of Demoniacs._

[85] _See Aetius, Lib. medecin. Lib. vi. and Paul. AEgineta,
Lib. iii. Cap. xvi._

[86] _Eclog. vi. 48._

For, as Servius observes, Juno possessed their minds with such a
species of madness, that fancying themselves cows, they ran into the
fields, bellowed often, and dreaded the plough. But these, according
to Ovid, the physician Melampus,

--_per carmen & herbas
Eripuit furiis._[87]

Snatch'd from the furies by his charms
and herbs.

[87] _Metamorph. xv. 325._

Nor was this disorder unknown to the moderns; for Schenckius records a
remarkable instance of it in a husbandman of Padua, _who imagining
that he was a wolf, attack'd, and even killed several persons in the
fields; and when at length he was taken, he persevered in declaring
himself a real wolf, and that the only difference consisted in the
inversion of his skin and hair_[88].

[88] _Observat. med. rar. de Lycanthrop. Obs. 1._

But it may be objected to our opinion, that this misfortune was
foretold to the king, so that he might have prevented it by correcting
his morals; and therefore it is not probable that it befel him in the
course of nature. But we know, that those things, which God executes
either thro' clemency or vengeance, are frequently performed by the
assistance of natural causes. Thus having threatened Hezekiah with
death, and being afterwards moved by his prayers, he restored him to
life, and made use of figs laid on the tumor, as a medicine for
his[89] disease. He ordered king Herod, upon account of his pride, to
be devoured by worms[90]. And no body doubts but that the plague,
which is generally attributed to the divine wrath, most commonly owes
its origin to corrupted air.

[89] _See above Chap. v. p. 36._

[90] _See below, Chap. xv._

CHAPTER VIII.

_The Palsy._

There are three paralytics recorded in the holy gospels to have been
cured by Jesus Christ[91]. The case of one of these, which is the
third, having some singularities in it, I shall relate the particulars
of it in the words of St. John, "There is (says the Evangelist) at
Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, near which lay a great
multitude of impotent folk, blind, halt, and withered, waiting for the
moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into
the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the
troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of what