“If any physician shall infer ‘ne sutor ultra crepidam,’ and be grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I tell him, in brief, he does the same by us:—I know many of his sect who have taken Orders in hope of a Benefice—’tis a common transaction; and why may not a melancholy divine, who can get nothing but by _Simony_, profess _Physic_? Marsilius Ficinus was ‘semel et simul,’ a priest and physician, at once ‘sacerdos et medicus;’ and also divers Jesuits are at this time ‘permissu superiorem,’ chirurgeons, panders, bawds and midwives. Many poor vicars, for want of other means, are driven to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers and empirics; and in every village have we not wizards, alchymists, barbers, goodwives, Paracelsians (as they call themselves), possessing great skill, and in such numbers that I marvel how they shall all find employment?” Burton lived about 1576, and was consequently of the same age as our own great Harvey, of whom we shall speak presently. Let me offer you one specimen on the subject of demoniacal possession, first introducing you to a new character, Cornelius Gemma, who was born at Louvain in 1535, and was one of the greatest scholars of his age, a professor of medicine in his native town (the chair having been conferred upon him by the great Duke of Alva, who governed the low countries), and whose writings embrace the subjects of medicine, mathematics, magic, and spiritual possession. Like Cardan, he was thought a little extreme in some views, but this one example suffices to demonstrate the evil influences of Paracelsus. Gemma, in his second book on natural miracles, says:—“A young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper’s daughter, in the year 1571, had such strange passions that three men could not hold her. She purged a live eel—I myself saw and touched—a foot and a half long; she vomited twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours twice a day for fourteen days, and after that great _balls of hair_, _pieces of wood_, _pigeons’ dung_, _coals_, and after them _two pounds_ of pure blood, and then again coals and stones (_of which some had inscriptions_) bigger than a walnut. All this I saw with horror. Physic could do no good, so she was handed over to the clergy.” Marcellus Donatus relates a story of a country fellow who had four knives in his belly, every one a span long, and indented like a saw; also a wreath of hair, and much other baggage. How they “came into his guts” he knew not.