Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

142 Aristotle and his schoolmovement which does not stop until the object of recollection is found.The disorder manifests itself particularly in people whose region of sensoryperception is surrounded by moisture, ‘for once moisture is set in motion,it does not readily stop moving until the sought object is found and themovement has taken a straight course’.Melancholics are mentioned here in the context of a discussion of thebodily (physiological) aspect of recollection. Their characteristic feature istheir disorder 14 in the process of recollection, in that they are unable to controlthis process. As causes for the disorder Aristotle first mentions the specialmovement by images (phantasmata) and secondly moisture (hugrotēs) locatedaround the aisthētikos topos, the heart. Although it remains uncertainwhether this sentence refers to melancholics, the structure of the argumentseems to indicate that this moisture is the physiological cause of the previouslymentioned special affection by images. 15 In the case of melancholicsthis moisture clearly is black bile; 16 thus it appears that they are characterisedby a quantity of black bile around the heart, or at least they areprone to being affected by this. 17In the third chapter of his work On Sleep and Waking (Somn. vig.),Aristotle describes groups of people who are more prone to sleep and peoplewho are less so. In 457 a 25 he discusses people with prominent blood vesselswho, as a result of this width of their vessels (poroi), are not much givento sleep. Aristotle subsequently 18 states that melancholics are not proneto sleep (hupnōtikoi) either, for their inner parts are chilled, which resultsin limited ‘evaporation’ of food (according to Aristotle, this ‘evaporation’,anathumiasis, is the cause of sleep). This is also the reason why melancholicsare on the one hand good eaters, yet on the other hand they are spare; their14 On see On Divination in Sleep (De divinatione per somnum, Div. somn.) 464 a 26.15 This is shown by the fact that the analogy argument in lines 20–2 is not finished until the general in the next sentence has been applied to the exceptional cases:thus the later in line 23 anaphorically picks up the earlier 16 See Part. an. 72 b 29, where a ‘hot and residual moisture’ ismentioned, which is situated around the diaphragm and confuses the mind and sense perception. It islikely that this refers to black bile (cf. Pr. 954 a 34–8; see below). With regard to the complication thatin Greek medicine melancholics were usually associated with dryness, I endorse Sorabji’s solution(1972a, 113): black bile is of course a liquid (cf. Part. an. 647 b 11–13; Hist. an. 487 a 2–4), but it is drycompared to other liquids. In this passage melancholics are not characterised by the fact that theyare particularly moist but by the fact that there is moisture around their heart (as is occasionally thecase with other people), namely black bile.17 For similarities with Diocles’ theory see Sorabji (1972) 113 and Flashar (1966) 50–9.18 See Pr. 954 a 7, where melancholics are said to have protruding veins .Forthe tendency in this chapter of the Problemata to take certain features, which Aristotle occasionallymentions in relation to melancholy, as part of a more fundamental basis of the melancholic nature,see n. 39 below.