The Anatomy of Melancholy

The most amusing delusion I ever read of, says Laurentius, concerned a gentleman at Siena in Italy who was afraid to urinate lest he flood the whole town. The physicians had the bells rung backwards and told him that the town was on fire; he then passed water and was immediately cured.

Another imagined that his nose was so large that he would strike it against the wall if he moved. His physician took a large piece of flesh, held it in his hand, and pinched the patient’s nose, making him believe that the flesh had been cut from it.

Forestus, in book 1 of his Observations, had a melancholy patient who thought he was dead. He placed a man in a chest beside the patient’s bed, as though he were a corpse, and had him raise himself a little and eat. The melancholy man asked the pretended corpse whether dead people were accustomed to eating food. He said yes; the patient then ate too and was cured.

Lemnius, in book 2, chapter 6 of On the Four Complexions, gives many such examples, as does Giovanni Pontano in book 4, chapter 2 of On Wisdom. Among the rest I find one especially memorable, recorded in the French Chronicles, concerning the Paris advocate mentioned earlier, who firmly believed that he was dead, and so forth. I have read a multitude of examples of melancholy people cured by such ingenious contrivances.