I N S A 
emperor, or a mafs of inanimate matter. Once the orna¬ 
ment and life of fociety, he is now become a ftranger to 
its pleafures or a dilturber of its tranquillity. Impatient 
of rellraint, and dilpofed to expend the unufual effer- 
vefcence of his fpirits in roving and turbulence, coercion 
of the mildelt kind adds fury to his delirium, and colours 
with jealoufy or fufpicion every effort of friendly or pro- 
feffional intereft in his fate. His perfonal liberty is at 
length taken front him; and taken from him perhaps by 
his neareft relative or deareft friend. Retaining his ori¬ 
ginal fenfibility, or rendered more acutely fenfible by op- 
pofition to his will and deprivation of his ufual gratifica¬ 
tions, co-operating with a morbid excitement of his ner¬ 
vous functions, he gives hirnfelf up to all the extravagances 
of maniacal fury, or finks, inexpreffibly miferable, into 
the loweit depths of defpondence and melancholy. If the 
former, he refembles in ferocity the tiger, and meditates 
deftruftion and revenge. If the latter, he withdraws from 
fociety, (buns the plots and inveiglements which he ima¬ 
gines to furround him, and fancies hirnfelf an object of 
human perfecution and treachery, or a vidim of divine 
vengeance and reprobation. To this melancholy train of 
fymptoms, if not early and judiciouffy treated, ideotifm, 
or a ftate of the molt abjed degradation, in molt mltances, 
fooner or later fucceeds. The figure of the human fpe- 
cies is now all that remains to him; (( and, like the ruins 
of a once magnificent edifice, it only ferves to remind us 
of its former dignity and grandeur,” and to awaken our 
gloomielt reflections—our tendereft regret for the de¬ 
parture of the real and relpedable man. 
The liiltory of this formidable diforder is neceffarily 
and intimately connected with that of the human mind in 
general. The phyfical and metaphyfical opinions enter¬ 
tained of it by theologifts and phyficians of different coun¬ 
tries, bear due correfpondence to the prevailing doctrines, 
prejudices, and falhions, of their rel'pedtive times. Wild 
indeed were the theories and treatment of infanity, ante¬ 
rior to that illultrious era in medical hiltory which com¬ 
menced with the father of the Greek medical fchool, the 
immortal Hippocrates. When that luminary of genius 
aDpeared, the genuine procefles of nature were more dif- 
ti'ndly expoied, and an eternal wall of feparation was 
raifed between fcience and enipyricilm, and between the 
do°mas of mythology and metaphylics and the legitimate 
inductions of experiment and obiervation. But whether 
Hippocrates wrote profefledly on the fubjed of infanity, 
is not afcertained by his commentators. It is poflible, 
that the extent of his enquiries and his numerous engage¬ 
ments in the pradical part of his profeflion, efpecially in 
the treatment of febrile and inflammatory diforders, left 
him no opportunity to record his obfervations upon 
mental ailments: or it is not improbable that his treadle 
upon that fubjea may have lhared the fate of many others 
of his valuable writings. That he was not ignorant of 
the fubjea, is not only prefumable from his habits of 
analyfis and obiervation, but more certainly deducible 
from the opinion which the Abderites entertained of lus 
ikill, when they invited him over from Athens to fee 
their fellow-citizen, the celebrated Democritus, whole 
mirthful and whimfical peculiarities gave rile to the fuf¬ 
picion that he was infane. There is, indeed, one chaptei 
upon the fubjea of melancholia, incorporated with Galen’s 
voluminous produdions, which fome of his editors have 
afcribed to the father of phyfic. That it was not, how¬ 
ever, written by Hippocrates, is evident, from its decided 
inferiority to his other and acknowledged works, both in 
refpea to ftyle and argument; not to mention the refe¬ 
rences which are made in the courfe of the ellay to the 
opinions of Hippocrates, as to thofe of a third or an abfent 
perlbn. If Galen hirnfelf, whofe ftyle indeed it does not 
much refemble, was not the author, the alcription of it to 
Poflidonius or Ruffus mult be acceded to. However that 
/may be, its intrinfic value is very moderate. It exhibits 
no clear view of the diforder of which it profelfes to treat; 
it confounds melancholia with other difeafcs prefumed to 
N I T Y. v m 
originate from the fame caufe, details improbable fup- 
pofitions relative to the feat and proximate caufe of the 
melancholic paffion, and prefents no rational indications 
of cure. The opinions of Hippocrates on the nature, 
caules, and varieties, of infanity, are more clearly inferred 
from fome cafual obfervations which he advances upon 
the fitbjed in his excellent treatife upon epilepfy, (morbo 
Jacro.) The principal objed of the author in that little 
trad, appears to have been to combat the prevailing opi¬ 
nion that epilepfy, whether combined with infanity or 
otherwife, was the pofitive and decided effed of infpira- 
tion ; and the efforts, which he difplays, of a mafculine 
genius, exerting itfelf in a ftrain of bold and luminous 
argumentation againft the arts of empyricifm, the credu¬ 
lity of luperltition, and the prejudices of vulgar minds, 
are highly honourable both to his judgment and his virtue. 
Hippocrates was a firm believer in the dodrine of a Divine 
Providence. He did not, however, maintain it, like molt 
of his contemporaries, at the expence of the moral per¬ 
fections of the Divinity. In the ftrides of peftilence and 
the revolutions of ftates and empires, he law the move¬ 
ments of Deity, and adored the hand that fwayed the awful 
fceptre. But any interference in the ordinary functions 
of the human fyftem, in individual cafes, was, in his efti- 
mation, unbecoming the exalted character of the gods; 
and, as the diforders which it was the falhion to afcribe 
to l'upernatural agency might be explained upon natural 
principles, it appeared to him unneceflary to admit the 
interpofition of Mars, Hecate, or Apollo. In furnifhing 
the requifite explanation, he advances a theory of the 
proximate caule of infanity, which accords with the gene¬ 
ral principles of the humoral pathology, and which con- 
fequently maintained its place in the inftitutes of modern 
medical fchools till towards the beginning of the laft cen¬ 
tury. Its outlines are the following: The brain is the. 
organ of the underftanding; that organ is fufceptible of 
various ftates, in refped both to confluence and tempe¬ 
rature ; it may be hotter or colder, harder or fofter, more 
or lefs humid. Bile is the heating, pituita the cooling,, 
principle. From the 1 'uppofed analogy between the tur¬ 
bulence of the paflions and the rapid movements of the 
element of fire, the bile, or the heating principle, either 
admixed in too great a quantity with the general mafs of 
blood, or conduded to the brain in diftinft vellels, he 
deemed the proximate ftimulant of that organ in mental 
derangement, accompanied by extraordinary turbulence- 
and ferocity. The yellow bile he confidered as the caufe 
merely of irritability, high fpirits, and extravagance ; but, 
when the black bile afcended the chambers of the thinking 
organ, it roufed to exertion the darker paflions of fufpi¬ 
cion and jealoufy, and hatred and revenge. Pituita, on. 
the other hand, poffeffed of qualities diametrically oppo- 
fite to thofe of the bile, he 1'uppofed to operate as a fe- 
dative principle, to diminifh the energy of the fentient 
and intellectual faculties, and to aft as the proximate 
caufe of infanity, attended by great depreffion of fpirits,, 
by fears and anxieties from imaginary caufes, or by filent 
lolitude or muttering defpair. Other nervous difeafes, 
accompanied by delirium, are afcribed, by the fame author,, 
to difordered ftates of the blood, to cafual obltrudions in 
the courfe of that fluid, or to an unufual determination, 
of it to the parts primarily afteded. Such are the germs 
ol a fyftem of phyfiology, which, grew up with the other 
productions of Grecian genius, which was cherifked for 
many centuries in Italy and Arabia, which fpread itfelf 
after the revival of literature over all the countries of Eu¬ 
rope, and which, after having arrived at a goodly old age,, 
fell a few years ago by the remorfelefs hands of modern 
theorilts. 
Aretaius the Cappadocian,, whofe works upon many 
fubjeds have been greatly admired, is the molt ancient 
Greek author extant, who has treated profefledly on dif¬ 
eafes of the mind. His firft trad, de melancholia, contains, 
a concile and elegant hiltory of that diforder; and, with¬ 
out the affectation of £ fyftematic arrangement, it exhibits 
4. a. clear 
