Disputatio de melancholia

L.
Immoderate vigils are to be prohibited, just as too much sleep: which, however, if it is a little longer than usual, can do no harm.

LI.
One must also see that the excrements of the body proceed properly: which, if it does not happen by nature pushing, must be accomplished by the help of art: primarily in the obstruction of the hemorrhoids and menses. Where, by convenient sittings or fomentations, their flow is to be brought back.

LII.
And this is the convenient and common regimen of life for all species of melancholia, and in all times of the disease, it must be diligently observed as far as can be done. When this has been administered, if the affection is not overcome by nature, one must pass to other things that can be of use in curing the individual species privately.

LIII.
And primary melancholia, which is still recent, can be cured by the regimen of moist and good-juiced food alone, and by frequent baths, as Galen teaches; but that which has already become more long-standing, just as that which arises by consensus, demands stronger remedies than these.

LIIII.
These, however, are twofold: evacuating and altering. The latter must be applied based on the disease, but the former based on the cause; and they are performed either by phlebotomy or by pharmacy.

LV.
Phlebotomy is not necessary in the primary affection, unless we wish to administer it for the sake of preservation because the body is plethoric, or to prescribe it in hypochondriacs for the sake of revulsion.

LVI.
On the contrary, in melancholia which is caused by the consensus of the whole body, it exists as most necessary: and it must be administered from the beginning if the patient's strength and other conditions agree: and in this, as much as will be sufficient for the habit of the suffering body, but in the hypochondriac case, less is to be extracted.