DIVI BOTANICI. 179 



Proetus held the sovereignty cf Argos at the time when the Poet 

 of Pylos was meriting an immortal eminence among the neighbour- 

 ing nations, by his manifold endeavours to mitigate the sufferings 

 and to enlarge the comforts of mankind^ through the influences of 

 beneficence and wisdom. This prince had three daughters, who 

 were affected with an inveterate cutaneous eruption ;* and, on its 

 being accidentally, rei)elled the disease took a determination to the 

 brain, and so deranged its functions as to induce a partial insanity.t 

 Affected thus by a strong mental delusion, the princesses enter- 

 tained the monstrous fancy that they themselves were Cows; and, 

 escaping from society, they scampered away to the woodlands, 

 where they filled the plains and forests with their wild lowings and 

 their cries. 



Melampus undertook the cure of these delirious damsels ; and, 

 for this ])urpose, he be2;an with administering Black Hellebore,^ as 

 the best means, in his mind, for purging the bowels and the brain. 

 He then subjected them to violent and protracted exercise,§ with 



* Hesiod describes the affection of the Argian princesses by symptoms 

 which distinctly indicate a case of leprosy. In them, he says, the head was 

 covered with disgusting scabs, which caused an intolerable itching ; the hair 

 fell off' in various places, producing patches of baldness ; and over all their 

 persons the skin was covered with lentil-shaped blains. — Eustathii, Schol. in 

 Odyss., V, p. 174G; folio, Roma?, 1549. 



+ When Hercules was absent, at the performance of his labours, his wife 

 Megara sustained an attack of personal violence by Lycus a Theban exile ; 

 and the matron must have been overpowered in the outrage if her husband 

 had not returned at the moment, and punished the ravisher with death. 

 This dreadful occurrence rendered Hercules so delirious that he killed his 

 three children and their mother in a fit of madness, thinking them to be 

 wild beasts. Another illustration of partial insanity results from the facts 

 in this episode of the hero's history. This affection is prone to become in- 

 fectious ; sometimes it spreads epidemically among women having a sensi- 

 tive and nervous constitution. 



X Blacke Hellebor, taken inwardly, prouoketh the siege or stoole vehe- 

 mently, and purgeth the neather part of the belly from grosse and thicke 

 (leme and cholerique humours : also it is good for them that waxe mad or 

 fall beside themselues, and for such as be dull, heauy, and melancholique — 

 Lyte's Nu-vve Ilcrhall, p. 352. With Helleborum is a Watyr made that 

 restoreth youth : such a one saw I my father haue : but such watyrs vexe 

 the bodyes, and make a fallible image of youth. — Peter Morwyng's Treasvre 

 of Eronymva, p. 17fi, 4to ; London, 1559. 



§ Melampus has the credit of attaining this object by a contrivance which 

 has probably never been imitated. He sent a number of robust boys who, 

 by jumjiing and shouting, frightened the princesses and chased tliem as far 

 as Sicyon, a distance of three leagues — a manoeuvre well-calculated to re- 



VOL. VII., NO. XXII. AA 



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