PSYCHIATRY. 37 



Pope Innocent VIII. in 1488 appointed inquisitors in every country 

 armed with apostolic power to find and punish those of whom he thus 

 declared : "It has come to our ears that numbers of both sexes do not 

 avoid to have intercourse with the infernal fiends, and that by their 

 sorceries they afflict both man and beast. They blight the marriage 

 bed ; destroy the births of women, and the increase of cattle, they blast 

 the corn in the ground, the grape in the vineyard, the fruit of the trees, 

 and the grass and herbs of the field." Thus stimulated by the church 

 the search for persons punishable for these crimes was everywhere suc- 

 cessful. It is probable that one-fourth of the 40,000 persons executed 

 for witchcraft during the first eighty years of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury in England alone were insane. Among the thousands of persons 

 tortured, burned and hanged as heretics there were doubtless many 

 who, infected by surrounding fanaticism and carried away by excep- 

 tional beliefs, were really the victims of mental disease. 



Persons afflicted with the more quiet forms of insanity without 

 excitement were often regarded as suffering in punishment for sin and 

 were accordingly treated by fasting, pilgrimages and self-castigation. 

 Some, the possessors of a certain shrewdness and drollery, were received 

 into private houses and cared for, partly from charity, and partly 

 because of the amusement to be derived from their eccentric speech and 

 conduct. The conditions were practically the same in all European 

 countries with the exception of Italy and Spain, where insane asylums 

 were established during the latter part of the middle ages. 



The Mohammedans preceded the Christians in the establisliment of 

 asylums for the insane, and it is probable that as early as 1300 A. D. 

 this form of charity was general in Mohammedan countries. A writer 

 of the seventh century notices the existence of several such institutions 

 at Fez. The asylum in Cairo was founded in 1304 A. D. Whether 

 or not the Christians obtained the idea of the organization of such 

 asylums from the Mohammedans, it is of interest to note that they 

 are first found in Europe among those nations nearest to the Moham- 

 medans and most subject to their influence. To Spain is due the 

 honor of establishing the first asylum in Christian Europe for the 

 care of the insane exclusively. This was opened in Valencia in 1409 

 A. D. by a monk, Juan Gilaberto Joffre, who was moved by com- 

 passion on seeing maniacs driven through the streets by hooting 

 crowds of men and boys. The treatment in these early establishments 

 amounted to little more than seclusion and restraint, though the 

 monks in charge of the asylum at Saragossa, established in 1425 

 A. I)., had some conception of a rational open air treatment. Asyhmis 

 were also opened at Seville and Valladolid in 1436 A. D. and at 

 Toledo in 1483 A. D. "Two other very honorable facts may be men- 

 tioned," says Lecky, "establishing the preeminence of Spanish charity 



