[p. 299]
fever; and it appears to me that melancholy is the commencement
and a part of mania. For in those who are mad, the understanding
is turned sometimes to anger and sometimes to
joy, but in the melancholics to sorrow and despondency only.
But they who are mad are so for the greater part of life,
becoming silly, and doing dreadful and disgraceful things;
but those affected with melancholy are not every one of them
affected according to one particular form; but they are either
suspicious of poisoning, or flee to the desert from misanthropy,
or turn superstitious, or contract a hatred of life. Or if at any
time a relaxation takes place, in most cases hilarity supervenes,
but these persons go mad.
But how, and from what parts of the body, the most of
these complaints originate, I will now explain. If the cause
remain in the hypochondriac regions, it collects about the
diaphragm, and the bile passes upwards, or downwards in cases
of melancholy. But if it also affects the head from sympathy,
and the abnormal irritability of temper change to laughter and
joy for the greater part of their life, these become mad rather
from the increase of the disease than from change of the
affection.
Dryness is the cause of both. Adult men, therefore, are
subject to mania and melancholy, or persons of less age than
adults. Women are worse affected with mania than men.
As to age, towards manhood, and those actually in the prime
of life. The seasons of summer and of autumn engender, and
spring brings it to a crisis.
The characteristic appearances, then, are not obscure; for the
patients are dull or stern, dejected or unreasonably torpid,
without any manifest cause: such is the commencement of
melancholy. And they also become peevish, dispirited, sleepless,
and start up from a disturbed sleep.
Unreasonable fear also seizes them, if the disease tend to
increase, when their dreams are true, terrifying, and clear:
