Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a more rational system of therapy. Having divided the lunatics into categories according to their predominant moral perfection, Simão Bacamarte set about attacking the leading attribute head-on. Take, for example, modesty. Bacamarte would apply a treatment designed to instill precisely the opposite characteristic—in this case, vanity. Rather than starting immediately with the maximum dose, he would increase it gradually, taking into account the patient’s age, condition, temperament, and social position. Sometimes all it took was a tailcoat, a ribbon, a wig, or a cane to restore the patient’s sanity; in more stubborn cases he would resort to diamond rings, honorary titles, etc. There was one patient, a poet, who resisted everything. Simão Bacamarte was beginning to despair of finding a cure, when he had the idea of sending out the town crier to proclaim him as great a poet as Garção or Pindar.

“It’s a miracle,” said the poet’s mother to one of her closest friends, “a blessed miracle.”

Another patient, also suffering from modesty, exhibited the same resistance to medical treatment; but since he wasn’t a writer (he could barely sign his name), the town-crier cure could not be applied. Simão Bacamarte had the idea of petitioning for the man to be appointed secretary of the Academy of Hidden Talents that had been established in Itaguaí. The posts of president and secretary were by royal appointment, in memory of His Late Majesty King João V, and carried with them both the title of “Your Excellency” and the right to wear a gold medallion on one’s hat. The government in Lisbon initially refused the appointment, but when the alienist indicated that he was not proposing it as a legitimate distinction or honorary award, but merely as a therapeutic remedy in a difficult case, the government made an exception and granted his request, although not without extraordinary efforts on the part of the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, who just so happened to be the alienist’s cousin. Yet another blessed miracle.

“Quite remarkable!” people said in the street, on seeing the healthy, puffed-up expressions of the two former lunatics.

Such was his system. The rest can be imagined. Each moral or mental refinement was attacked at the point where its perfection seemed strongest, and the effect was never in doubt. There were some instances in which the predominant characteristic resisted all attempts at treatment; in such cases the alienist would attack another element, conducting his therapies much as a military strategist would, assailing first one bastion and then another until the fortress falls.