lt to know with certainty when Hill first became
interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in _The British
Herbal_ (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he
opened an apothecary shop.

[16] Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled _De Insania_ (1798),
contains materials on the relationship of the imagination to all forms
of mental disturbance. Secondary literature on hypochondria is
plentiful. Works include: R. H. Gillespie, _Hypochondria_ (London,
1928), William K. Richmond, _The English Disease_ (London, 1958),
Charles Chenevix Trench, _The Royal Malady_ (New York, 1964), and Ilza
Vieth, _Hysteria: The History of a Disease_ (Chicago, 1965), and "On
Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," _Bulletin of the History of
Medicine_, XXX (1956), 233-40.

[17] Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books
and Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264.

I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts
in writing this introduction.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The text of this facsimile of _Hypochondriasis_ is reproduced from a
copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS.

A

PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS.

SECT. I.

The NATURE of the DISORDER.

To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and cruel. It
is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by thickened
and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver, and other
parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick scarce knows
one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure.

The blood is a mixture of many fluids, which, in a state of health, are
so combined, that the whole passes freely through its appointed vessels;
but if by the loss of the thinner parts, the rest becomes too gross to
be thus carried through, it will stop where the circulation has least
power; and having thus stopped it will accumulate; heaping by degrees
obstruction on obstruction.

Health and chearfulness, and the quiet exercise of mind, depend upon a
perfect circulation: is it a wonder then, when this becomes impeded the
body looses of its health, and the temper of its sprightliness? to be
otherwise would be the miracle; and he inhumanly insults the afflicted,
who calls all this a voluntary frowardness. Its slightest state brings
with it sickness, anguish and oppression; and