The Anatomy of Melancholy

The last kind of madness or melancholy is demonic, if I may call it that: harassment or possession by devils, which Plater and others consider beyond nature. Astonishing things are told of those affected—their actions, gestures, contortions, fasting, prophecies, speaking languages they were never taught and so on. Many strange stories are related about them, but since some people reject these accounts—Deacon and Darrel have written substantial volumes on opposing sides of the question—I choose to omit them.

Fuchs, in his Institutes, book 3, section 1, chapter 11, Felix Plater and Laurentius add another frenzy arising from love, another from study, and another divine or religious frenzy. These, however, belong more properly to melancholy. I shall discuss them separately, intending to devote a whole book to them.