Laudator Temporis Acti

Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560), Regrets 59 (tr. Richard Helgerson):

You never see me, Pierre, without saying that I study too much, that I should make love, and that always having these books around makes for bleary eyes and a heavy head.

But you do not understand. For that illness comes not from too much reading or from sitting still too long, but from seeing to the office that is open for business every day. That, Pierre my friend, is the book I study.

Then say no more about it, if you wish to give me pleasure and not to annoy me. But while with a skillful hand

You wash my beard and cut my hair, to cheer me up, tell me, if you like, news of the pope and gossip of the town.

Tu ne me vois jamais (Pierre) que tu ne die
Que j'estudie trop, que je face l'amour,
Et que d'avoir tousjours ces livres à l'entour,
Rend les yeux esblouis, et la teste eslourdie.

Mais tu ne l'entens pas: car ceste maladie        5
Ne me vient du trop lire, ou du trop long sejour,
Ains de voir le bureau, qui se tient chascun jour:
C'est, Pierre mon amy, le livre où j'estudie.

Ne m'en parle donc plus, autant que tu as cher
De me donner plaisir, et de ne me fascher:        10
Mais bien en ce pendant que d'une main habile

Tu me laves la barbe, et me tonds les cheveulx,
Pour me desennuyer, conte moy si tu veulx,
Des nouvelles du Pape, et du bruit de la ville.

1 die = dises
2 face = fasse

See Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part. I, Sec. 2, Mem. 3, Subs. 15: Love of Learning, or Overmuch Study.


Carl Schleicher, Der Bücherwurm

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Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette. Reflections in Cultural History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), pp. 171-172:

In a tract of 1795, J.G. Heinzmann listed the physical consequences of excessive reading: "susceptibility to colds, headaches, weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria, and melancholy."

But Heinzmann (I think) was discussing not the simple physical consequences of too much reading, but rather the debilitating physical and psychical effects of reading the wrong kind of books. See Johann Georg Heinzmann, Über die Pest der deutschen Literatur (Bern, "auf Kosten des Verfassers," 1795), pp. 450-451:

Daher werden unsre Leidenschaften immer starker, immer unregelmäßiger, immer stürmischer. Nach der Erfahrung unserer Stadtärzte sind grosse Empfindlichkeit, leichte Erkältung, Kopfschmerzen, schwache Augen, Hitzblattern, Podagra, Gicht, Hämorrhoiden, Engbrüstigkeit, Schlagflüsse, Lungensnoten, geschwächte Verdauung, Verstopfung der Eingeweide, Nervenschwäche, Migräne, Epilepsie, Hypochondrie, Melankolie, die gewöhnlichsten Krankheiten; unsre Lebenssäfte stocken und faulen; häßliche Leidenschaften: Traurigkeit, Unwillen, Mißvergnügen, Eifersucht und Neid, Trotz und Eigendünkel; Müßiggang und Unzucht, findet man in Strohhütten wie in Pallästen.