4 - Delusions
from Part 2 - Symptoms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2021
Summary
The story of the gentleman from Siena in Italy who was unable to urinate is one of the stranger cases recorded in Renaissance medical literature, and certainly has one of the most outlandish and inventive therapies. It is found in the writings of André du Laurens, who was not only physician to King Henri IV of France but also – like Robert Burton, who repeated the story – a great documenter of melancholy. His Discours des maladies mélancoliques (1594, translated into English in 1599) contains a much-quoted collection of the ‘Histories of certain melancholic persons’, all of whom have delusions.
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- A User's Guide to Melancholy , pp. 89 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021