Envy's pathology: Historical contexts [version 1; referees: 2 approved with reservations]

This article is concerned with the physicality of envy in early modernand eighteenth-century health contexts. The discussion brings together descriptions of the effects of envy on the body of the envier, mainly from works of physiology and health preservation, but also from literary and spiritual writings. These depictions of envy are studied beyond their symbolism and with a view to establish whether they are meaningful according to the medical paradigms of the time in which they occur. The discussion begins by acknowledging the status of envy as a ‘disease’ and looks to the specific ways in which the discourse of envy conveys this sense. I find that in the early modern discourse envy is always pathological, that is, it is experienced as disease and signifies disease in general and several diseases in particular. Moreover, envy is uniquely placed to convey pathology on account of its being connected to inherently pathogenic elements of the humoural theory. Specifically, envy is physiologically connected to melancholy, and the way it is presented comes close to attributes assigned to black bile. In addition, envy realizes pathology, the occurrence of disease in the body, by impairing the vital process of digestion and thus depriving the person from proper nourishment and sustenance. This article concludes by looking at envy within an eighteenth-century context. It finds that by the end of the century envy undergoes a significant shift away from its status as disease and considers the reasons for this change. Lina Minou ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Minou L. Wellcome How to cite this article: Envy's pathology: Historical contexts [version 1; referees: 2 approved with reservations] Open Research 2017, :3 (doi: ) 2 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.10415.1 © 2017 Minou L. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the , which Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution Licence permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [202652/Z/16/Z]. Grant information: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. 09 Jan 2017, :3 (doi: ) First published: 2 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.10415.1 Referee Status: