Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Conjunctions of Mind, Soul and Body from Plato to the Enlightenment pp 305–323Cite as

Tears in Ancient and Early Modern Physiology: Petrus Petitus and Niels Stensen

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1204 Accesses

Part of the book series: Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind ((SHPM,volume 15))

Abstract

In 1661 the French physician, philosopher and poet Petrus Petitus published a Neo-Latin treatise, De Lacrymis. In book 1 he treated systematically according to Aristotelian rules the causa materialis of tears; in book 2 the causae efficientes (tristitia-gaudium) and causa finalis, whereas book 3 deals with separate problemata. His work is a cornucopia of erudition, collected from Greek and Latin sources, Hippocrates and Galen included. It may serve very well to reconstruct an ancient theory of tears and weeping. In the same period, however, Thomas Warton and Nicolaus Steno discovered the system of glands that explained the physiology of weeping. Two explanatory models, one by analogy, the other based on anatomical observation and experiment, stood side by side. After some introductory remarks on early, pre-scientific ideas on human physiology testimonia on tears and weeping in ancient literature are presented, using Petitus as ‘Fundgrube’. This section is concluded by an overview of the most common ‘physiological’ theories of tears and weeping in ancient medicine, based on analogy. After discussing ancient anatomical knowledge of the eye, we try to put the discovery of the functioning of the lachrymal glands in the seventeenth century in context. Our aim is to highlight Petitus’ On Tears as a culminating point of ancient analogical thinking, alongside the emerging science of anatomy, based on observation and experiment.

Piet Schrijvers in his valedictory lecture (2001) first drew my attention to Petrus Petitus. I am grateful for his interest and his suggestions. I thank Elizabeth Craik and Ad Vingerhoets for their comments and Ineke Loots for her advice and her permission to cite her translation of De lacrymis. Of course the responsibility for any errors remains my own. I gratefully acknowledge the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (Wassenaar), the Internationales Kolleg Morphomata (Cologne) and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin for the time I could spend on this project.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Vingerhoets et al. (2009), pp. 439–475; a book by the same author summarizing the existing knowledge has appeared recently: Vingerhoets (2013).

  2. 2.

    In contrast to the original sixteenth century Pléiade (a group of seven humanist poets including Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay) who promoted the use of the French language, the poets of the Pléiade de Paris wrote in Latin.

  3. 3.

    Eandem opinionem tuetur Meletius libro de hominis structura et e recentioribus Renatus Cartesius eo tractatu quem de animi affectibus conscripsit, ubi statuit vapores, quos dolor maiore in oculis, humidis partibus, quam alibi copia excitat, constrictis tristia meatibus ita condensari, ut in liquorem vertantur; quemadmodum in aliis videre est et perpetua experientia fieri cognoscitur, ut spirituum vaporumque condensatione aqua generetur. Petitus refers in De Lacrymis (1661, p. 17) to Les passions de l’âme, § 128, AT X. Meletius was a Byzantine monk, probably living in the ninth century, author of the book De natura structuraque hominis. A Latin translation of this book was published in Venice in 1552.

  4. 4.

    Quis credat oculos tantum vapores capere posse, qui si toti in vapores abeant, vix tot humoribus, quot flentes profundunt, creandis sufficient. Si quis vero pro eo respondeat vapores omnes non gigni in oculis nec iis contineri, sed ad ipsos aliunde confluere, primum quidem ipsum remittam ad librum Cartesii, ut iudicet, num ita is senserit, quod mihi non videtur. Petitus refers to Les passions de l’âme, § 128–129, AT X.

  5. 5.

    See now ‘Isaac Vossius and the scientific communities’ in Jorink and van Miert (2012).

  6. 6.

    He apparently refers to the Pauline Epistle 1 Cor. 13.2.

  7. 7.

    De motu animalium, 701b, 22–23. All references to Aristotle in this article are to the standard edition: Aristoteles (1831–1870).

  8. 8.

    De motu animalium, 701b, 23–24.

  9. 9.

    Book. 5 De symptomatum causis, citation in Latin: Ex primis itaque principalissimis motibus quidam censetur quod calor nativus tum intro, tum foras defertur, idque in compluribus animi pathematis, ac una cum ipso et sanguis et spiritus, modo ad interna, nempe ad principium fertur retrahiturque, modo tendit ad externa atque diffunditur. 7.191.4–12 Kühn.

  10. 10.

    Cf. Galen’s treatise Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur, 4.767–822 Kühn.

  11. 11.

    J.C. Scaliger Exotericarum exercitationum de subtilitate, ad Hieronymum Cardanum, Exercitio 274: Quae de hominis moribus ex temperamentis ‘What in the habits of man is caused by the temperaments’, Scaliger (1612)

  12. 12.

    Metaphysics, 993b5.

  13. 13.

    Petitus probably refers to Les Charactères des Passions by Cureau de la Chambre. A series of five books on this subject appeared in the years 1640–1662. Cureau de la Chambre discusses emotions as movements of the soul.

  14. 14.

    Historia animalium, 608b, 8–9.

  15. 15.

    Fragmenta, Fr. 62 Diels-Kranz (1964), lines 4–6.

  16. 16.

    Tusculanae disputationes, 2.21.50, 8–9 Tusculan disputations. Cicero (1971), p. 141.

  17. 17.

    De virginum morbis, section 1, 9–10, Littré (1961–1982), vol. VIII, p. 466–471.

  18. 18.

    Historia animalium, 608b, 11–12.

  19. 19.

    Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 15.10. Aulus Gellius (1946), 195, 200, 212.

  20. 20.

    Homer, Iliad 2. 701, Homer (1924–1925).

  21. 21.

    Consolatio ad Appollonium, 113 A, 3–4, Plutarch (1928), 222

  22. 22.

    Though Lloyd (1979), pp. 159–160, and von Staden (1989), p. 147, n.21 seem to accept the possibility of real vivisection.

  23. 23.

    Onians (1989), 201–205 gives an interesting overview of tears as the ‘stuff of life’ in Greek literature from the weeping Odysseus (Od. 8.522 ff.) to the chorus in Euripides’ Hippolytus (l. 525). Euripides (1995), 484

  24. 24.

    Petitus (1661), pp. 49–50. Generantur humores ex cibis quos cotidie sumimus, qui, cum magnam partem solidi sint, non solum in ore dentibus moli, sed et potu dilui debent. Iidem ita subacti in ventriculum descendunt, vertendi in substantiam cremori persimilem. Dehinc in intestina, a quibus rursum per venas mesentericas, quasve Asellius soli chylo sugendo dicatas invenit et a colore lacteas vocavit, transportantur, ad iecur; demum per venas in corpus universum mittuntur. Ob hanc causam potu ipsos, ut dixi, primum dilui oportet, tum ut facilius in ventriculo solvantur, tum ut ex iis humores liquidi creentur, qui nisi multum aquei humoris admistum haberent, neque venas angustissimas subire possent, neque corpori affigi. Haec origo seri est.

  25. 25.

    Galen De symptomatum causis 2.5 (7.191 Kühn).

  26. 26.

    Petitus (1661), pp. 87–88. Ex primis autem motibus est spirituum dilatatio et contractio ad speciem molesti aut iucundi, imo unus ex principalissimis, quemadmodum his verbis testatur Galenus lib. 5. De Symptomatum Causis, ita scribens: ‘Ex primis itaque’ (ut ita dicam) ‘principalissimis motibus quidam censetur, quo calor nativus tum intro tum foras defertur, idque in compluribus animi pathematis ac una cum ipso et sanguis et spiritus, modo ad interna nempe ad principium fertur retrahiturque, modo tendit ad externa atque diffunditur.’

  27. 27.

    Cordis enim contractionem sequuntur spiritus, introque ad suum principium confugiunt, inde aliae partes, septum transversum, thorax universus, facies, cuius linamenta ita confunduntur ut, quem laetum vidisti, plorantem vix agnoscas. Frons contrahitur, coëunt supercilia, oculi merguntur, genae retrahuntur, os in rictum dehiscit, qualem picturam Promethei proponit Achilles Tatius lib. 3 Petitus (1661), p. 93. Achilles Tatius (1969), 45.

  28. 28.

    For an extensive discussion of this subject see Kodera (2012).

  29. 29.

    Petitus (1661), p. 24. Nam et halitibus sursum tendentibus kat’ixin respondet, haud secus ac destillatorii vasis fastigium earum rerum fumis quae destillantur: tum sinus habet vaporum capaces, cum in oculis nullum spatium ostendi possit in quo ii recipiantur.

  30. 30.

    24A5 Diels-Kranz (1964).

  31. 31.

    Translation taken from Hippocrates (1994).

  32. 32.

    To quote a few examples: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (see Lange 1996, pp. 23–24); Timothy Bright, A Treatise of Melancholie (1586) (see Lange 1996, p. 27, also p. 29 on children and women!).

  33. 33.

    Lindano cum suo Hippocrate deserto, et vacua in aula neglegi Hippocratem ringente.

  34. 34.

    Ex hisce glandulis, earumque vasis, qui palpebras inter oculique globum observatur, humor procedens, per lacrymalia puncta in nares defluit.

  35. 35.

    Clarissimus enim Wharton. Adenogr. C.26. ait: non negandum easdem humiditates aliquas, quanquam non ea copia, qua lachrymae stillant, suppeditare, licet idem breviante dixerit: Verum quo modo glandulae illae humiditates has exspuant, vel per quae vasa easdem excipiant, nemo adhuc demonstravit.

  36. 36.

    Steno (1662), p. 92–93.Existimo itaque lacrymas nihil esse, nisi humorem, qui oculo irrigando destinatus est.

  37. 37.

    Steno (1662), p. 90. Licet autem praedicata vasa non nisi in brutis viderim, quin tamen etiam homini sint concessa nullus dubito. Cum enim et glandulae illi adsint similes, simili in loco sitae, cum humor, qui sub palpebris reperitur, non sit diversus, oportet etiam eiusdem generis vasa ibi admittantur.

  38. 38.

    Steno (1662), p. 90 Sic quoque ex cerebro fortassis humorem subsalsum per singularia vasa in oculos derivari posse: sed quia suspicione pro veris venditare, meum non est, in medio haec reliquens quae manifesta sunt, proponam: cum ex iis omnia, quae circa lacrymas observantur, phoenomena commode possint explicari.

References

  • Achilles Tatius. (1969). Leucippe et Clitophon (S. Gaselee Ed. and trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archives Biographiques Françaises, Munich (1991–2000). K.G. Saur.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aristoteles. (1831–1870). Opera. 5 vols. Academia Regia Borussica Ed. Berlin: G. Reimer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aulus Gellius. (1946). The Attic nights of Aulus Gellius (3 vols). (John C. Rolfe Ed. and trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, S. P. (1981). Tears and weeping. An aspect of emotional climate reflected in seventeenth-century French literature. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blankaart, S. (1686). De nieuw hervormde anatomie, ofte ontleding des menschen lichaams: Als ook een verhandeling van het balsemen der lichamen. Noit voor desen dusdanig bekent gemaakt. Amsterdam: Jan Claesz ten Hoorn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cicero. (1971). Tusculan disputations. (J. E. King trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craik, E. M. (2006). Two hippocratic treatises: On sight and on anatomy. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craik, E. M. (2008). Myelos: Matters of life and death. Acta Classica, 2, 64–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronk, N. (2003). The classical sublime: French neoclassicism and the language of literature. Charlottesville: Rookwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Descartes, R. (1996). Les passions de l’âme. In C. Adams & P. Tannery (Ed.), Oeuvres de Descartes. Paris: J. Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diels, H., & Kranz W. (1964). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (11th ed., 3 vols). Zürich: Weidmann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Euripides. (1995). Children of Heracles, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba. (David Kovacs Ed. and trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heyd, M. (1990). Descartes; an enthusiast malgré lui? In D. S. Kats, J. I. Israel (Eds.), Sceptics, millenarians and Jews (pp. 35–58). Leiden: Brill.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hippocrates. (1994). Epidemics, 2, 4–7. (W. D. Smith Ed. and trans.). (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homer. (1924–1925). The Iliad (2 vols). (A. T. Murray trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jorink, E., & van Miert, D. (Ed.). (2012). Isaac Vossius (1618–1689) between science and scholarship. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kappas, A. (2009). Mysterious tears, the phenomenon of crying from the perspective of social neuroscience. In T. Fögen (Ed.). (2009). Tears in the Graeco-Roman World (pp. 419–438). Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kodera, S. (2012). The art of the distillation of ‘spirits’ as a technological model for human physiology. The cases for Marsilo Ficino, Joseph Duchesne and Francis Bacon. In M. Horstmanshoff, H. King, & C. Zittel (Eds.). (2012). Blood, sweat and tears: The changing concepts of physiology from antiquity into early modern Europe (pp. 139–170). Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kühn, C. G. (Ed.) (1821–1833). Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia quae Extant (22 vols). Leipzig: C. Knobloch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lange, M. E. (1996). Telling tears in the english renaissance. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Littré, E. (1961–1982). Œuvres complètes d’Hippocrate (10 vols). Amsterdam: Hakkert.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, G. E. R. (1966). Polarity and analogy : two types of argumentation in early Greek thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, G. E. R. (1979). Magic, reason and experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Onians, R. B. (1989). The origins of European thought about the body, the mind, the soul, the world, time, and fate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petitus, P. (1660). De motu animalium spontaneo. Paris: C. Cramoisy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petitus, P. (1661). De lacrymis. Paris: C. Cramoisy (digital view Leiden University special collections with a translation in English by Ineke Loots. https://socrates.leidenuniv.nl/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=2898618). Accessed 30 May 2014.

  • Petitus, P. (1683). Selectorum poematum libri duo. Accessit dissertatio de furore poetico. Paris: J. Cusson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petitus, P. (1689). Homeri Nepenthes sive de Helenae medicamento luctum. Utrecht: Rudolph van Zijll.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plutarch. (1928). Moralia (16 vols). (Frank Cole Babbitt trans.). London: Heinemann, New York: Putnam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scaliger. J. C. (1612). Exotericarum exercitationvm liber XV. de subtilitate, ad Hieronymvm Cardanvm. Frankfurt : Impensis Claudii Marnii hæredum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schrijvers, P. (2004). Ik kan de muzen niet haten. Over poëtische geestdrift en stoïcijnse standvastigheid. Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij (previously published as a valedictory lecture: Sunt lacrimae rerum: een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der tranen. (2001). Leiden: Afscheidsrede Universiteit).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahnisch, F. W. (2012). The tertium comparationis of the elementa physiologiae: Johann Gottfried von Herder’s conception of “tears” as mediators between the sublime and the actual bodily physiology. In M. Horstmanshoff, H. King, & C. Zittel (Eds.). (2012). Blood, sweat and tears: The changing concepts of physiology from antiquity into early modern Europe (pp. 595–628). Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steno, N. (1661). Disputatio anatomica de glandulis oris. Leiden: Johannes Elsevir

    Google Scholar 

  • Steno, N. (1662). Observationes Anatomicae. Leiden: Jacobus Chouët.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steno, N. (1673). Lecture in the Domus anatomica at Copenhagen University. (29 January 1673). http://tidsskriftet.no/article/834925. Accessed 26 Feb 2013.

  • Taub, L. (2012). Physiological analogies and metaphors in explanations of the earth and the cosmos. In M. Horstmanshoff, H. King, & C. Zittel (Eds.). (2012). Blood, sweat and tears: The changing concepts of physiology from antiquity into early modern Europe (pp. 41–63). Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vingerhoets, A. (2013). Why only humans weep: Unravelling the mysteries of tears. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., Byslma, L. M., & Rottenberg, J. (2009). Crying: A biopsychosocial phenomenon. In T. Fögen (Ed.) (2009). Tears in the Graeco-Roman world (pp. 439–475). Berlin : Walter de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wharton, T. Adenographia, sive glandularum totius corporis descriptio. London: typis J.G., 1656.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Staden, H. (1989). Herophilus, the art of medicine in early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Manfred Horstmanshoff

Authors
  1. Manfred Horstmanshoff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manfred Horstmanshoff .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for the History, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, West Australia, Australia

    Danijela Kambaskovic

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Horstmanshoff, M. (2014). Tears in Ancient and Early Modern Physiology: Petrus Petitus and Niels Stensen. In: Kambaskovic, D. (eds) Conjunctions of Mind, Soul and Body from Plato to the Enlightenment. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9072-7_16

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation