zzo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



During the middle ages the devil was everywhere ubique dwrnon. 

 There was one religious sect whose adepts were ever spitting, hawking, 

 and blowing the nose, with a view to expel the devils they had swal- 

 lowed. A trace of this still remains in some localities, where one who 

 sneezes is saluted with " God bless you ! " Such beliefs were universal. 

 Thus a certain prior of a convent had around him constantly a guard 

 of two hundred men, who hewed the air with their swords, so as to 

 cut to pieces the demons who were assailing him. Demons were even 

 cited to appear before ecclesiastical tribunals. A curious and a pitiful 

 epoch, when the possessed and their exorcists were madmen alike ! 



This view of insanity was favored by the philosophical, or rather 

 the theological ideas of the time. According to these, man was of a 

 twofold nature. On the one hand was the flesh, mere matter ; on the 

 other, the soul, a direct emanation from Deity, passing through this 

 vale of tears, on its way to the ineffable glory of heaven. The body 

 is but the soul's dwelling-place a temple or a den, accordingly as its 

 invisible inhabitant is the servant of God or of Satan. Therefore, 

 when the soul is diseased, the treatment must regard the soul alone, 

 which is governed by laws of its own, and is merely in juxtaposition 

 with the body for a moment. No doubt the ideal of purity thus held 

 up was sublime ; yet the result of it was the upsetting of the body's 

 equilibrium ; and this reacted on the mind. But this theory led to 

 still more serious consequences ; for it was admitted into science, and 

 checked the progress of the medical art. When in 1828 Broussais 

 attacked it, he was accused of blasphemy, and of " sapping the foun- 

 dations " of society. Now, however, we know that the faculties of 

 the mind are not independent of the conditions of the body. Take a 

 slight dose of sulphate of quinine, and you lose, for the time being, 

 the faculty of recollection; swallow a little hashish, and you are 

 transiently insane. 



In 1453 Edelin, a priest and doctor of the Sorbonne, preached 

 against the cruelty of putting to death poor creatures who were the 

 dupes of their own diseased imaginations. On being cited to defend 

 himself before a tribunal, he became suddenly insane, and was im- 

 mured for life, that is, shut up between four walls, without food, drink, 

 or light. In the sixteenth century Europe literally blazed with the 

 fires lighted to punish witches and sorcerers, who were simply mad- 

 men. Luther had a visit from the devil. Pico della Mirandola tells 

 of Savonarola's visions, and Melanchthon holds converse with spirits. 

 Even Ambroise Pare, the Hippocrates of modern times, believed in 

 possession, in compacts with the devil, and the like. The same is to 

 be said of Fernel, famous for his calculation of the earth's dimensions, 

 and of Bodin, the great jurisconsult. These great men, with all their 

 sagacity, with all their learning, would seem never to have heard of 

 the monk Bacon's dictum : " We cannot determine by speculation or by 

 imagination what Nature will do, or what endure ; all that must be 



