La morale du sirop. Thérapies médico-morales pour la guérison de la mélancolie
This paper discusses the curious work of a rather unknown French physician, published in 1615, only a few years prior to the first edition of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Gabriel Droyn’s Le Royal syrop de pommes, antidote des passions melancholiques (1615) allegedly focuses on a reputedly...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institut du Monde Anglophone
2008-06-01
|
| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/898 |
| Summary: | This paper discusses the curious work of a rather unknown French physician, published in 1615, only a few years prior to the first edition of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Gabriel Droyn’s Le Royal syrop de pommes, antidote des passions melancholiques (1615) allegedly focuses on a reputedly efficient therapy against melancholy: an apple syrup… While this legendary royal cure was mentioned in other medical books on melancholy (and was to be quoted by Robert Burton himself) it only serves in this book as a pleasant opportunity to produce a witty and playful description of the contemporary society. Melancholy thus serves as a mere purpose to a text which departs from the scientific canon. This paper aims at showing that ultimately this very rhetorical departure from the usual medical jargon is therapeutical in itself, and might even be more effective than syrups or pills. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |