1860 Burton Anatomy of Melancholy Depression Philosophy Psychiatry Encyclopedia



“The first psychiatric encyclopedia!”



The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton is one of the most famous works on the medical condition of melancholia, or clinical depression. Originally written in 1621, this book was composed with both medical and philosophical implications. Burton addresses cures and preventions but also the human emotion that comes with melancholy, both with the afflicted and those around them. Burton teases his audience and creates light of the disease in his preface by saying,

“I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy.”

(Even though it is commonly known, Burton wrote this book in hopes of writing himself out of depression.)



Burton discusses more than just melancholy in this folio text. He writes of digestion, geography of America, and…GOBLINS! So, while on the surface it appears as a medical text on melancholia, it serves as a book on many disciplines and philosophies. This book also happened to be one of Samuel Johnsons favorite books. He had been quoted as saying that,

“[Melancholy] was the only book that ever took [me] out of bed two hours sooner that [I] wished to rise” (Works of Samuel Johnson, vol 8, p89)



This book is famously described as “the first psychiatric encyclopedia, citing 500 medical authors” (Garrison-Morton).



Item number: #24010

Price: $499



BURTON, Robert



The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics, and several cures of it. In three partitions: with their several sections, members, and subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened and cut up



Philadelphia: published by Jas. B. Smith & Co., 1860.



Details:

Collation: Complete with all pages

xiv, 15-670

Engraved frontispiece and title page

References: Jordan Smith 8; Garrison-Morton 4918.1

Provenance: Handwritten – W. Egbert Mitchell

Language: English

Binding: Leather; tight and secure

Size: ~9in X 6in (22.5cm x 15cm)



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