ORIGINS OF MODERNITY

physiology & medicine

Burton, Robert (1577-1640)
The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kindes, causes, symptomes, prognosticks, and severall cures of it. In three maine partitions, with their severall sections, members, and subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened and cut up.
2nd edition
Oxford : Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624.

Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy was first published in 1621, and went through six ever-expanding editions between then and the last edition of 1651. It is a highly eclectic compendium of all learning to that time, much of it consisting of quotes from just about every author imaginable on just about every issue imaginable, yet it is witty, engaging, and informative. No such encyclopedic work has ever been so readable. Boswell wrote of Johnson that this ‘was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours earlier than he wished to rise.’