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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Other examples from Forman\u2019s casebooks reveal yet more competing theories about the mind. One woman brought him a urine sample for analysis, but Forman \u201cfound no other disease in her body, but only in her head\u201d. He told her that \u201cthe diseases of the mind are not seen in a piss-pot\u201d, and that what she needed was \u201cgood counsel\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another patient, Susan Crosbe, whom he described as suffering from a \u201cdesperate melancholy disease\u201d, engaged in what we would call self-harm. She \u201ccould abide no knives nor pins nor shears nor needles nor nails, but she must cut herself or thrust the pins into her flesh\u201d, and she was tormented by suicidal thoughts. Yet in her case Forman diagnosed supernatural intervention, saying \u201cthe devil would speak oftentimes within her\u201d, inciting her to self-destruction.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Theories of the mind<\/h3>\n
The Elizabethans were keen to understand the \u201cinward self \u201d. Much as today many of us seek to manage our minds by reading books on self-help and mindfulness, in a similar way the burgeoning print industry of the Elizabethan era produced a host of works concerned with the inner functions of the mind. Titles such as Thomas Rogers\u2019s 1576 The Anatomy of the Mind<\/em>, and The Passions of the Mind<\/em> by Thomas Wright (1601) flooded the market. These texts contained an intense and tumultuous ferment of ideas drawn from disparate intellectual frameworks, making this a fascinating period in the history of ideas about the mind. Medieval medical theories vied with revived classical philosophies, while new religious practices jostled against emerging scientific discoveries.<\/p>\n Take the Elizabethans\u2019 understanding of brain anatomy. The traditional model divided the brain into three ventricles or chambers, with Imagination at the front, Reason in the middle, and Memory at the back. That classical system was still widely taught in the period, but in 1543 it was upended when Vesalius published his anatomical discoveries based on human dissections. These included a radically new, more accurate account of brain structure, identifying two large ventricles to the left and right, another two below them in the centre, and, controversially, no \u201cspecial cavity\u201d for reason to distinguish human brains from those of animals. These conflicting theories co-existed in Tudor England: in 1553, the illustrations for Vesalius\u2019s work were published alongside incompatible text from medieval anatomy books that subscribed to the classical three-chamber model.<\/p>\n The Elizabethans also attributed different types of mind to different categories of people. Women in general were thought to have a humoral constitution that was cold and moist, or phlegmatic. This was good for fertility, but bad for the intellect. Disparagement of the female mind was commonplace: in 1597, for instance, a work named The Haven of Pleasure<\/em> deplored \u201cthe weakness of [women\u2019s] minds, and the imbecility of their understandings and judgments\u201d. This seems astonishing in view of the impressive accomplishments of female scholars of the period, such as Anne Cooke Bacon, who translated from Latin John Jewel\u2019s Apology of the Church of England<\/em>, a major theological work.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Because the humours were connected to temperature and moisture, it was also believed that geographical origin affected mental disposition. Many authorities, including the French philosopher Jean Bodin, asserted that the hot climate of Africa had an evaporating effect on its people, leaving them cold and dry, and hence melancholic: not only inclined to sadness, but also endowed with acute intellect. On stage this produced characters such as Aaron the Moor in William Shakespeare<\/a>\u2019s Titus Andronicus<\/em> (c1592), and Eleazar in The Spanish Moor\u2019s Tragedy<\/em> (1600), each of them by far the cleverest character in their play. The abhorrent forms of racism associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade had not yet fully emerged, but the Elizabethans were not free of racial prejudice: these stage-Moors were ruthless villains, using their intellectual gifts to devise torments for their enemies. Nevertheless, they were among the most compelling characters on the Elizabethan stage.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Elizabethans had many anxieties about the mind\u2019s potential to go wrong and felt the passions must be strenuously governed by reason. In The Castle of Health<\/em> by Sir Thomas Elyot, one of the most popular medical books of the period, the author warned of the \u201capoplexies, or privation of senses, trembling palsies\u2026 frenzies, [and] deformity of visage\u201d arising from rage. The reader could avoid these if \u201cbefore he speak or do anything in anger, he do recite in order, all the letters of the A. B. C., and remove somewhat out of the place that he is in, and seek occasion to be otherwise occupied\u201d.<\/p>\n The imagination, too, was thought to be a destabilising force. Today we celebrate the imagination as an exciting creative power, but 16th-century belief in the link between mind and body meant that it could have alarming effects. If a woman saw a striking image at the moment of conceiving a child, or during pregnancy, the force of her imagination would imprint this on the infant. Many medical books attributed the case of \u201ca maid, rough and covered with hair like a bear\u201d to her mother\u2019s eyes having fallen, during sex, on a picture at the foot of her bed of St John the Baptist \u201cclothed with a beast\u2019s skin\u201d.<\/p>\n Mental conditions were thought to be caused by wayward humours and the position of the stars <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Localised disorders<\/h3>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Frenzies of rage<\/h3>\n