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CHAP. XXIII. Of certain wonderful and extravagant ways of curing Diseases.
AS Monsters happen sometimes in Nature, so also in Diseases,* 1.1 and in the events and cures of diseases. I understand by Monsters certain marvellous successes in diseases, or certain ways of curing them, which swerve from Art, and happen besides reason, nature, and common use.
Alexander ab Alexandro, and Peter Gilius tell, that in Apulia, a part of Italy,* 1.2 they have a certain kind of Spider very frequent; the Natives call it Tarantula; Petrus Rhodius calls it Phalangium; The Inhabitants find these Spiders in the first heat of Summer so venenate and deadly, that whom∣soever they touch with their virulent biting, he presently, without he have speedy remedy, de∣prived of all sense and motion falls down; or certainly, if he escape the danger of death, he leads the remnant of his life in madness.* 1.3 Experience hath found a remedy by Musick for this so speedy and deadly a disease: Wherefore, as soon as they can, they fetch Fidlers and Pipers of divers kinds, who by playing and piping may make musick; at the hearing whereof, he, which was fallen down by reason of the venemous bite, rises cheerfully, and dances so long to their measures and tunes, until by the painful and continued shaking and agitation of the whole body, all the malignity is dissipated by transpiration and sweats.
Alexander adds, that it happened once in his sight, that the Musicians, their wind and hands fail∣ing them, ceased playing, and then the Dancer presently fell down as if he had been dead; but by and by the Musick beginning anew, he rose up again and continued his dancing till the perfect dissipation of the venom. And that it hath happened, besides, that one not so perfectly healed, certain reliques of the disease yet remaining, when a long time after he heard by chance a noise of Musicians, he presently fell a leaping and dancing, neither could he be made to leave before he was perfectly cured.
Some affirm according to the opinion of Asclepiades,* 1.4 that such as are frantick are much helped with a sweet and musical harmony. Theophrastus and Aulus Gellius say, that the pain of the Gout and Sciatica are taken away by Musick. And the sacred Scripture testifies, that David was wont by the sweet sound of the Harp to refresh and ease King Saul when he was miserably tormented by his evil spirit. Herodotus in Clio tels, that Croesus the King of Lydia had a Son, which of a long time could not speak, and when he came to man's estate was accounted dumb: but when an ene∣my with his drawn sword invaded his father (overcome in a great fight, and the City being taken in which he was) not knowing that he was the King,* 1.5 the young man opened his mouth endea∣vouring to cry out, and with that striving and forcing of the Spirit, he broke the bonds and hin∣derances of his tongue, and spoke plainly and articulately, crying out to the enemy that he should not kill King Croesus. So both the enemy with-held his sword, and the King had his life, and his son had his speech always after. Plutarch in his book, Of the benefit to be received from our enemies, tels, That a Thessalian called Pr••teus, had a certain inveterate and incurable Ulcer in a certain part of his body, which could not be healed, before he received a wound in a con∣flict in the same place, and by that means the cure being began afresh, the wound and ulcer were both healed.
Quintus Fabius Maximus, as Livy writes, was long and very sick of a quartain Ague,* 1.6 neither could have wished success from medicins administred according to Art, until skirmishing with the Ae••o••r••ges, he shaked off his old feaverish heat, by a new heat and ardent desire of fighting. It was credibly reported to me of late by a Gentleman of the Lord of Lansack's Chamber, that there was a French Gentleman in Polonia, who was grievously tormented with a quartain Fea∣ver, who, on a time walking upon the bank of the river Wexel, to take away the irksomness of his fit, was thrust in jest into the River by a friend of his that met him by chance, by which (although he could swim, as he also knew that thrust him in) he conceived so great fear, that the Quartain never troubled him after. King Henry the second commanded me to go from the Camp at Ami∣ens to the City Dorlan, that I m••ght cure those that were hurt in the conflict with the Spani∣ards: the Captain S. Arbin, although at that time he had a fit of a Quartain Ague, yet would he be present at the fight, in which being shot through the side of the neck with a Bullet, he was strucken with such a terror of death, that the heat of the Feaver was asswaged by the cold fear, and he afterwards lived free from his Ague.
Franciscus Valeriola the famous Physitian of Arles, tels,* 1.7 That John Berlam his fellow-Citizen troubled with a Palsey of one side of his body for many years, his house taking fire, and the flame coming near the bed in which he lay, he strucken with a great fear, suddenly raised himself with all the force he had, and presently recovering the strength of his body, leaps out at the window from the top of the house, and was presently cured of his disease; sense and motion being restored to the part, so that afterward he went upright without any sense of pain, who lay unmovable for many years before. He tells the like in the same place of his cousen John Sobiratius; he was a long time lame at Avignion, by reason that the Nerves of his hams were shrunk and drawn up, so that he could not go; being moved with a vehement and sudden passion of anger against one of his servants whom he endeavoured to beat, he so stirred his body, that, forthwith the Nerves of his hams being distended, and his knees made pliant, he began to go and stand upright without any sense of pain, when he had been crooked about the space of six years before, and all his life∣time after he remained sound.