PSYCHIATRY. 39 



Moorfields, the necessity for increased accommodations becoming 

 greater 'as the country came more and more into systematic govern- 

 ment and as the wholesale burning of such unfortunate persons as 

 wizards or witches died out.' 



Little appeared in medical literature during this period upon the 

 care of the insane. Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) wrote sensibly upon 

 mania and melancholia, but left nothing as to treatment, except to 

 bleed and to purge. Sydenham (1624—1689) had little to say on 

 mental affections. An adherent to the current doctrine, he attributed 

 insanity to a disabling of the 'animal spirits' by a prolonged fermen- 

 tation. He prescribed a cordial of Venice treacle, containing the flesh 

 and broths of vipers, amber and sixty-one more ingredients in Canary 

 wine and honey to be given three times a day, the patient to remain 

 in bed and to be liberally supplied with liquids. For ordinary mania 

 he ordered the withdrawal of nine ounces of blood on two or three 

 occasions with three days' interval between each bleeding. A course of 

 pills of colocynth and scammony followed, and on the days when the 

 patient did not take the pills he was to have an electuary composed of 

 conserve of monk's rhubarb, rosemary, candied angelica and other 

 pleasant ingredients. 



Something more rational was attempted in Paris when by an Act 

 of Parliament in 1660 the insane passed through two wards, especially 

 reserved for them in Hotel Dieu, the ward St. Louise for men con- 

 taining ten beds for four each and two small beds ; the ward St. Martin 

 for women containing six large beds and six small ones. Treatment 

 here was by means of douches, cold baths, repeated bleedings, hellebore, 

 purgatives and antispasmodics. If there was no improvement in a few 

 weeks they were sent to the Petits Maisons, the Salpetriere or the 

 Bicetre, where they were kept clothed in rags, confined by chains, 

 poorly fed, bedded on rotten straw, often in cells infected with disease. 

 As in England on holidays they were exposed to the gaze of the public, 

 admitted for a small fee as to a menagerie. In 1667 Dennis, in Paris, 

 successfully employed transfusion of blood taken from a calf in the 

 case of a young man insane after an unhappy love affair. 



The early years of the eighteenth century saw the gradual evolution 

 of the asylum idea and the slow increase in the number of establish- 

 ments for the insane, founded not only by the state but by private 

 individuals. The condition of the insane in the latter was particularly 

 distressing for many years, and, even until well on in the last cen- 

 tury, many of them were more to be dreaded than the larger public 

 asylums. 



Dean Swift had in mind the foundation of a hospital for the 

 insane as early as 1731 when he wrote the verses on his own death and 

 described his determination thus. 



