1. breviar. cap. 18. speaks of a usurer in his time, that upon a loss, much melancholy and discontent, was so cured.  As imagination, fear, grief, cause such passions, so conceits alone, rectified by good hope, counsel, &c., are able again to help:  and ’tis incredible how much they can do in such a case, as [3453]Trincavellius illustrates by an example of a patient of his; Porphyrius, the philosopher, in Plotinus’s life (written by him), relates, that being in a discontented humour through insufferable anguish of mind, he was going to make away himself:  but meeting by chance his master Plotinus, who perceiving by his distracted looks all was not well, urged him to confess his grief:  which when he had heard, he used such comfortable speeches, that he redeemed him e faucibus Erebi, pacified his unquiet mind, insomuch that he was easily reconciled to himself, and much abashed to think afterwards that he should ever entertain so vile a motion.  By all means, therefore, fair promises, good words, gentle persuasions, are to be used, not to be too rigorous at first, [3454]"or to insult over them, not to deride, neglect, or contemn,” but rather, as Lemnius exhorteth, “to pity, and by all plausible means to seek to redress them:”  but if satisfaction may not be had, mild courses, promises, comfortable speeches, and good counsel will not take place; then as Christophorus a Vega determines, lib. 3. cap. 14. de Mel. to handle them more roughly, to threaten and chide, saith [3455]Altomarus, terrify sometimes, or as Salvianus will have them, to be lashed and whipped, as we do by a starting horse, [3456]that is affrighted without a cause, or as [3457]Rhasis adviseth, “one while to speak fair and flatter, another while to terrify and chide, as they shall see cause.”

When none of these precedent remedies will avail, it will not be amiss, which Savanarola and Aelian Montaltus so much commend, clavum clavo pellere, [3458]"to drive out one passion with another, or by some contrary passion,” as they do bleeding at nose by letting blood in the arm, to expel one fear with another, one grief with another. [3459] Christophorus a Vega accounts it rational physic, non alienum a ratione:  and Lemnius much approves it, “to use a hard wedge to a hard knot,” to drive out one disease with another, to pull out a tooth, or wound him, to geld him, saith [3460]Platerus, as they did epileptical patients of old, because it quite alters the temperature, that the pain of the one may mitigate the grief of the other; [3461]"and I knew one that was so cured of a quartan ague, by the sudden coming of his enemies upon him.”  If we may believe [3462]Pliny, whom Scaliger calls mendaciorum patrem, the father of lies, Q. Fabius Maximus, that renowned consul of Rome, in a battle fought with the king of the Allobroges, at the river Isaurus, was so rid of a quartan ague.  Valesius, in his controversies, holds this an excellent remedy, and if it be discreetly used in this malady, better than any physic.