the stomach will bear. Lastly, the
patient is to be kept to a slender diet, and compelled to use
exercise. But in all evacuations, a certain degree of moderation ought
to be used, lest the madness be changed into a contrary disease, which
the ancients termed _morbus cardaicus_,[126] that is, an excessive
weakness of body. In which case, the patient is so far exhausted, that
medicines are of no avail; but the miserable dejected man drags the
remains of life, alass! generally too long.

[126] _Idem, Lib. iii. Cap. xix._

CHAPTER X.

_Of Lunatics._

As some ancient physicians attributed the falling sickness to some
divine power, so they ascribed madness to the influence of the moon.
Yet the lunatic, [Greek: seleniazomenos], whose disease is described
in the gospels, was affected with the falling sickness.[127] Wherefore
this patient (for there is but one of this kind expresly recorded
there) was either mad and epileptic at the same time, which is not
uncommon; or he laboured under a periodical epilepsy, returning with
the changes of the moon, which is a very common case. For the account
given of him is very short, that _he ofttimes fell into the fire and
oft into the water_. Now in this distemper a person falls down
suddenly, and lies for some time as dead; or by a general convulsion
of his nerves, his body is agitated, with distorted eyes, and he foams
at the mouth. But at length he recovers out of the fit, and has no
more knowledge or remembrance of it, than if nothing had happened to
him. Yet _Jesus_ is said to have _rebuked the devil, and he departed
out of him, and the child was cured_. That this child's case was
epileptic, appears more manifestly from the account given of it by the
evangelist, who was also a physician: for he says, _that as soon as
the spirit has seized the patient, he cries out, foams at the mouth,
and is torn and worried by him_.[128]

[127] _Matthew, Chap. xvii. v. 15 and 18._

[128] _Luke, Chap. ix. v. 39, &c._

Now, as to these [Greek: seleniazomenoi], who are subjoined to the
demoniacs, as if their diseases were different, and whom Jesus is
said to have cured;[129] they were either mad, or mad and epileptic
together, which is not an uncommon case, as we have just now said. And
as to devils, we have treated of them sufficiently. But with relation
to the moon, there is not the least reason to doubt, but that the
regular returns of the paroxysms at certain times of th