PSYCHIATRY. 31 



PSYCHIATRY— ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN. 



By FREDERICK LYMAN HILLS, M.D., 



NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE HOSPITAL. 



"Forth from my sad and darksome cell, 

 Or from the deepe abysse of hell, 

 ilad Tom is come into the world againe 

 To see if he can cure his distempered braine." 



—Old Tom O'Bedlam Song, XVII. century. 



A MONG the acliievements of the nineteenth century none surpass 

 -^--^ the revolution wrought in the field of psychiatry. The care 

 of the insane to-day excites the interest not only of philanthropists 

 and alienists, but of all right-minded men and women. "No reflecting 

 mind/' says Letchworth, "can be indifferent to the question of making 

 proper public provision for the treatment and care of those afiiicted 

 with an insidious disease from which no measure of intellectual or 

 physical strength or worldly prosperity affords any certain immunity 

 — a disease, which, prone to feed upon excitement, finally transforms 

 the noblest faculties of our race into a wreck so appalling that in its 

 contemplation the human intelligence becomes bewildered and dis- 

 mayed. At no time in the history of civilization has the importance 

 of this subject been more thoroughly acknowledged; and probably at 

 no time have influences contributory to mental derangement been 

 more powerful than they are to-day." It is eminently profitable at 

 this time to review the treatment of the insane in ancient days, to 

 recall the misfortunes of the unhappy madman during the dark ages 

 of history, and to note the gradual evolution of the psychiatric science 

 of to-day. 



Going back into the very dawn of history we find scattered refer- 

 ences to the treatment of madness, which was looked upon as a punish- 

 ment by the gods or ascribed to demoniacal possession. The earliest 

 known historical reference to insanity occurs in Egyptian papyri of the 

 fifteenth century B, C. In one of these, according to Mahaffy, music 

 is spoken of as employed in the treatment of insanity, and many 

 formulae are given for the cure of diseases caused by an evil spirit 

 dwelling within the body. Probably the next earliest record is that 

 found in Hebrew history, referring to the same therapeutic agent, this 

 time used to calm the troubled spirit of Saul (1055 B. C). In the 

 first book of Samuel we read: "When the evil spirit was upon Saul, 

 that David took a harp and played with his hand; so Saul was re- 



