I99 Postgrad Med J: first published as 10.1136/pgmj.24.270.199 on 1 April 1948. Downloaded from ROBERT BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY By W. D. NICOL, F.R.C.P. Physician and Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, Royal Free Hospital; Physician Superintendent, Horton Hospital, Epsom 0 ' Melancholy is a kind of dotage without a fever, havingfor its ordinary companions fear and sadness, without any apparent occasion.' In i86i an article appeared in Blackwood, in fourth of nine children, in I577. A ' Grammar which the writer amusingly introduces Burton to scholar' at Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire at the well-known British traveller, Leo Rusticus, first, after which he entered Brasenose College, Esq., who is visiting Oxford with his interesting Oxford, and then Christ Church. After taking a daughters about Commemoration time. They degree he continued in residence as student tutor must need do the sights, hence their visit to and college librarian at Christ Church where he Chrish Church Cathedral, ' the ugliest possible of spent the rest of his life. It is recorded that he was collegiate churches,' but at least a cathedral. Vicar of St. Thomas's, Oxford, and later he was are to the of in his own Here they shown what little there is see by given living Seagrave county. Protected by copyright. the verger, who points out ' in the north aisle, The Anatomy is dedicated to George Lord high up against a pillar, a small bust, with a Latin Berkeley, the patron of this gift; at some other inscription underneath, and a queer-looking time he probably had a preferment at Walsby in diagram stuck rather awkwardly on one side of it, Lincolnshire. Paul Jordan-Smith in his Biblio- which the young ladies will probably at the first graphia Burtoniana is responsible for throwing an glance take for a sun dial, but which is in truth an interesting light on Burton's secular life; astrological calculation of a nativity.' ' Burton, apparently this cleric and divine was for three sir,' says the verger, ' author of the Anatomy- years one of the Clerks of the Market of Oxford. formerly student of this house.' The young ladies This discovery was quite accidental, through the who conclude he must have been some medical chance purchase of a copy of the Anatomy, inter- celebrity, are quickly informed by the father, who leaved and loaned at one time to Professor Murray explains, ' Anatomy of Melancholy, you know, my 'for the use of the Dictionary.' The book was dears,' the takes the narra- previously the property of Mr. Parker of whereupon verger up George http://pmj.bmj.com/ tive, ' Yes sir, he was a very melancholy gentle- the Bodleian Library, who had noted the fact of man and is supposed to have destroyed himself, Burton's appointment to the Market. This is and that's his horro-scope.' The author of this important and gives us a clue to the non-clerical article tontinues to reflect how papa knows the side of Burton's personality and character. book is on his shelves at home, it lies there un- He died on January z5th, 1639, so near to the read; indeed how many Fellows of the College exact time he had predicted that idle rumour had it have any personal acquaintance with this book. that he hanged himself to prove a prophet. This is As a boy I remember the volume on my father's unlikely, as a felo-de-se would have precluded his on September 24, 2021 by guest. shelves. burial in Christ Church Cathedral. Before we discuss the book, let us enquire what Anthony a Wood, who as a child might have we know of the author. Unfortunately our known him, gives this character of him (Evans: knowledge is somewhat scant, though there appear (The Psychiatry of Robert Burton). ' He was an a few biographical details scattered here and there. exact Mathematician, a curious Calculator of We learn more from other sources; his brother, Nativities, a general read scholar, a thro'-pac'd William, who wrote a Description of Leicestershire, Philologist, and one that understood the surveying tells of his family, who boasted an ancient lineage. of Lands well... I have heard some ofthe Antients Anthony a Wood (I721) in Athenae Oxonienses of Christ Church often say that his Company was provides perhaps more biological material. Robert very merry, facete, and juvenile, and no Man in Burton was born at Winsley in Leicestershire, the his time did surpass him for his ready and dextrous interlarding his common discourses among them From a lecture delivered in I947 to the Listerian with Verses from the Poets, or Sentences from Society of King's College Hospital. classical Authors. Which being then all the 200 POST GRADUATE MEDICAL JOURNAL April 1948 Postgrad Med J: first published as 10.1136/pgmj.24.270.199 on 1 April 1948. Downloaded from fashion in the University, made his Company more access not only to his college library, but to the acceptable.' Bishop Kennett in writing of the Bodleian. One shudders to contemplate what Anatomy says, 'The author is said to have Burton's thoughts would have been had he lived laboured long in the Writing of this Book to in our time. At the beginning of the I7th century suppress his own Melancholy, and yet did but ' in this scribbling age' he deplored the mass of improve it.... In an interval of vapours he could books extant. ' What a catalogue of new books all be extremely pleasant, and raise laughter in any this year. ... As already, we shall have a vast chaos Company. Yet I have heard that nothing at last and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with could make him laugh, but going down to the them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with Bridge-foot in Oxford, and hearing the barge- .turning.' men scold and storm and swear at one another, He wanted to write the whole treatise in Latin, at which he would set his Hands to his sides and but fortunately for posterity his publishers in- laugh most profusely.' So much for our limited sisted on our English version. ' Any scurrile knowledge of this strange cleric, though he pamphlet is welcome to our mercenary Stationers doubtless reveals himself and records his many in English, they print all, but in Latin they will not frustations in the course of his treatise of the deal.' Even so most of the quotations are in Anatomy. Latin and occasionally the author breaks off into It was first intended that the book should be Latin for the space of several pages. His descrip- published anonymously. ' Suppose the man in tion of sexual perversions is not suited to the the moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the author.' English language ' I spare to English that which The first edition appeared in I62I under the I have said.' All prescriptions are in Latin, so pseudonym of Democritus Junior. His desire for that the unlearned reader will not be tempted to anonymity was hardly sincere, as he signed his practise on himself. Suggested reforms, long Protected by copyright. name to the postscript of the first edition and overdue, in the University are likewise hidden though it was withdrawn in subsequent editions, behind a cloak of Latin. the third edition was furnished with a portrait of Why does Burton write under the name of the author in the centre of Le Blon's title page. Democritus Junior and why does he elect to write The book was undoubtedly a success, ' The first, about Melancholy ? Before he actually deals with second and third editions were suddenly gone, his subject, by way of introduction there is a very eagerly read.' Though the author added many lengthy preface entitled ' Democritus to the alterations in subsequent editions, he found it Reader.' Apart from being explanatory and some- tiring: in the last edition to be produced in his what revealing, as far as the author himself is lifetime, he writes: 'Although this be a Sixth concerned, it is full of satire and wit. He models Edition in which I should have been more accurate, himself on Democritus, because this Greek corrected all those former escapes, yet it was philosopher was visited in his garden at Abdera by magni laboris opus, so difficult and tedious, that as Hippocrates, who relates how he found Demo- http://pmj.bmj.com/ Carpenters do find out of experience, 'tis much critus 'under a shady bower, with a book on his better build a new sometimes than repair an old knees, busy at his study, sometimes writing, some- house.... But I am now resolv'd never to put this times walking. The subject of his book was treatise out again. Ne quid nimis. I will not melancholy and madness, about him lay the hereafter add, alter or retract, I have done. The carcases of many several beasts newly by him cut last and greatest exception is, that I being a up and anatomized, not that he did contemn God's divine have medled with physick.' creatures but to find out the seat of this atra bilis His style is difficult and his arguments not easy or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it was on September 24, 2021 by guest. to follow. ' I resolve, if you like not my writing, engendered in men's bodies, to the intent he might go read something else.' ' I neglect phrases, and better cure himself, and by his writings and ob- labour wholly to inform my reader's understand- servations teach others how to prevent and avoid it.