Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 383

TIMOTHY BRIGHT (1551?-1615) A treatise of melancholy. John Windet 1586 [24] 286 (misnumbered 284) [2] pp. 13.3 cm.

Bright studied medicine at Cambridge where he graduated in 1578. He practiced there for a time, wrote several books, and in 1585 was appointed physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was while he was physician to St. Bartholomew's that he wrote the present work as well as a treatise on shorthand for which he is credited today with being the father of modern shorthand. After five years at St. Bartholomew's, his interest in and devotion to medicine had clearly waned in part because of his many other interests. As a result, patient care suffered and the hospital's Court of Governors finally discharged him in 1591 for neglecting his duties. Following his dismissal, he became rector of the parish at Methley in Yorkshire. His Treatise of melancholy was the first by an English physician to deal with mental illness and was the earliest detailed study of a psychosomatic condition. He delineated two types of melancholy which are similar to the modern classification of depression, either reactive where the patient knows the cause but can not overcome it or endogenous where there is no known psychological cause. Bright's approach was that of a clinician and cleric since he was grounded in both professions. In addition to his general discussion of the disease, Bright describes the mental and physical symptoms of melancholy and devotes the last quarter of the book to therapeutic measures for its cure. He took his manuscript to Thomas Vautrollier, a fine but elderly printer, who unfortunately did a poor job of printing and failed to register the book as required by law. Therefore Bright took the book to another printer, John Windet, in order to have it correctly registered and printed without error. Before publishing the reprint, Windet bound up some of the residual sheets from the first edition, added his title page for the new edition, and produced a rare hybrid issue. The present copy is from that printing.

Cited references: Cushing B675; Durling 706 (Printed by Vautrollier); Garrison-Morton 4918; Osler 2128; Wellcome 1079 (printed by Vautrollier)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.