All these circumstances agree so perfectly well with hypochondriacal madness, that to me it appears evident, that Nebuchadnezzar was seized with this distemper, and under its influence ran wild into the fields: and that, fancying himself transformed into an ox, he fed on grass in the manner of cattle. For every sort of madness is, as I shall specify more particularly hereafter[84], a disease of a disturbed imagination; which this unhappy man laboured under full seven years. And thro’ neglect of taking proper care of himself, his hair and nails grew to an excessive length; whereby the latter growing thicker and crooked, resembled the claws of birds. Now, the ancients called persons affected with this species of madness λυκανθρώποι or κυνανθρώποι; because they went abroad in the night, imitating wolves or dogs; particularly intent upon opening the sepulchres of the dead, and had their legs much ulcerated either by frequent falls, or the bites of[85] dogs. In like manner are the daughters of Proetus related to have been mad, who, as Virgil says,
—Implerunt falsis mugitibus agros.[86]
—With mimick’d mooings fill’d the fields.
For, as Servius observes, Juno possessed their minds with such a species of madness, that fancying themselves cows, they ran into the fields, bellowed often, and dreaded the plough. But these, according to Ovid, the physician Melampus,
—per carmen & herbas
Eripuit furiis.[87]
Snatch’d from the furies by his charms
and herbs.
Nor was this disorder unknown to the moderns; for Schenckius records a remarkable instance of it in a husbandman of Padua, who imagining that he was a wolf, attack’d, and even killed several persons in the fields; and when at length he was taken, he persevered in declaring himself a real wolf, and that the only difference consisted in the inversion of his skin and hair[88].
But it may be objected to our opinion, that this misfortune was foretold to the king, so that he might have prevented it by correcting his morals; and therefore it is not probable that it befel him in the course of nature. But we know, that those things, which God executes either thro’ clemency or vengeance, are frequently performed by the assistance of natural causes. Thus having threatened Hezekiah with death, and being afterwards moved by his prayers, he restored him to life, and made use of figs laid on the tumor, as a medicine for his[89] disease. He ordered king Herod, upon account of his pride, to be devoured by worms[90]. And no body doubts but that the plague, which is generally attributed to the divine wrath, most commonly owes its origin to corrupted air.