Erōtomania or A treatise discoursing of the essence, causes, symptomes, prognosticks, and cure of love, or erotique melancholy. Written by Iames Ferrand Dr. of Physick

CHAP. VII. The Internall causes of Love Melancholy.

VVE have already sufficiently proved, out of Galen, that these ••••ternall causes cannot produce their ef∣••••cts, but only when they meet with such ••••eake spirited persons, as are not able to ••ist the assaults of Cupid. For so the ••rned Sapho confessed the tendernesse ••her heart to be the only cause of her A∣••orous fires.

Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis. Haec semper causa est, cur ego semper A∣mem. ••ach light dart wounds my tender Breast, and this, ••hat I am still in Love, the reason is.

••he disposition of the Body, among other

internall causes, comes in the first plac•• to be considered: for through the natural defect hereof, we see that young boye under the age of fourteen, and wenche•• under twelve, or thereabout, as also de••∣crepit old folkes, Eunuches, and all those that are of a Cold Constitution, are in n•• * 1.1 danger of this disease. This disposition o•• the Body is called by Galen, causa Ante∣cedens, sive Jnterior; The Antecedent, o•• Internall cause, and consists in the hu∣mours, Spirits and Excrements of the Bo∣dy: all which causes Hippocrates compre∣hends * 1.2 under the name, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Concurring causes.

The Abundance of Blood, of a goo•• temperature, and full of spirits, caused by the continuall Influence of the Heart; by reason that it is the Materiall cause o•• seed, is likewise a True Antecedent cause•• of Love, as it is a passion of the Mind. But the Melancholy Humour, which is hot and dry, by reason of the Adustion o•• Choler, of the blood, or of the Natural Melancholy, is the Principall cause o•• Love-Melancholy, or Madnesse. And fr•••• * 1.3 this reason Aristotle in his Problem

saies, that those that are Melancholy are ••ost subject to this malady: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Which conclusion of ••is would be most Absurd, if so be he meant here those that are Melancholy by ••eason of the aboundance of their naturall Melancholy; which of it selfe is extreame cold and dry, and by consequence cleane ••epugnant to the heat required in this di∣••ease. Otherwise, Old men, who abound chiefly with this Humor, should oftner all in Love, then young; and his unruly Desires, increase with his yeares; whom notwithstanding we finde on the contra∣ry side to be so averse from Love, that at ••he very name of it,

Nauseat; & priscum vomitu seu fundit * 1.4 Am••rem.

••t turnes his stomack, and he is ready to ••omit up, as it were, the memory of all ••is younger follies.

But those that are Melancholy, by rea∣son of the Adustion of Humours, as are all those that are troubled with Hypocon∣driacall Melancholy, in which number

we have already placed our Amorist•• these are Hot and Dry, and apt to have ingendred within them a certain kind o•• Flatulent vapour, that tickles them ex∣treamely, and by consequent, makes then beyond measure lascivious as Galen in hi•• * 1.5 Commentaries on the sixt book of Hippo¦crates Epidemicks affirmes. Besides, those that are Melancholy by reason of the Adu••¦stion of pure Blood, have their Imaginati¦on for the most part very strong: by th•• force of which a man oftentimes is incon¦tinent, and by Fancying the Pleasure t•• himselfe enjoyes it really: as Aristotle * 1.6 also observes in his Problems. Which must not be understood of those that an affected with cold and dry Melancholy for those are heavy, stupid, and dull: as i•• proved learnedly and copiously by I•• Bapt. Sylvaticus, in his first controversy.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Cap. 88. art med.
• * 1.2

  Valler. Med. obs. 7. l. 2.
• * 1.3

  Probl. 31. sect. 4.
• * 1.4

  Cornel. Gal.
• * 1.5

  Part. 2. Com. 12.
• * 1.6

  Probl. 7. sect. 29.