What a disease is, almost every physician defines. Fernelius calleth it an “affection of the body contrary to nature.” Fuschius and Crato, “an hindrance, hurt, or alteration of any action of the body, or part of it.” Tholosanus, “a dissolution of that league which is between body and soul, and a perturbation of it; as health the perfection, and makes to the preservation of it.” Labeo in Agellius, “an ill habit of the body, opposite to nature, hindering the use of it.” Others otherwise, all to this effect.
My division at this time (as most befitting my purpose) shall be into those of the body and mind.
Since Burton appears to have divided, subdivided, etc. this section, I will probably just read and illustrate a single one to three page subsection at a time for a while here. Which means, I will be moving through the book very, very slowly for now. Also, I don’t have childcare at the moment, so yeah, not a lot of time to read. I think this probably matters to no one, since I am getting the impression that only two people are reading along with me at this point? And that those two people would not mind reading more slowly through the summer? Everyone else is just looking at the pictures. Also, one thing I have learned from blogging so far is that people are approximately twenty to one hundred times more interested in absolutely anything that is NOT The Anatomy of Melancholy. So… My heart is in The Anatomy of Melancholy project, but moving forward I am going to do less of that and more of virtually anything else, I guess because I am a people pleaser. Like Oprah, sort of.
I think at some point I said that my goal was to finish the book by the end of the year. HA.
This post is part of a long, tedious, and very illustrated read-along of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy – more info here and follow along on Facebook here. Illustrations posted via master.of.literature on Instagram.