Heraclitus Christianus, or, The man of sorrow being a reflection on all states and conditions of human life : in three books.

CHAP. IV. Of divers other Distempers and Phrensies wherewith men have been affected.

PLiny, and very many other Physicians, Greeks and Arabians, have written, That since two thousand years, there has been discovered more than three hun∣dred several sorts of Diseases to which men are subject: Not to reckon those new ones which appear every day on the stage, I leave the common ones, where∣with many times those that are troub∣led, are enforced to suffer the burning and Cauterizing of their bodies, Sawing their bones, the taking out of splinters, raking in their sculls, drawing out the very bowels out of their bodies, as if they were to be Anatomiz'd alive. O∣thers have been tied up to so strict a diet, and small quantity of food, by rea∣son of the violence of their Distempers, that they have been constrained to drink their own Urine to quench their thirst, and eat their Plaisters, that they might

moderate their hunger. Others there have been, who have perswaded them∣selves that they have swallowed Serpents, the cure of whom could not be any ways wrought, but by putting in Serpents in∣to the Bason in which they vomited, ma∣king them believe that they came out of their bodies, as Alexander Tralianus re∣lateth of a Damosel whom he healed af∣ter this manner, who thought she had swallowed a Serpent in her sleep. Others have been so strangely affected, that they thought themselves transformed into irra∣tional Creatures, as he of whom Galen maketh mention, who thought himself really transformed into a Cock, and con∣versed ordinarily with them of that kind, he imagined himself to be one; and when he heard them crow, he began to coun∣terfeit and crow with them; and as they clapped their wings against their brests, so did he his arms. Others have thought themselves to be transformed into Wolves, and ceased not all night to run up and down on Mountains and Deserts, follow∣ing the howlings and other gestures of the Wolves: The Greeks call this kind of Malady Lycanthropia, which may seem fabulous to them who are not acquainted with ancient Histories, or the holy Wri∣tings,

wherein we have the Story of Ne∣buchadnezzar, who was changed into the shape of an Ox for the space of seven years. Others, saith Galen, have thought themselves transformed into earthen Ves∣sels, and stirred not out of the Fields lest they should be dashed in peices. Others have been full three years without sleeping or closing their eye lids, as it happened to good Maecenas. Some have been so di∣stempered, that they have knocked their own heads against the wall, as did a Learn∣ed man of our time called Ange Politian. Some have been constrained in their sick∣ness to eat Serpents, as do those who are infected with the Leprosie. From the bodies of others have issued out great number of Serpents, as did out of the body of the Philosopher Pherecides. Some there have been in whose bodies have been ingendred such great quantity of Lice, that they have been eaten up with them.