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10

Definit. Numb. Divis. of Diseases.

Partn. 1. Sec. I.

Th' earth's full of maladies, and full the sea,
Which set upon us both by night and day.

Division of Diseases.] If you require a more exact division of these ordinary Diseases which are incident to men, I refer you to Physicians; they will tell you of Acute and Chronick, First and Secundary, Lethales, Salutares, Errant, Fixed, Simple, Compound Connexed, or Consequent, belonging to parts or the whole, in Habit, or in Disposition, &c. My division at this time (as most befitting my purpose) shall be into those of the Body and Minde. For them of the Body, a briefe Catalogue of which Fuschius hath made, Institut. lib. 3. sect. 1. cap. 11. I refer you to the voluminous Tomes of Galen, Areteus, Rhasis, Avicenna, Alexander, Paulus Ætius, Gordonerius: and those exact Neotericks, Savanarola, Capivaccius, Donatus Altomarus, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Victorius Faventinus, Wecker, Piso, &c. that have methodically and elaborately written of them all. Those of the minde and Head I will briefly handle, and apart.

THE

SUBSEC. III.

Division of the diseases of the Head.

HESE Discases of the Minde, forasmuch as they have their chiefe seat and organs in the head, which are commonly repeated amongst the diseases of the head which are divers, and vary much according to their site. For in the head, as there be several parts, so there be divers grievances, which according to that division of Heurnius, (which he takes out of Arculanus) are inward or outward (to omit all others which pertaine to Eyes and Eares, Nostrils, Gums, Teeth, Mouth, Palate, Tongue, Wesel, Chops, Face, &c.) belonging properly to the brain, as baldness, falling of haire, furfaire, lice, &c. "Inward belonging to the skins next to the Brain, called dura and pia mater, as all head-aches, &c. or to the Ventricles, Caules, Kels, Tunicles, Creeks, and parts of it, and their passions, as Caro, Vertigo, Incubus, Apoplexie, Falling sickness. diseases of the Nerves; Crampes, Stupor, Convulsion, Tremor, Palsie: or belonging to the excrements of the brain, Catarrhes, Sneezing, Rheumes, Distillations: or else those that

The

See Fernelius Path. lib. 1. cap. 9, 10, 11, 12. Fuschius instit. 1. 3. sect. 1: c. 7. Wecker. Synt. 'Præfat de morbis capitis. In capite ut variæ habitant partes, ita variæ querelæ ibi eveniunt. "Of which reade Heurnius, Mon

faltus, Hildesheim, Quercetan, Jason Pratensis, &c.

pertaine

X

pertaine to the substance of the brain it self, in which are conceived, Frensie, Lethargie, Melancholy, madness, weake memory, Sopor, or Coma Vigilia & vigil Coma. Out of these again I will single such as properly belong to the Phantasie, or Imagination, or Reason it self, which Laurentius calls the diseases of the minde; and Hildisheim, morbos Imaginationis, aut Rationis læse, which are three or four in number, Frensie, Madness, Melancholy, Dotage and their kindes: as Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia, Chorus sancti viti, morbi dæmoniaci : which I will briefly touch and point at, insisting especially in this of Melancholy, as more eminent than the rest, and that through all his kinds, causes, symptomes, prognosticks, cures : As Lonicerus hath done de Apoplexia, and many other of such particular diseases. Not that I finde fault with those which have written of this subject before, as Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, Montaltus, T. Bright, &c. they have done very well in their several kinds and methods; yet that which one omits, another may happely see; that which one contracts, another may inlarge. To conclude with Scribanius, "that which they had neglected, or profunctorily handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that which is obscurely delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us:" and so made more familiar and easie for every man's capacity, and the common good; which is the chief end of my Discourse.

SUBSEC. IV.

Dotage, Phrensie, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia, Chorus sancti Viti, Extasis.

7.

a

Delirium dotage.]DOTAGE; Fatuity, or Folly, is a common name to all the following Species, as some will have it. Laurentius and Altomarus comprehended Madness, Melancholy, and the rest under this name, and call it the summum genus of them all. If it be distinguished from them, it is naturall or ingenite, which comes by some defect of the organs, and over-much brain, as we see in our common fooles; and is for the most part intended or remitted in particular men, and thereupon some are wiser then other: or else it is acquisite, an appendix or symptome of some other disease, which comes or goes; or if it continue, a signe of Melancholy itself.

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Phrensie.] Phrenitis, which the Greeks derive from the word Opv, is a Disease of the Minde, with a continual Madness or Dotage, which hath an acute feaver annexed, or else an inflammation of the Brain, or the Membranes or Kels of it, with an acute feaver, which causeth Madnesse and Dotage. It differs from Melancholy and Madness, because their dotage is without an ague: this continual, with waking, or Memory decayed, &c. lancholy is most part silent, this clamorous; and many such like differences are assigned by Physicians.

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Madnesse.] Madness, Frensie, and Melancholy are confounded by Celsus, and many writers; others leave out Frensie, and make Madness and Melancholy but one disease; which Jason Pratensis especially labours, and that they differ only secundum majus or minus, in quantity alone, the one being a degree to the other, and both proceeding from one cause. They differ intenso & remisso gradu, saith Gordonius, as the humor is intended or remitted. Of the same minde is "Areteus, Alexander Tertullianus, Guianerius, Savanarola, Heurnius; and Galen himself writes promiscuously of them both by reason of their affinity: but most of our neotericks do handle them apart, whom I will follow in this Treatise. Madness is therefore defined to be a vehement Dotage; or raving without a Fever, far more violent than Melancholy, full of anger and clamor, horrible looks, actions, gestures, troubling the patients with far greater vehemency both of body and minde, without all fear and sorrow, with such impetuous force and boldness, that sometimes three or four men cannot hold them. Differing only in this from Phrensie, that it is without a Fever, and their memory is most part better. It hath the same causes as the other, as Choler adust, and bloud incensed, Brains inflamed, &c. Fracastorius addes, "a due time, and full age to this definition, to distinguish it from children, and will have it confirmed Impotency, to separate it from such as accidentally come and go again, as by taking Henbane, Nightshede, Wine, &c. Of this fury there be divers kindes; Extasie, which is familiar with some persons, as Cardan saith of himself, he could be in one when he list, in which the Indian priests deliver their Oracles, and the witches in Lapland, as Olaus Magnus writeth, 1. 3. cap. 18. Extasi omnia prædicere, answer all questions

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Pleriq; medici uno complexu perstringunt hos duos morbos, quod ex eadem causa oriantur, quodq; magnitudine & modo solùm distent, et alter gradus ad alterum existat. Jason Pratens. Lib. Med. d Pars maniæ mihi videtur. Insanus est, qui ætate debitâ, & tempore debito per se, non momentancam & fugacem, ut vini, solani, Hyoscyami, sed confirmatam habet impotentiam bene operandi circa intellectum. lib. 2. de intellectione. C which read Flix Plater, cap, 3. de mentis alienatione.

in an Extasis you will ask; what your friends do, where they are, how they fare, &c. The other species of this fury are Enthusiasmes, Revelations, and Visions, so often mentioned by Gregory and Beda in their works; Obsession or possession of devils, Sibylline Prophets, and Poetical Furies; such as come by eating noxious Herbs, Tarantulas stinging, &c. which some reduce to this, The most known are these, Lycanthropia, Hydrophobia, Chorus sancti Viti.

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Lycanthropia.] Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls Cucubuth, others Lupinam insaniam, or Wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be perswaded but that they are Wolves, or some such beasts. Ætius and Paulus call it a kinde of Melancholy; but I should rather refer it to madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it whether there be any such disease. Donat ab Altomari saith, that he saw two of them in his time: kWicrus tells a story of such a one at Padua 1541, that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a Wolf. He hath another instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a Beare: I Forrestus confirms as much by many examples; one amongst the rest of which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland, a poor Husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in Churchyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such belike, or little better, were King Prætus' " daughters', that thought themselves kine. And Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel, as some interpreters hold, was only troubled with this kinde of Madness. This disease perhaps gave occasion to that bold assertion of n Pliny, some

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men were turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again:" and to that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a Wolf, and afterwards turned to his former shape: to Ovid's tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to hear of this Disease, or more examples, let him read Austin in his 18. book de Civitate Dei, cap. 5. Mizaldus cent. 5.77. Sekenkius lib. 1. Hildesheim spicel. 2. de Mania. Forestus lib. 10. de morbis cerebri. Olaus Magnus, Vincentius' Bellavicensis, spec. met. lib. 31. c. 122. Pierius, Bodine, Zuinger, Zeilger, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger, &c. This malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in Februarie, and is now adaies frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to Heurnius. Schernitzius will have it common in Livonia. They lye hid most part all day, and go abroad in the night, barking, howl

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ing, at graves and deserts; "they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighes, very dry and pale," saith Altomarus; he gives a reason there of all the symptomes, and sets down a brief cure of them.

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Hydrophobia is a kinde of madness, well known in every village, which comes by the biting of a mad dog, or scratching, saith Aurelianus; touching, or smelling alone sometimes as 'Sckenkius proves, and is incident to many other creatures as well as men: so called, because the parties affected cannot endure the sight of water, or any liquor, supposing stil they see a mad dog in it. And which is more wonderful; though they be very dry, (as in this malady they are) they will rather die then drink: Cælius Aurelianus, an ancient writer, makes a doubt whether this Hydrophobia be a passion of the body or the minde. The part affected is the Brain: the cause, poyson that comes from the mad dog, which is so hot and dry, that it consumes all the moysture in the body. "Hildesheim relates of some that died so mad; and being cut up, had no water, scarce bloud, or any moysture left in them. To such as are so affected, the fear of water begins at 14. dayes after they are bitten, to some again not till 40. or 60. dayes after: commonly saith Heurnius, they begin to rave, flye water and glasses, to look red, and swell in the face, about 20. dayes after (if some remedy be not taken in the meane time) to lye awake, to be pensive, sad, to see strange visions, to bark and howl, to fall into a swoun, and oftentimes fits of the falling sickness. * Some say, little things like whelps will be seen in their urines. If any of these signes appear, they are past recovery. Many times these symptoms will not appear till six or seven months after, saith Codronchus; and some times not till 7. or 8. years, as Guianerius; 12. as Albertus; 6. or 8. months after, as Galen holds. Baldus the great lawyer died of it: an Augustin Frier, and a woman in Delph, that were Forrestus patients, were miserably consumed with it. The common cure in the country (for such at least as dwell neer the sea side) is to duck them over head and eares in sea water; some use charmes : every good wife can prescribe medicines. But the best cure to be had in such cases, is from the most approved Physicians; they that will read of them, may consult with Dioscorides, lib. 6. c. 37. Heurnius, Hildesheim, Capivaccius, Forrestus, Sckenkius, and before all others Codronchus an Italian, who hath lately written two exquisite books of this subject.

* Ulcerata crura, sitis ipsis adest immodica, pallidi, lingua sicca. art. Hydrophobia. Lib. 3. Cap. 9.

Cap. 13. de morbis acutis. "Spicel. 2.

Lib. 7. de Venenis.

9 Cap. 9. Lib. 3.

* Sckenkius 7. lib. de Venenis.

Lib. de Hydrophobia.

2 Observat. 1.b. 10. 25.

Chorus

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