34 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should be employed and, later on, liquid nourishment should be ad- 

 ministered and the friction repeated. By these means it was his hope 

 to induce sleep. Themison, his disciple, prescribed a more liberal 

 diet, baths and astringent fomentations. Another of his disciples 

 recommended stripes in the treatment of the insane, but it is doubtful 

 if this was sanctioned by the master. Asclepiades also attempted sub- 

 stitutive medication, advising intoxication in the general treatment of 

 insanity. 



Celsus (A. D. 5) formulated wise rules for the hygienic and moral 

 treatment, but unfortunately advised also the use of hunger, chains 

 and chastisements to subjugate the patient. He would have those 

 scolded whose mirth was excessive and resort to torment should con- 

 ciliation fail. To startle a patient suddenly, to terrify him, this was 

 excellent. But he directed that all things possible should be done to 

 divert the melancholy and to excite cheerful hopes. Pleasure should 

 be sought in fables and in sports, in music and in reading aloud. To 

 quiet the excited and to favor sleep, he made use of a rocking motion 

 and the sound of a waterfall. 



Aretaeus (A. D. 80) gave a detailed description of mania and 

 melancholia, considering the latter to be the incipient stage of the 

 former. Little is known as to his methods of treatment, except that 

 he does not mention restraint in his descriptions. 



Galen (A. D. 150), the celebrated advocate of the humoral 

 pathology, gives little as to treatment, but his theory of insanity is 

 interesting. Moisture, he says, produces fatuity, dryness sagacity, 

 and therefore the sagacity of a man will be diminished in proportion 

 to the excess of moisture over dryness. Therefore preserve a happy 

 medium between these opposite qualities, use venesection if you think 

 the whole body of the patient contains melancholy blood. Bleeding 

 must be avoided if madness arise from idiopathic disease of the brain. 



Then follows Coelius Aurelianus (A. D. 195), leaving a most 

 remarkable treatise on the treatment of insanity, preaching gentle- 

 Eess and humanity, skilled attendance and non- restraint. He thus ex- 

 presses himself regarding the physicians who resort to harsh methods 

 of treatment: "They seem rather to lose their own reason than to be 

 disposed to cure their patients, when they liken them to wild beasts 

 who must be tamed by the deprivation of food and the torments of 

 thirst. They go so far as to counsel bodily violence and blows, as if 

 to compel the return of reason by such provocations, a deplorable 

 method of treatment that can only aggravate the patients' condition, 

 injure them physically, and offer to them the miserable remembrance 

 of their sufferings whenever they recover the use of their reason." He 

 taught that the patient should be put in a quiet room, moderately 

 warm and light, excluding everything of an exciting nature. The bed 



