Readers of the English edition of Mattheus Gottfried Purmann's surgical treatise (1706) were regaled with the story of a twenty-eight old year clothier, whose penis had swelled with water, making it difficult for him to urinate and to engage in sexual activity with his new wife. Purmann wrote of this unfortunate man that ‘the Patient would not be perswaded but his Wife had Bewitch'd him’. He described how the patient received treatment that released the water from his swollen genitalia and returned everything to its natural proportion:

The clothier died after receiving further treatment. Although this observation was ostensibly about a watery swelling, it is clear that this patient turned to witchcraft to explain his inability to engage in sexual intercourse – his resumption of these activities following his first treatment suggests that he had been unable to do this prior to seeing the surgeon. What is also evident from this case is that the medical practitioners from whom he sought help did not acknowledge bewitchment as a reason for his ailments.