tion. A woman, in the
said Alexander, swallowed a serpent as she thought; he gave her a vomit,
and conveyed a serpent, such as she conceived, into the basin; upon the
sight of it she was amended. The pleasantest dotage that ever I read, saith
[3465]Laurentius, was of a gentleman at Senes in Italy, who was afraid to
piss, lest all the town should be drowned; the physicians caused the bells
to be rung backward, and told him the town was on fire, whereupon he made
water, and was immediately cured. Another supposed his nose so big that he
should dash it against the wall if he stirred; his physician took a great
piece of flesh, and holding it in his hand, pinched him by the nose, making
him believe that flesh was cut from it. Forestus, _obs. lib. 1._ had a
melancholy patient, who thought he was dead, [3466]"he put a fellow in a
chest, like a dead man, by his bedside, and made him rear himself a little,
and eat: the melancholy man asked the counterfeit, whether dead men use to
eat meat? He told him yea; whereupon he did eat likewise and was cured."
Lemnius, _lib. 2. cap. 6. de 4. complex_, hath many such instances, and
Jovianus Pontanus, _lib. 4. cap. 2. of Wisd._ of the like; but amongst the
rest I find one most memorable, registered in the [3467]French chronicles
of an advocate of Paris before mentioned, who believed verily he was dead,
&c. I read a multitude of examples of melancholy men cured by such
artificial inventions.

SUBSECT. III.--_Music a remedy_.

Many and sundry are the means which philosophers and physicians have
prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to divert those fixed and
intent cares and meditations, which in this malady so much offend; but in
my judgment none so present, none so powerful, none so apposite as a cup of
strong drink, mirth, music, and merry company. Ecclus. xl. 20. "Wine and
music rejoice the heart." [3468]Rhasis, _cont. 9. Tract. 15._ Altomarus,
_cap. 7._ Aelianus Montaltus, _c. 26._ Ficinus, Bened. Victor. Faventinus
are almost immoderate in the commendation of it; a most forcible medicine
[3469]Jacchinus calls it: Jason Pratensis, "a most admirable thing, and
worthy of consideration, that can so mollify the mind, and stay those
tempestuous affections of it." _Musica est mentis medicina moestae_, a
roaring-meg against melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul;
[3470]"affecting not only the ears, but the very arteries, the vital and
animal spirits, it erects the mind, and