Disputatio de melancholia

XIIII.
Of antecedent causes, one is nearer, another more remote.
XV.
The nearer is indeed a melancholic vapor or humor, collected or generated in the whole body or some part of it.
XVI.
The more remote, however, is transferred to the weakness of the parts of the body, such as the liver or the spleen: if indeed the former is suited to accumulate a supply of this excrement, but the latter is unable to draw the generated superfluities to itself.
XVII.
The joined or containing cause is a cold and dry intemperance of the brain, joined with the influx of a melancholic humor or vapor, by which the brain and its faculties are affected, producing fear and sadness without a manifest cause, and thus producing Melancholia itself immediately.
XVIII.
From which it is evident that there is a twofold difference of this affection: one by which the brain is affected primarily and through idiopathia affection of a part in itself, and is called the Melancholia of the brain proper. The other, however, which is excited by consensus and sympathia sympathy/shared affection, either of the whole body or of certain parts; and this is what is usually termed hypochondriaca hypochondriac by the Greeks and flatulent by the Latins.
XIX.
Each one, however, so that the physician may not be deprived of his goal in treatment, must be distinguished and recognized by certain signs between them.
XX.
These are, in general, threefold: healthy, unhealthy, and intermediate; of which we establish in this place that there are only unhealthy signs, and those especially which are either diagnostica diagnostic or prognostica prognostic.
XXI.
Diagnostic signs either distinguish this affection from others, or indicate its present constitution by demonstrating the affected place, or the affection itself, or its cause.
XXII.
The lesion of functions themselves will be able to signify the affected place above others; which, since they are principal, are easily [understood] from imagination and reasoning.