Abstract
As modern variants of melancholy, Hypochondria and Hysteria are illnesses to which Bernard Mandeville devoted the major part of his medical writings. In framing and treating mental illnesses, Mandeville is sensitive to the increasing importance of new commodities, habits and social expectations. This will lead him to read those modern variants of melancholy as a palimpsest composed of symptoms and narratives whose main origin is the praise of individual’s strive for pleasure and singularity. Detached from early eighteenth century academic and advising manuals, the dialogical model will grant access to a new grammar of physiological occurrences, complaints and treatments. Such grammar not only accepts but also requires patients’ enrolment and active voice. The dialogical model adopted by Mandeville will also enable a questioning of medical expertise at the same time that increasingly demands from it the relief of social anxieties. Mandeville’s approach to mental illnesses is centred on digestive problems, literally but also in the figurative sense, referring to the lack of discipline and the various consequences of the difficulty in processing and assimilating large amounts of goods and information.
This article benefited from engaging discussions and suggestions made by various specialists in Mandeville’s life and work, particularly Dr. Mauro Simonazzi, an expert in the cultural and scientific context underlying Mandeville’s conception of melancholic passions. Thankful for such guidance and encouragement, I was lead to explore new aspects of Mandeville’s view of medical practice deepening my initial views on the therapeutics of melancholy.
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Notes
- 1.
When quoting I decided to adapt the original text to modern English.
- 2.
Even though Mandeville affirms to have “made great alterations” to the first editions of the Treatise, we find only circumstantial differences along with dispersed addendums embedded in the dialogical sequence, mostly leaving unaltered previous arguments and theses (cf. Mandeville 1730: xxii). This only strengths the urgent need for a full critical edition this work deserves.
- 3.
In this text, we find a repercussion of the part Mandeville took in defending his fellow Joannes Groenwelt in 1703 (cf. Gordon 1931).
- 4.
In his Treatise, Science is compared to clothing fashion and the conflict between different theses or paradigms is considered to be fuelled not only by experience and evidence gathered but also envy (cf. Mandeville 1711: 114). Latter he will stress how reputation is frequently build upon spurious motives, chief among them the search for novelty: “[t]here is a vast pleasure in saying something that is not recorded to have been said before” (Mandeville 1730: 327). That search benefits from partnerships with the wonders arriving from the new world. Misomedon gives as example the bezoar stone (Lapis Bezoar orientalis), brought from the Indies into Europe by Dutch and Portuguese merchants, promising among others the cure for Epilepsy and Melancholy (cf. Cook 2007: 191–203).
- 5.
This directedness to lay readers was improved in the edition of 1730. In contrast with the previous editions, in the third enlarged edition, Mandeville adds footnotes translating Latin and Greek passages whose meaning was accessible only to a few learned doctors.
- 6.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that, despite its valuing of close dialogue and interview with the patients, the Teatrise presents several digressions close to the monological form of speech.
- 7.
According to the history of medical thought, particularly psychiatry, this aspects contribute to the creation of its own self-reference on distinguishing between illness – non illness (cf. Steinebrunner 1987: 368 ff).
- 8.
See for instance the subsection “A Digression of the nature of Spirits, bad Angels, or Devils, and how they cause Melancholy” in Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1883: 115 ff).
- 9.
This idea is submitted to inspection in the Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions (cf. Mandeville 1711: 105).
- 10.
This vision will underlie George Cheyne’s The English Malady. In her work devoted to Obesity and depression in the Enlightenment: the life and times of George Cheyne, Anita Guerrini acknowledges the influence of Mandeville’s theory of passions, not only medical but also “sociological”, on Cheyne’s analysis.
- 11.
Indeed, has shown by Ph. Hilton in Bitter Honey. Recuperating the medical and scientific context of Bernard Mandeville, a book Sir Malcolm Jack had the kindness to recommend me, the legacy of satire is transformed and, as comedy in general, is considered to be a resource to refresh animal spirits and prevent madness.
- 12.
The Treatise is unequivocal in identifying Mandeville with Philoperio, and in the last edition of the work the biographical points are supplemented by his self-description: “a Foreigner and a Physician, who, after he had finished his studies and his Degree beyond sea, was come to London to learn the language; in which having happened to take great delight, and in the meantime found the Country and the manners of it agreeable to his humour, he has now been many years, and is like to end his days in England” (Mandeville 1730: xiii).
- 13.
In Mandeville’s view, nowhere has such practice been more reliable than among the Hippocratic School. In the edition of 1730, Philoperio discredits the narratives of Melchisédech Thévenot that referred Chinese physicians as exemplary of the dedication and patience a doctor must have in reading the natural and non-natural signs of the body. Such narratives had its origins in missionary incursions and resulted from the wonder of Jesuits witnessing prodigies and ritual customs. He maintains that medical information gathered from inspection of urine and feeling of the pulse were proficient only in the eminent practitioners of antiquity (cf. Mandeville 1730: 78–79).
- 14.
As remarked by Anthony Francis McKee (1991: 6), this reference to selfish passions as a motive to pursue medical studies can already be found on Mandeville’s De Medicina Oratio Scholastica, written when he was only 15 years old.
- 15.
“It is indeed no exaggeration to say that Mandeville, writing almost 300 years ago, has prophetically anticipated the medical problems facing such a nation as the U.S.A., for example, in which present-day discussions about socialized medicine evolve around the physician’s conception of himself as an economic creature, a social creature, an ethical and, of course, a professional creature diagnosing and curing illness” (Rousseau 1975: 20).
- 16.
Philopirio states that the question of knowing if the Soul is “seated in Some part or diffused through all the Brain, the Blood or the whole Body, is likewise not easy to determine” (Mandeville 1711: 121).
- 17.
Mandeville is certainly aware of the disputes between the new medical theories and their accusation of impiety by Theologians and the Cambridge Platonists (see Henry 1989: 98–102).
- 18.
Composed in Rotterdam, Mandeville’s De Medicina Oratio from 1685, already professed this design of medicine to restore humanity to its pre-fall state. For a comprehensive resume on the formation of Leiden’s particular scientific environment see Matters of Exchange of Harold Cook (2007: 226–266).
- 19.
Such influence dates back to his thesis Disputatio Philosophica de Brutorum Operationibus presented in 1689 where he defends animal automatism as a valid model of comprehension (cf. Mandeville 1689/1991: 379–381).
- 20.
“Putting right reason aside might be allowed to physicians, who were after all concerned with treating bodies rather than guiding souls” (Cook 2007: 392).
- 21.
Specially these last ones are accused by Misomedon of dealing into a trade “where knaves have a great latitude” (Mandeville 1711: 218).
- 22.
This idea is reinforced in the last edition with a citation from the Philosophical Translations of 1673 (cf. Mandeville 1730: 218–219).
- 23.
Misomedon says “if your medicines do me no good, I am sure your company will” (Mandeville 1711: 41). Also Polytheca praises an apothecary named Pharmenio that despite considering her to be incurable “has the Patience to weight my complaints, or at least the good manners to hear them, and seldom fails of giving me ease (…)” (Mandeville 1711: 200).
- 24.
Hyper-sensitivity to all the interfaces and occurrences of his organic state, and frequent fear associated, are distinctive traces of hypochondria preserved in today’s colloquial meanings associated with this condition.
- 25.
“It is a general Observation that the beloved theme of all Hypondriact is Satyr; which I know is worth nothing unless it bites” (Mandeville 1711: 235). I must thank the kindheartedness of Professor Frank Palmeri that called my attention to the seminal work of Mary Claire Randolph on the semantic evolution interconnecting satire and medical language from Renaissance onwards. Whereas in ancient times satire is paralleled with the power of Blacksmiths, in modern times it acquires a new sense becoming closer to the incisions of the barber surgeon (cf. Randolph 1941: 125–157).
- 26.
I cite the expressive account of Philoperio that we can take as being close to the convictions of Mandeville himself: “I could never go through a multiplicitude of Business. Everybody ought to consult his own temper and abilities in all undertakings. I hate a crowd, and I hate to be in a hurry. Besides, I am naturally slow, and could no more attend a dozen patients in a day, and think of them as I should do, than I could fly. I must own to you likewise, that I am a little selfish, and cannot help minding my own enjoyments, and my own diversion, and in short, my own good, as well as the good of others. I can, and do heartily admire at those public-spirited people that can slave at an employment from early in the morning till late at night, and sacrifice every inch of themselves to their callings; but I could never have had the power to imitate them. Not that I love to be idle; but want to be employed to my own liking (…)” (Mandeville 1730: 351–352).
- 27.
There is some agreement even today, at least in Psychoanalysis, that some kind of mental illnesses like hysteria and neurosis, don’t need compulsory measures, and the patient is the first to require the doctor’s attention.
- 28.
In the first dialogue Philoperio states that “[w]hat I am against is, the speculative part of physic (…) that teaches Men to cure all manner of distempers in their closets, without even seeing a Patient” (Mandeville 1711: 52).
- 29.
The constant idea of corrective or at least palliative measures, sometimes marked by austerity, is accompanied by feelings of regret towards wasted time due to ignorance, negligence or search of corporeal joys. In the last edition of the second Dialogue, we see Misomedon adopt Horace’s interjection “Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit?” (Mandeville 1730: 211).
- 30.
This is a theme that goes back to the Republic (572c ff.), where Plato relates a particular upbringing with the acquisition of a vicious character whose extreme frenzy can lead do madness.
- 31.
Mandeville uses the High-Dutch designation of the disease: “Der Gelahrten Krankheydt” (Mandeville 1711: 94).
- 32.
Some, like Michael Ettmüller, related such case to “stopping and squeezing the Belly against the Books”, which would hinder the circulation of the humours (Mandeville 1711: 149).
- 33.
Here, Mandeville makes a veiled reference to Spinoza, whose occupation was precisely to grind lenses, remarking how frequent it is the use of spectacles among the Spanish (Mandeville 1711: 159).
- 34.
On the same theme Philoperio ironically says in the second dialogue: “so there’s another advantage of fools that Erasmus never dreamt of, and the muddiest and most fuliginous blood is only to be looked for in Men of brightest parts (…)” (Mandeville 1711: 100). However, Mandeville seems aware that, given the diffusion new habits of consumption and the generalization of some expectancies, the subsistence of something as a segregation of diseases according to one’s rank tended to be mitigated (see Foucault 2003: 28–30).
- 35.
Mandeville’s views on exercise are influenced by the innovative theory proposed by Francis Fuller (1705) which explored not only the general benefits of exercise but also their therapeutic benefits on some distempers.
- 36.
Misomedon cannot hide his disappointment for such a simple and unpretentious prescription, exclaiming: “Pro Thesauro Carbones” (Mandeville 1730: 316).
- 37.
Philoperio defends that desired “trash” food can be digested for it will activate the production of stomachic ferment, but if frequent such diet has catastrophic consequences often observed in “green sick girls” (Mandeville 1711: 167–168).
- 38.
In the preface to the first edition he invites his readers to contact him through his bookseller, (cf. Mandeville 1711: xiv).
- 39.
However, there is an interesting analogy between the government of the physical body and the political body, especially through the metaphors of digestion, the balance between accumulation and spending, and the way new exchanges with the outside (other people or other countries) will foster more refined desires (see de Marchi 2001: 67–92).
- 40.
In the enlarged edition, Mandeville adds to Misomedon discourse the need to survey and adopt measures capable to exemplary repress some practices: “I hate cheats of all sorts; and in things of public concern, I think, a man ought to be hanged, who for Lucre endeavours to render that [simple recipe] mysterious, which in itself is plain, or may easily be made so” (Mandeville 1730: 350).
- 41.
“The short-sighted vulgar, in the chain of causes seldom see further than one link; but those who enlarge their view, and will give themselves the leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated events, may, in a hundred places see good spring up and pullulate from evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs” (Mandeville 1988a: 91).
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Carvalho, C.A.S. (2015). Mandeville and the Therapeutics of Melancholic Passions. In: Balsemão Pires, E., Braga, J. (eds) Bernard de Mandeville's Tropology of Paradoxes. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 40. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19381-6_12
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