fits of the falling sickness. [916] Some say, little things like whelps will be seen in their urine.  If any of these signs appear, they are past recovery.  Many times these symptoms will not appear till six or seven months after, saith [917]Codronchus; and sometimes not till seven or eight years, as Guianerius; twelve as Albertus; six or eight months after, as Galen holds.  Baldus the great lawyer died of it:  an Augustine friar, and a woman in Delft, that were [918]Forrestus’ patients, were miserably consumed with it.  The common cure in the country (for such at least as dwell near the seaside) is to duck them over head and ears in sea water; some use charms:  every good wife can prescribe medicines.  But the best cure to be had in such cases, is from the most approved physicians; they that will read of them, may consult with Dioscorides, lib. 6. c. 37, Heurnius, Hildesheim, Capivaccius, Forrestus, Sckenkius and before all others Codronchus an Italian, who hath lately written two exquisite books on the subject.

Chorus sancti Viti, or St. Vitus’s dance; the lascivious dance, [919] Paracelsus calls it, because they that are taken from it, can do nothing but dance till they be dead, or cured.  It is so called, for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St. Vitus for help, and after they had danced there awhile, they were [920]certainly freed.  ’Tis strange to hear how long they will dance, and in what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied women sometimes (and yet never hurt their children) will dance so long that they can stir neither hand nor foot, but seem to be quite dead.  One in red clothes they cannot abide.  Music above all things they love, and therefore magistrates in Germany will hire musicians to play to them, and some lusty sturdy companions to dance with them.  This disease hath been very common in Germany, as appears by those relations of [921]Sckenkius, and Paracelsus in his book of Madness, who brags how many several persons he hath cured of it.  Felix Plateras de mentis alienat. cap. 3, reports of a woman in Basil whom he saw, that danced a whole month together.  The Arabians call it a kind of palsy.  Bodine in his 5th book de Repub. cap. 1, speaks of this infirmity; Monavius in his last epistle to Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may read more of it.

The last kind of madness or melancholy, is that demoniacal (if I may so call it) obsession or possession of devils, which Platerus and others would have to be preternatural:  stupend things are said of them, their actions, gestures, contortions, fasting, prophesying, speaking languages they were never taught, &c.  Many strange stories are related of them, which because some will not allow, (for Deacon and Darrel have written large volumes on this subject pro and con.) I voluntarily omit.

[922]Fuschius, Institut. lib. 3. sec. 1. cap. 11, Felix Plater, [923]Laurentius, add to these another fury that proceeds from love, and another from study, another divine or religious fury; but these more properly belong to melancholy; of all which I will speak [924]apart, intending to write a whole book of them.