Melancholia: Rare 1605 work on clinical depression.

[Depression] / [Melancholy] / Benedictus Coccius. ΣΥΖΗΤΗΣΙΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΛΑΝΧΟΛΙΑΣ [Syzētēsis peri tēs melancholias]. Basileae: Typis Ioannis Schroeteri, 1605. 4to [20.8 x 16.4cm], [8] ff., with woodcut initial. Bound in modern faux vellum card, which is well preserved. Title a bit dusty, otherwise very well preserved.
 
 
Rare (no U.S. copies) first edition of this early (1605) work on ‘melancholia,’ or what now would be called clinical depression or major depressive disorder. Melancholia—a multifaceted affliction known by several terms including furor poeticus, delirium triste, and Schwermütigkeit—became a preoccupation of medical and literary thinkers alike during the 17th century, perhaps most notably Robert Burton (1577-1640), whose The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) is rivaled in melancholic fame only by Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) cryptic engraving Melencolia I (1514). 
 
The ΣΥΖΗΤΗΣΙΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΛΑΝΧΟΛΙΑΣ [Syzētēsis peri tēs melancholias] (1605) was written by the Basel doctoral candidate Benedictus Coccius under the direction of Johann Niklaus Stupanus 1542-1621. In 30 numbered paragraphs, Coccius discusses etymology, symptoms in both men and women (mania, chills, fever, delirium, foolish thoughts, words, and deeds), bodily origins (brain, heart, guts), causes (humoral or spiritual imbalances, menstruation, hemorrhoids, eating old cheese, rabbit meat, shellfish, lentils, salty food, bad wine, etc.), prognosis, remedies, etc.
 
 
OCLC and KVK locate no U.S. examples of this work.
 
*VD17 29:730539X