies. And because the body works upon the mind, they shall have grosser understandings, dull, foggy, melancholy spirits, and be really subject to all manner of infirmities.

      To these noxious simples, we may reduce an infinite number of compound, artificial, made dishes, of which our cooks afford us a great variety, as tailors do fashions in our apparel. Such are [1394]puddings stuffed with blood, or otherwise composed; baked, meats, soused indurate meats, fried and broiled buttered meats; condite, powdered, and over-dried, [1395]all cakes, simnels, buns, cracknels made with butter, spice, &c., fritters, pancakes, pies, sausages, and those several sauces, sharp, or over-sweet, of which scientia popinae, as Seneca calls it, hath served those [1396] Apician tricks, and perfumed dishes, which Adrian the sixth Pope so much admired in the accounts of his predecessor Leo Decimus; and which prodigious riot and prodigality have invented in this age. These do generally engender gross humours, fill the stomach with crudities, and all those inward parts with obstructions. Montanus, consil. 22, gives instance, in a melancholy Jew, that by eating such tart sauces, made dishes, and salt meats, with which he was overmuch delighted, became melancholy, and was evil affected. Such examples are familiar and common.

      SUBSECT. II.—Quantity of Diet a Cause.

      There is not so much harm proceeding from the substance itself of meat, and quality of it, in ill-dressing and preparing, as there is from the quantity, disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, [1397] intemperance, overmuch, or overlittle taking of it. A true saying it is, Plures crapula quam gladius. This gluttony kills more than the sword, this omnivorantia et homicida gula, this all-devouring and murdering gut. And that of [1398]Pliny is truer, "Simple diet is the best; heaping up of several meats is pernicious, and sauces worse; many dishes bring many diseases." [1399]Avicen cries out, "That nothing is worse than to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats longer than ordinary; from thence proceed our infirmities, and 'tis the fountain of all diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross humours." Thence, saith [1400] Fernelius, come crudities, wind, oppilations, cacochymia, plethora, cachexia, bradiopepsia, [1401]Hinc subitae, mortes, atque intestata senectus, sudden death, &c., and what not.

      As a lamp is choked with a multitude of oil, or a little fire with overmuch wood quite extinguished, so is the natural heat with immoderate eating, strangled in the body. Pernitiosa sentina est abdomen insaturabile: one saith, An insatiable paunch is a pernicious sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both of body and mind. [1402]Mercurialis will have it a peculiar cause of this private disease; Solenander, consil. 5. sect. 3, illustrates this of Mercurialis, with an example of one so melancholy, ab intempestivis commessationibus, unseasonable feasting. [1403]Crato confirms as much, in that often cited counsel, 21. lib. 2, putting superfluous eating for a main cause. But what need I seek farther for proofs? Hear [1404]Hippocrates himself, lib. 2. aphor. 10, "Impure bodies the more they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is putrefied with vicious humours."

      And yet for all this harm, which apparently follows surfeiting and drunkenness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kind; read what Johannes Stuckius hath written lately of this subject, in his great volume De Antiquorum Conviviis, and of our present age; Quam [1405]portentosae coenae, prodigious suppers, [1406]Qui dum invitant ad coenam efferunt ad sepulchrum, what Fagos, Epicures, Apetios, Heliogables, our times afford? Lucullus' ghost walks still, and every man desires to sup in Apollo; Aesop's costly dish is ordinarily served up. [1407]Magis illa juvant, quae pluris emuntur. The dearest cates are best, and 'tis an ordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pounds on a dish, some thousand crowns upon a dinner: [1408]Mully-Hamet, king of Fez and Morocco, spent three pounds on the sauce of a capon: it is nothing in our times, we scorn all that is cheap. "We loathe the very [1409]light" (some of us, as Seneca notes) "because it comes free, and we are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy them not." This air we breathe is so common, we care not for it; nothing pleaseth but what is dear. And if we be [1410]witty in anything, it is ad gulam: If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the palate, and to satisfy the gut. "A cook of old was a base knave" (as [1411]Livy complains), "but now a great man in request; cookery is become an art, a noble science: cooks are gentlemen:" Venter Deus: They wear "their brains in their bellies, and their guts in their heads," as [1412]Agrippa taxed some parasites of his time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a man should run upon the point of a sword, usque dum rumpantur comedunt, "They eat till they burst:" [1413]All day, all night, let the physician say what he will, imminent danger, and feral diseases are now ready to seize upon them, that will eat till they vomit, Edunt ut vomant, vomut ut edant, saith Seneca; which Dion relates of Vitellius, Solo transitu ciborum nutriri judicatus: His meat did pass through and away, or till they burst again. [1414]Strage animantium ventrem onerant, and rake over all the world, as so many [1415]slaves, belly-gods, and land-serpents, Et totus orbis ventri nimis angustus, the whole world cannot satisfy their appetite. [1416]"Sea, land, rivers, lakes, &c., may not give content to their raging guts." To make up the mess, what immoderate drinking in every place? Senem potum pota trahebat anus, how they flock to the tavern: as if they were fruges consumere nati, born to no other end but to eat and drink, like Offellius Bibulus, that famous Roman parasite, Qui dum vixit, aut bibit aut minxit; as so many casks to hold wine, yea worse than a cask, that mars wine, and itself is not marred by it, yet these are brave men, Silenus Ebrius was no braver. Et quae fuerunt vitia, mores sunt: 'tis now the fashion of our times, an honour: Nunc vero res ista eo rediit (as Chrysost. serm. 30. in v. Ephes. comments) Ut effeminatae ridendaeque ignaviae loco habeatur, nolle inebriari; 'tis now come to that pass that he is no gentleman, a very milk-sop, a clown, of no bringing up, that will not drink; fit for no company; he is your only gallant that plays it off finest, no disparagement now to stagger in the streets, reel, rave, &c., but much to his fame and renown; as in like case Epidicus told Thesprio his fellow-servant, in the [1417]Poet. Aedipol facinus improbum, one urged, the other replied, At jam alii fecere idem, erit illi illa res honori, 'tis now no fault, there be so many brave examples to bear one out; 'tis a credit to have a strong brain, and carry his liquor well; the sole contention who can drink most, and fox his fellow the soonest. 'Tis the summum bonum of our tradesmen, their felicity, life, and soul, Tanta dulcedine affectant, saith Pliny, lib. 14. cap. 12. Ut magna pars non aliud vitae praemium intelligat, their chief comfort, to be merry together in an alehouse or tavern, as our modern Muscovites do in their mead-inns, and Turks in their coffeehouses, which much resemble our taverns; they will labour hard all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni labores, as St. Ambrose adds, in a tippling feast; convert day into night, as Seneca taxes some in his times, Pervertunt officia anoctis et lucis; when we rise, they commonly go to bed, like our antipodes,

      "Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,