Short note on The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton.

 The Anatomy of Melancholy, is a paramedical book written by Robert Burton published in 1621. This curious work is elaborately subdivided but comprises three main parts. The first deals with the causes and symptoms of melncholy, the second with its cures and the third with specific melancholies attaching to love and religion. Physical and mental health are only the starting point of Burton's study which disgress continually to cover topics of politics and religion.

The style is discursive and involved. It is full of quotations from wide-ranging sources including the Bible, the classics and learned works by contemporaries. The style is both comic and serious, lively as well as informative. The treatment of the subject is marked by humour, pathos and religious melancholy is a digest of the best stories in the world, from the Alexandrian Greek romancers to  the works of such moderns as Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson and Shakespear.  It is full of quotations and allusions to the best authors. The book has exercised strong fascination on scholarly minds like Dr Jonson and Charles Lamb. William Oslar described it as "the greatest medical treatise written by layman."