Trincavelius, consultation 14, book 1, prefers the baths of Porretta to the others because of their mixture of brass, iron and alum. In consultation 35, book 3, for a melancholy lawyer, and consultation 36, for hypochondriacal illness, he prefers the baths of Aquaria; and in consultation 36, the drinking of their water.

Frisimelica, consulted along with others in Trincavelius, consultation 42, book 2, prefers the waters of Abano to all artificially prepared baths whatever for this disease. He would have someone afflicted for nine years with hypochondriacal complaints flee to them as to a sacred anchor. Trincavelius himself agrees in that passage; yet both identify a hot liver as a cause in this same patient, and send him to the waters of Saint Helen, which are much hotter.

Montanus, consultation 230, praises the baths of Caldiero, and in consultations 237 and 239 urges their use, with this caution: the region of the liver should be rubbed externally with cooling preparations so that it does not become overheated. But melancholy people must visit these baths cautiously; or, if the baths are used, they should be reserved for those who are themselves very cold. For, as Gabelius concludes concerning all German baths, especially those at Baden, they are good for all cold diseases, but bad for bilious, hot and dry conditions, and for all illnesses arising from choler, including inflammation of the spleen and liver.

Our English baths, being hot, must come under the same criticism; but Dr Turner in earlier times, and Dr Jones, have written extensively about them. I find little or no mention of cold baths in any physician, and some speak against them. Cardan alone, drawing on Agathinus, recommends bathing in fresh rivers and cold waters, and advises everyone who intends to live long to do so, because it suits all ages and constitutions and is especially beneficial for hot temperaments.

As for sweating, urination, bleeding through haemorrhoids or otherwise, I shall speak of them elsewhere at a more suitable point.

Just as sexual activity in excess, or its absence, can be a cause, so, when practised moderately, it can be the one thing that helps some people, an immediate remedy. Pieter van Foreest calls it “a most suitable remedy”—a most apposite remedy—relieving anger and freeing reason that was otherwise held captive.

Avicenna, fen 3, 20, and Oribasius, Medical Collections, book 6, chapter 37, maintain on the authority of Rufus and others that many people who were mad, melancholy or suffering from epilepsy have been cured by this alone. Montalto, chapter 27, On Melancholy, says that it drives away sorrow and all delusions of the brain, and clears the heart and brain of harmful fumes and vapours that trouble them. If it is omitted, as Valescus supposes, it makes the mind sad and the body sluggish and heavy.

Many other troubles are listed by Mercatus and Rodrigo de Castro in their treatments of melancholy in unmarried women and nuns: “because of the retention of seed, nuns and unmarried women often become frenzied”; but, as Plater adds, “if they marry, they are cured.” They rave while single and waste away in great discontent, but marriage puts everything right.

Marcellus Donatus, book 2 of his Medical History, chapter 1, tells a story from Alessandro Benedetti to confirm this: a young woman who was mad “because her menstrual flow had stopped, having found her way into a brothel, was had by fifteen men in the same night; after a copious menstrual discharge, which had been held back for several years, she left in the morning restored to her senses, though deeply ashamed.”

But this must be understood cautiously; for, as Arnoldus objects in book 1 of the Breviary, chapter 18, “What has intercourse to do with the melancholic humour?” What connection have these two? Unless it is clear that an excess of seed or fullness of blood is a cause, or that love or an extraordinary sexual desire preceded the illness; or unless, as Luis Mercado allows, they suffer greatly from wind and have otherwise been accustomed to intercourse.

Montalto, chapter 27, will not allow even moderate sexual activity to those with gout, paralysis, epilepsy or melancholy, unless they are very vigorous and full of blood. Lodovicus Antonius, in his book of medical miscellanies, in the chapter on sexual activity, forbids it altogether to wrestlers, ditch-diggers, manual labourers and the like.

Ficino and Marsilius Cognatus count sexual activity among the five deadly enemies of a student: it consumes the spirits and weakens the brain. Haly Abbas the Arabian, Theory, 5, chapter 36, and Jason Pratensis make it the source of most diseases, but especially harmful to people who are cold and dry. A melancholy person must not engage in it except in certain cases.

Plutarch, in his book On Preserving Health, counts moderation in this respect among the three chief signs and safeguards of health: to leave the table with an appetite, to be ready for work, and to abstain from sex are “three most healthful things”—three things most conducive to health.

We see how harmful their opposites are to humankind: as with all other creatures, they bring death and many deadly diseases. “The immoderate have a short life and seldom reach old age.” Aristotle gives sparrows as an example: they are “short-lived because of their lust”—short-lived because of their very frequent sexual activity, as Scopius in his work on the Priapeia will explain more fully.

Since both extremes are bad, the middle course should be kept, though it cannot easily be determined. Some can sustain more: people who are hot and moist, phlegmatic, as Hippocrates suggests; some who are strong, vigorous and well fed, like Hercules, the emperor Proculus, lusty Laurence, or the empress Messalina, “a brothel of a woman,” who use every means to increase their capacity, with love potions and stimulating foods of that kind.

And in the end they boast of it: “For you have seen many women pierced through the belly, but few killed,” as that Spanish Celestina jokingly said. Others, lacking the strength and having a cold and dry constitution, cannot endure those exercises without doing their bodies great harm. Melancholy people belong for the most part to this latter group, though they may be very strongly inclined to it.