Seleucus had an anchor on his thigh, so had his posterity, as Trogus
records, _lib. 15._ Lepidus, in Pliny _l. 7. c. 17_, was purblind, so was
his son. That famous family of Aenobarbi were known of old, and so surnamed
from their red beards; the Austrian lip, and those Indian flat noses are
propagated, the Bavarian chin, and goggle eyes amongst the Jews, as [1317]
Buxtorfius observes; their voice, pace, gesture, looks, are likewise
derived with all the rest of their conditions and infirmities; such a
mother, such a daughter; their very [1318]affections Lemnius contends "to
follow their seed, and the malice and bad conditions of children are many
times wholly to be imputed to their parents;" I need not therefore make any
doubt of Melancholy, but that it is an hereditary disease. [1319]
Paracelsus in express words affirms it, _lib. de morb. amentium to. 4. tr.
1_; so doth [1320]Crato in an Epistle of his to Monavius. So doth Bruno
Seidelius in his book _de morbo incurab._ Montaltus proves, _cap. 11_, out
of Hippocrates and Plutarch, that such hereditary dispositions are
frequent, _et hanc (inquit) fieri reor ob participatam melancholicam
intemperantiam_ (speaking of a patient) I think he became so by
participation of Melancholy. Daniel Sennertus, _lib. 1. part 2. cap. 9_,
will have his melancholy constitution derived not only from the father to
the son, but to the whole family sometimes; _Quandoque totis familiis
hereditativam_, [1321]Forestus, in his medicinal observations, illustrates
this point, with an example of a merchant, his patient, that had this
infirmity by inheritance; so doth Rodericus a Fonseca, _tom. 1. consul.
69_, by an instance of a young man that was so affected _ex matre
melancholica_, had a melancholy mother, _et victu melancholico_, and bad
diet together. Ludovicus Mercatus, a Spanish physician, in that excellent
Tract which he hath lately written of hereditary diseases, _tom. 2. oper.
lib. 5_, reckons up leprosy, as those [1322]Galbots in Gascony, hereditary
lepers, pox, stone, gout, epilepsy, &c. Amongst the rest, this and madness
after a set time comes to many, which he calls a miraculous thing in