[628] Quoted in Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 671.
_Rheumatism._ In Shakespeare's day this was used in a far wider sense than nowadays, including, in addition to what is now understood by the term, distillations from the head, catarrhs, etc. Malone quotes from the "Sidney Memorials" (vol. i. p. 94), where the health of Sir Henry Sidney is described: "He hath verie much distempored divers parts of his bodie; as namelie, his heade, his stomack, &c., and thereby is always subject to distillacions, coughes, and other rumatick diseases." Among the many superstitions relating to the moon,[629] one is mentioned in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1), where Titania tells how the moon,
"Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound."
The word "rheumatic" was also formerly used in the sense of choleric or peevish, as in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), where the Hostess says: "You two never meet but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good troth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts." Again, in "Henry V." (ii. 3), the Hostess says of Falstaff: "A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic,[630] and talked of the whore of Babylon."
[630] Malone suggests that the hostess may mean "then he was lunatic."
_Serpigo._ This appears to have been a term extensively used by old medical authors for any creeping skin disease, being especially applied to that known as the _herpes circinatus_. The expression occurs in "Measure for Measure" (iii. 1), being coupled by the Duke with "the gout" and the "rheum." In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), Thersites says: "Now, the dry serpigo on the subject."
_Sickness._ Sickness of stomach, which the slightest disgust is apt to provoke, is still expressed by the term "queasy;" hence the word denoted _delicate_, _unsettled_; as in "King Lear" (ii. 1), where it is used by Edmund:
"I have one thing, of a queasy question, Which I must act."
So Ben Jonson employs it in "Sejanus" (i. 1):
"These times are rather queasy to be touched."
_Sigh._ It was a prevalent notion that sighs impair the strength and wear out the animal powers. Thus, in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 2), Queen Margaret speaks of "blood-drinking sighs." We may, too, compare the words of Oberon in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2), who refers to "sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear." In "3 Henry VI." (iv. 4), Queen Elizabeth says: