Jachinus in 9. Rasis cap. 15. ascribes the same cause, and instanceth in a Patient of his, that married a young wife in a hot summer, and so dryed himself with chamber-work, that he became in short space from melancholy, mad: he cured him by moystening remedies. The like example I finde in Lælius à Fonte Eugubinus, consult. 129. of a Gentleman of Venice, that upon the same occasion, was first melancholy, afterwards mad. Reade in him the story at large.

Any other evacuation stopped, will cause it, as well as these above named, be it bile, ulcer, issue, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, lib. 1. c. 16. and Gordonius, verifie this out of their experience. They saw one wounded in the head, who as long as the sore was open, Lucida habuit mentis intervalla, was well; but when it was stopped, Rediit melancholia, his melancholy fit seized on him again.

Artificial evacuations are much like in effect, as hot houses, baths, blood-letting, purging, unseasonably and immoderately used. Baths dry too much, if used in excess, be they natural or artificial, and offend extream hot, or cold; one dries, the other refrigerates overmuch. Montanus, consil. 137. saith, They over-heat the Liver. Joh. Struthius, Stigmat. artis, l. 4. c 9. contends, That if one stay longer then ordinary at the Bath, go in too oft, or at unseasonable times, he putrifies the humors in his body.

To this purpose writes Magninus, l. 3. c. 5. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 21. utterly disallows all hot baths in melancholy adust. I saw (saith he) a man that labored of the Gout, who to be freed of his malady, came to the Bath, and was instantly cured of his disease, but got another worse, and that was Madness. But this judgment varies as the humor doth, in hot or cold: Baths may be good for one melancholy man, bad for another; that which will cure it in this party, may cause it in a second.

Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humors, and melancholy blood; and when the humors heat and boyl, if this be not used in time, the parties affected, so inflamed, are in great danger to be mad; but if it be unadvisedly, importunely, immoderately used, it doth as much harm by refrigerating the body, dulling the spirits, and consuming them:

As Joh. Curio in his 10. Chapter, well reprehends, such kinde of letting blood doth more hurt then good: The humors rage much more then they did before, and is so far from avoyding melancholy, that it increaseth it, and weakeneth the sight. Prosper Calenus observes as much of all Phlebotomy, except they keep a very good diet after it: Yea, and as Leonartus Jachinus speaks out of his own experience, The blood is much blacker to many men after their letting of blood, then it was at first.

For this cause belike Salust. Salvinianus, l. 2. c. 1. will admit or hear of no blood-letting at all in this Disease, except it be manifest, it proceed from blood: He was (it appears) by his own words in that place, Master of an Hospital of mad men, and found by long experience, that this kinde of evacuation, either in head, arm, or any other part, did more harm then good.

To this opinion of his, Felix Plater is quite opposite, Though some wink at, disallow, and quite contradict all Phlebotomy in Melancholy, yet by long experience I have found innumerable so saved, after they had been twenty, nay, sixty times let blood, and to live happily after it. It was an ordinary thing of old, in Galens time, to take at once from such men six pound of blood, which now we dare scarce take in ounces: sed viderint medici, great Books are written of this subject.

Purging upward and downward, in abundance of bad humors omitted, may be for the worst; so likewise as in the precedent, if overmuch, too frequent or violent, it weakneth their strength, saith Fuchsius, l. 2. sect. 2. c. 17. or if they be strong or able to endure Physick, yet it brings them to an ill habit, they make their bodies no better then Apothecaries shops, this, and such like infirmities must needs follow.