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    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Treatise on Lovesickness

A Treatise on Lovesickness

Ferrand, Jacques
Beecher, Donald A.
Ciavolella, Massimo

Paperback

Series: Iroquois & Their Neighbors (Hardcover)

General SociologySexuality

ISBN10: 0815625324
ISBN13: 9780815625322
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: May 1 1994
Pages: 728
Weight: 2.13
Height: 1.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.03
Language: English

Originally published in Toulouse in French in 1610, this translation of the 1623 edition of Ferrand's treatise, Of Lovesickness or Erotic Melancholy: A Scientific Discourse that teaches how to know the essence, causes, signs, and remedies of this disease of the fantasy, is a veritable summa on the topic of erotomania in the late Renaissance.

As both a philosopher and a practicing physician, Ferrand saw his treatise as a medical book to help people, indeed to cure them of the most frequent and most dangerous disease which threatens mortals of both sexes. In order to explore the nature and cure of the disease, it was necessary for Ferrand to make frequent detours through chapters dealing with heredity, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, incubi and succubi, and love philters as they relate to the nature and diagnosis of erotic love.

Ferrand takes up questions concerning the diseases of women, hysteria and satyriasis, real and putative sex changes, and the cures for sterility and impotence that can lead to marital breakdown. In fact, under the general heading of a history of lovesickness, one can actually find in Ferrand five related histories: medicine, mental health, psychiatry, feminine sexuality, and pharmacy--all of which he documents copiously from over three hundred authors, from classical sources to church fathers to naturalists.

In their exhaustive analysis of nearly two thousand marginal references, the editors have identified and expanded Ferrand's sources, many of which are either little known or relatively inaccessible today. Their annotations and

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