Black Bile, or Melancholy. According to the ancients it hath a twofold origin: 1st, From the grosser parts of the blood, and this they called the melancholy humour. 2d, From yellow bile being highly concocted. Dr Percival, in his Essays Med. and Exp. suggests, that it is the gall rendered acrid by a stagnation in the gall-bladder, and rendered viscid by the absorption of its fluid parts. Bile in this state discharged into the duodenum, occasions universal disturbance and disorder until it is evacuated: it occasions violent vomiting, or purging, or both; and previous to this the pulse is quick, the head aches, a delirium comes on, a hiccough, intense thirst, inward heat, and a fetid breath. Some describe this kind of bile as being acid, harsh, corroding, and, when poured on the ground, bubbling up and raising the earth after the manner of a ferment. Dr Percival says, that by the use of the infus. sene limon, warmed with the tinct. columb. he had checked the vomitings occasioned by this matter.