58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One sort of treatment used for those accused of witchcraft will 

 also serve to show this — the " tortura insomnicE." Of all things 

 in brain-disease, calm and regular sleep is most certainly benefi- 

 cial ; yet, under this practice, these half -crazed creatures were 

 prevented, night after night and day after day, from sleeping 

 or even resting. In this way temporary delusion became chronic 

 insanity, mild cases violent, torture and death ensued, and the 

 " ways of God to man " were justified.* 



But the most contemptible creatures in all those centuries 

 were the physicians who took sides with religious orthodoxy. 

 While we have on the side of truth a Flade sacrificing his life, 

 a Loos his hopes of preferment, a Bekker his position, and a Tho- 

 masius his ease, reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the 

 other side, a troop of eminently respectable doctors mixing Script- 

 ure, metaphysics, and pretended observations to support the " safe 

 side " and to deprecate interference with the existing superstition, 

 which seemed to them " a very safe belief to be held by the com- 

 mon people." f 



Against one form of insanity both religions were esj^ecially 

 cruel. Nothing is more common in all times of religious excite- 

 ment than strange personal hallucinations, involving the belief, 

 on the part of the insane patient, that he is a divine person : in 

 the most striking representation of insanity that has ever been 

 made, Kaulbach shows, at the center of his wonderful group, 

 a patient drawing attention to himself as the Saviour of the 

 world. 



Sometimes, when this form of disease took a milder hysterical 

 character, the subject of it was treated with reverence, and even 

 elevated to sainthood : such examples as St. Francis of Assisi 

 and St. Catherine of Siena in Italy, St. Bridget in Sweden, St. 

 Theresa in Spain, St. Mary Alacoque in France, and Louise Lateau 

 in Belgium, are typical. But more frequently such cases shocked 

 public feeling, and were treated with especial rigor : typical of 

 this is the case of Simon Marin, who in his insanity believed him- 

 self to be the Son of God, and was on that account burned alive at 

 Paris and his ashes scattered to the winds. J 



* See Kirchhoff, as above. 



f For names and arguments used by creatures of this sort, see Diefenbach, " Der Hex- 

 enwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland," pp. 342-346. A long list of 

 these infamous names is given on p. 345. 



X As to the frequency among the insane of this form of belief, see Calmeil, ii, 25*7 ; also 

 Maudsley, "Pathology of Mind," pp. 201, 202, and 418-424; also Rambaud, "Histoire de 

 la Civilisation en France," ii, 110. For the peculiar aberrations of the saints above named 

 and other ecstatics, see Maudsley, as above, pp. 71, 72, and 149, 150. Maudsley's chapters 

 on this and cognate subjects are certainly among the most valuable contributions to modem 

 thought. For a discussion of the most recent case, see Warlomont, "Louise Lateau," 

 Paris, 1875. 



