The causes are assigned out of Hippocrates, Cleopatra, Moschion, and those old Gynaeciorum Scriptores, of this feral malady, in more ancient maids, widows, and barren women, ob septum transversum violatum, saith Mercatus, by reason of the midriff or Diaphragma, heart and brain offended with those vicious vapours which come from menstruous blood, inflammationem arteriae circa dorsum, Rodericus adds, an inflammation of the back, which with the rest is offended by [2651]that fuliginous exhalation of corrupt seed, troubling the brain, heart and mind; the brain, I say, not in essence, but by consent, Universa enim hujus affectus causa ab utero pendet, et a sanguinis menstrui malitia, for in a word, the whole malady proceeds from that inflammation, putridity, black smoky vapours, &c., from thence comes care, sorrow, and anxiety, obfuscation of spirits, agony, desperation, and the like, which are intended or remitted; si amatorius accesserit ardor, or any other violent object or perturbation of mind.  This melancholy may happen to widows, with much care and sorrow, as frequently it doth, by reason of a sudden alteration of their accustomed course of life, &c.  To such as lie in childbed ob suppressam purgationem; but to nuns and more ancient maids, and some barren women for the causes abovesaid, ’tis more familiar, crebrius his quam reliquis accidit, inquit Rodericus, the rest are not altogether excluded.

Out of these causes Rodericus defines it with Areteus, to be angorem animi, a vexation of the mind, a sudden sorrow from a small, light, or no occasion, [2652]with a kind of still dotage and grief of some part or other, head, heart, breasts, sides, back, belly, &c., with much solitariness, weeping, distraction, &c., from which they are sometimes suddenly delivered, because it comes and goes by fits, and is not so permanent as other melancholy.

But to leave this brief description, the most ordinary symptoms be these, pulsatio juxta dorsum, a beating about the back, which is almost perpetual, the skin is many times rough, squalid, especially, as Areteus observes, about the arms, knees, and knuckles.  The midriff and heart-strings do burn and beat very fearfully, and when this vapour or fume is stirred, flieth upward, the heart itself beats, is sore grieved, and faints, fauces siccitate praecluduntur, ut difficulter possit ab uteri strangulatione decerni, like fits of the mother, Alvus plerisque nil reddit, aliis exiguum, acre, biliosum, lotium flavum.  They complain many times, saith Mercatus, of a great pain in their heads, about their hearts, and hypochondries, and so likewise in their breasts, which are often sore, sometimes ready to swoon, their faces are inflamed, and red, they are dry, thirsty, suddenly hot, much troubled with wind, cannot sleep, &c.  And from hence proceed ferina deliramenta, a brutish kind of dotage, troublesome sleep, terrible dreams