Discours des maladies mélancoliques

The most pleasent dotage [madness] that ever I read, was of one Sienois, a Gentleman, who had resolved with himself not to piss, but to die rather, and that because he imagined, that when he first pissed, all his town would be drowned. The Physicians showing him, that all his body, and ten thousand more such as his, were not able to contain so much as might drown the least house in the town, could not change his mind from this foolish imagination. In the end they, seeing his obstinacy, and in what danger he put his life, found out a pleasent invention. They caused the next house to be set on fire, & all the bells in the town to ring, they persuaded diverse servants to cry: to the fire, to the fire, and (…) show the Gentleman that there is but one way to save the town, and that it was that he should piss quickly and quench the fire.