3. _Thomas Bartholinus_ the famous Anatomist, and Physician to _Frederick_ the Third King of _Denmark_, tells us these things: “That it is the property of melancholy persons to fear things not to be feared, and to feign things _quæ nec picta usquam sunt, nec scripta_. A _Plebeian_ (he saith) with them abounding with melancholy blood did imagine that his Nose was grown to that greatness, that he durst not go abroad, for fear it should be hurt or justled upon by those he met. And that a famous Poet at _Amsterdam_ did believe that his Buttocks were of glass, and feared their breaking, if he should sit down. Another Old man of prime Dignity did suspect that he had swallowed a nail, which being lost, he could no where find, and thought himself much tortured by its being fixed in him. But was restored to his health, by having a Vomit given, and the Physician conveying a nail into the matter that he cast up. And that a certain man in _England_ would not make water, for fear that all the blood in his body should have passed forth by that passage, and therefore straitly tyed the yard with a thred for some days, which swelling he was not far from death, but that his Brother by force untyed it.” The Books of Physicians are very full with such relations, and we in our Practice have met with divers as strange as these, and cured them. Also he tells us this: “A certain Student of a melancholick Constitution, distracted with grief for the death of a Sister, and wearied with lucubrations, did complain to (_Bartholinus_) of the Devil haunting of him: and did affirm that he felt the evil Spirit enter by his fundament with wind, and so did creep up his body until it possessed the head, lest he might attend his Prayers and Meditations with his accustomed devotion, and that it did descend and go forth the same way, when he bent himself to Prayers, and reading of Sacred Books. Before these things he used to be filled with unheard of joy from his assiduous Prayers and watching, that also he had heard a celestial kind of Musick, and therefore despising all mortal things, he had distributed all things to the poor; but that now piety waxing cold by too much appetite after meat, and his brain troubled with that wind, that he had heard a voice of one in his brain upbraiding him with Blasphemy, and that he felt hands beating, and a stink passing before his nose. By all which _Bartholinus_ guessed, that it was Hypochondriacal Melancholy, and by good Counsel, proper Physick, merry Company, and rightly ordering of him, he was perfectly cured.” [Sidenote: _Histor. medic. mirab._ _l._ 2. _c._ 1. _p._ 33.]