NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 443 



in such a contest tliey had cast out twelve thousand six hundred 

 and fifty-two living devils. The ecclesiastical annals of the mid- 

 dle ages, and, indeed, of a later period, abound in boasts of such 

 " mighty works." * 



Such was the great result of a thousand years of theological 

 reasoning, by the strongest minds in Europe, upon data given in 

 Scripture regarding Satan and his work among men. Such were 

 the results and remedies arrived at by the highest development of 

 " sacred science." 



Under the guidance of theology, always so severe against " sci- 

 ence falsely so called," the world had come a long way indeed from 

 the soothing treatment of the possessed by Him who bore among 

 the noblest of his titles that of " The Great Physician." The result 

 was natural : the treatment of the insane fell more and more into 

 the hands of the jailer, the torturer, and the executioner. 



To go back for a moment to the beginnings of this unfortunate 

 development. In spite of the earlier and more kindly tendency in 

 the Church, the Synod of Ancyra, as early as 35 a. d,, commanded 

 the expulsion of possessed persons from the Church ; the Visi- 

 gothic Christians whipped them ; and Charlemagne, in spite of 

 some good enactments, imprisoned them. Men and women, whose 

 distempered minds might have been restored to health by gen- 

 tleness and skill, were driven into hopeless madness by noxious 

 medicines and brutality. Some few were saved as mere lunatics 

 — they were surrendered to general carelessness, and became sim- 

 ply a prey to ridicule and aimless brutality ; but vast numbers 

 were punished as tabernacles of Satan. 



One of the least terrible of these punishments, and perhaps the 

 most common of all, was that of scourging demons out of the body 

 of a lunatic. This method commended itself even to the judgment 

 of so thoughtful and kindly a personage as Sir Thomas More, 

 and as late as the sixteenth century. But if the disease continued, 

 as it naturally would after such treatment, the authorities fre- 

 quently felt justified in driving out the demons by torture, f 



Interesting monuments of this idea, so fruitful, in evil, still 

 exist. In the great cities of central Europe, " witch - towers," 

 where witches and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool-towers," 

 where the more gentle lunatics were imprisoned, may still be 

 seen. 



* In my previous chapters— especially that on meteorology — I have quoted extensively 

 from the original treatises, of which a very large collection is in my possession ; but in this 

 chapter I have largely availed myself of the copious translations given by M. H. Dziewicki, 

 in his excellent article in the " Nineteenth Century " for October, 1888, entitled " Exorcizo 

 Te." For valuable citations on the origin and spread of exorcism, see Lecky's " European 

 Morals " (third English edition), i, 3Y9-385. 



f For prescription of the whipping-post by Sir Thomas More, see D. H. Tuke's " His- 

 tory of Insanity in the British Isles," London, 1882, pp. 29, 30. 



