HYSTERIA AND DEMON ISM. 87 



quainted with medical science. We shall next inquire into the char- 

 acter of the demoniacal affections which were described in former cen- 

 turies, and examine the strange succession of errors by which men were 

 led to affirm that the devil took up his lodging in human bodies, and 

 that it was necessary to burn him, to destroy those poor bodies which 

 had become the receptacles and accomplices of malevolent spirits. 

 Lastly, we shall review the history of the great trials for witchcraft 

 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A chronological order 

 would require that we should begin with the notice of demonism in 

 the past, and close with the study of the corresponding affections of 

 the present, but the reverse is the logical order. We shall follow with 

 more interest the relation of the superstitions which led our ancestors 

 astray, after we have become better acquainted with the facts that 

 have been elucidated by contemporary investigators. In order to be 

 able to judge error aright, we must first be acquainted with the truth. 



An erroneous opinion prevails as to the causes and nature of 

 hysteria. Romancers, particularly those who call themselves natural- 

 ists, have not neglected to propagate the doctrine that hysteria is an 

 erotic disease. This is far from being exact. There is no relation of 

 cause and effect between hysteria and celibacy ; and we can speak of 

 hysteria, study its causes, and describe its symptoms without infringing 

 upon delicacy. It is a nervous disease, which has no more to do with 

 sexual passion than other nervous diseases, and, notwithstanding the 

 dread which it excites in half-instructed persons, we can say boldly 

 that that dread is not justified. The facts that prove this point will 

 appear shortly. 



The asylum for the insane at the Salpetriere is behind the build- 

 ings which are inhabited by the aged women. The hysterical pa- 

 tients are confined here. They are collected together in one part of 

 the hospital, and have been for several years under the care of M. 

 Professor Charcot. This learned physician, being desirous of apply- 

 ing to the nervous affections the exact methods which are employed in 

 physiology, has established near the halls reserved for the patients a 

 laboratory where precise studies of the most delicate phenomena of the 

 pathology of the nervous system may be carried on. A photographic 

 room is attached to the laboratory, in which exact representations 

 of the principal phases of the attacks of hysteria, epilepsy, and som- 

 nambulism, have been obtained.* In this manner we have succeeded 

 in securing minute descriptions of a class of psychological phenomena 

 so strange and fantastic that, hardly more than three centuries ago, 

 men saw in them the breath of the devil and of all the demons of 

 hell. 



Some persons may be surprised to learn that hysterical patients are 



* These photographs, which are very instructive in the study of nervous diseases, form 

 the publication of MM. Bourneville and Regnard, entitled " Iconographie photographique 

 de la Salpetriere." 



