Of the parts of the body there may be many divisions: the most approved is
that of Laurentius, out of Hippocrates: which is, into parts contained, or containing. Contained, are either humours or spirits.
A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body, comprehended in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or born with us, or adventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros and gluten to maintain it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by which means chylus is excluded. Some divide them into profitable and excrementitious. (147)
With this whole anatomy section, Burton is dumping amazing images and vocabulary ALL OVER MY BRAIN, and I can’t stop myself from illustrating practically every paragraph, which is okay for now I guess since I don’t have much time to read. And I assume that in this amazing spring weather, everyone who is reading along (haha!) has better things to do than read The Anatomy of Melancholy, eh?
Excrementitious is a good word. I think you can guess what it means.
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 devon_isadevon on Instagram.