If there be any need of physic, that the humours be altered, or any new matter aggregated, they must be cured as melancholy men. Carolus a Lorme, amongst other questions discussed for his degree at Montpelier in France, hath this, An amantes et amantes iisdem remediis curentur? Whether lovers and madmen be cured by the same remedies? he affirms it; for love extended is mere madness. Such physic then as is prescribed, is either inward or outward, as hath been formerly handled in the precedent partition in the cure of melancholy. Consult with Valleriola observat. lib. 2. observ. 7. Lod. Mercatus lib. 2. cap. 4. de mulier. affect. Daniel Sennertus lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 10. [5629]Jacobus Ferrandus the Frenchman, in his Tract de amore Erotique, Forestus lib. 10. observ. 29 and 30, Jason Pratensis and others for peculiar receipts. [5630]Amatus Lusitanus cured a young Jew, that was almost mad for love, with the syrup of hellebore, and such other evacuations and purges which are usually prescribed to black choler: [5631]Avicenna confirms as much if need require, and [5632]“bloodletting above the rest,” which makes amantes ne sint amentes, lovers to come to themselves, and keep in their right minds. 'Tis the same which Schola Salernitana, Jason Pratensis, Hildesheim, &c., prescribe bloodletting to be used as a principal remedy. Those old Scythians had a trick to cure all appetite of burning lust, by [5633] letting themselves blood under the ears, and to make both men and women barren, as Sabellicus in his Aeneades relates of them. Which Salmuth. Tit. 10. de Herol. comment. in Pancirol. de nov. report. Mercurialis, var. lec. lib. 3. cap. 7. out of Hippocrates and Benzo say still is in use amongst the Indians, a reason of which Langius gives lib. 1. epist. 10.
Huc faciunt medicamenta venerem sopientia, “ut camphora pudendis alligata, et in bracha gestata” (quidam ait) “membrum flaccidum reddit. Laboravit hoc morbo virgo nobilis, cui inter caetera praescripsit medicus, ut laminam plumbeam multis foraminibus pertusam ad dies viginti portaret in dorso; ad exiccandum vero sperma jussit eam quam parcissime cibari, et manducare frequentur coriandrum praeparatum, et semen lactucae, et acetosae, et sic eam a morbo liberavit”. Porro impediunt et remittunt coitum folia salicis trita et epota, et si frequentius usurpentur ipsa in totum auferunt. Idem praestat Topatius annulo gestatus, dexterum lupi testiculum attritum, et oleo vel aqua rosata exhibitum veneris taedium inducere scribit Alexander Benedictus: lac butyri commestum et semen canabis, et camphora exhibita idem praestant. Verbena herba gestata libidinem extinguit, pulvisquae ranae decollatae et exiccatae. Ad extinguendum coitum, ungantur membra genitalia, et renes et pecten aqua in qua opium Thebaicum sit dissolutum; libidini maxime contraria camphora est, et coriandrum siccum frangit coitum, et erectionem virgae impedit; idem efficit synapium ebibitum. “Da verbenam in potu et non erigetur virga sex diebus; utere mentha sicca cum aceto, genitalia illinita succo hyoscyami aid cicutae, coitus appelitum sedant, &c. ℞. seminis lactuc. portulac. coriandri an. ℨj. menthae siccae ℨß. sacchari albiss. ℥iiij. pulveriscentur omnia subtiliter, et post ea simul misce aqua neunpharis, f. confec. solida in morsulis. Ex his sumat mane unum quum surgat”. Innumera fere his similia petas ab Hildeshemo loco praedicto, Mizaldo, Porta, caeterisque.
SUBSECT. II.—Withstand the beginnings, avoid occasions, change his place: fair and foul means, contrary passions, with witty inventions: to bring in another, and discommend the former.
Other good rules and precepts are enjoined by our physicians, which, if not alone, yet certainly conjoined, may do much; the first of which is obstare principiis, to withstand the beginning,[5634]Quisquis in primo obstitit, Pepulitque amorem tutus ac victor fuit, he that will but resist at first, may easily be a conqueror at the last. Balthazar Castilio, l. 4. urgeth this prescript above the rest, [5635]“when he shall chance” (saith he) “to light upon a woman that hath good behaviour joined with her excellent person, and shall perceive his eyes with a kind of greediness to pull unto them this image of beauty, and carry it to the heart: shall observe himself to be somewhat incensed with this influence, which moveth within: when he shall discern those subtle spirits sparkling in her eyes, to administer more fuel to the fire, he must wisely withstand the beginnings, rouse up reason, stupefied almost, fortify his heart by all means, and shut up all those passages, by which it may have entrance.” 'Tis a precept which all concur upon,
[5636]Opprime dum nova sunt subiti mala semina morbi,
Dum licet, in primo lumine siste pedem.
Thy quick disease, whilst it is fresh today,
By all means crush, thy feet at first step stay.
[5638]Sussilite obsecro et mittite istanc foras,
quae misero mihi amanti ebibit sanguinem.