NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 581 



The profundity of theologians and jurists constantly developed 

 new theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the " pos- 

 sessed." One such theory was that Satan could be taken into the 

 mouth with one's food — perhaps in the form of an insect swal- 

 lowed on a leaf of salad. Another theory was that' Satan entered 

 the body when the mouth was opened to breathe, and there are 

 well-authenticated cases of doctors and divines who, when casting 

 out evil spirits, took especial care lest the imp might jump into 

 their own mouths from the mouth of the patient. Another the- 

 ory was that the devil entered human beings during sleep ; and, 

 at a comparatively recent period, the King of Spain was wont to 

 sleep between two monks, to keep off the devil.* 



The monasteries were frequent sources of that form of mental 

 disease which was supposed to be caused by bewitchment. From 

 the earliest period it is evident that monastic life tended to de- 

 velop insanity. Such cases as those of St. Anthony and St. Au- 

 gustine are typical of its effects upon the strongest minds ; but it 

 was especially the convents for women that became the great 

 breeding-beds of this disease. Among the large numbers of 

 women and girls thus assembled, many of them forced into con- 

 finement against their will, for the reason that their families 

 could give them no dower, subjected to the unsatisfied longings, 

 suspicions, bickerings, petty jealousies, envies, and hatreds, so 

 notorious in convent-life, mental disease was not unlikely to be de- 

 veloped at any moment. Hysterical excitement in nunneries took 

 shapes sometimes comical, but more generally tragical. Note- 

 worthy is it that the last x)laces where executions for witchcraft 

 took place were mainly in the neighborhood of great nunneries, 

 •and the last famous victim — of the hundreds of thousands exe- 

 cuted in Germany for this imaginary crime — was Sister Anna 

 Renata Sanger, sub-prioress of a nunnery near Wurzburg.f 



The same thing was seen among young women exposed to 

 sundry fanatical Protestant preachers : insanity, both temporary 

 and permanent, was thus frequently developed among the Hugue- 

 nots of France, and has been thus produced in America, from the 



* As to the devil's entering into the mouth while eating, see Calmeil, as above, ii, 105 

 106. As to the dread of Dr. Borde lest the evil spirit, when exorcised, might enter his 

 own body, see Tuke, as above, p. 28. As to the King of Spain, see the noted chapter in 

 Buckle's " History of Civilization in England." 



f Among the multitude of authorities on this point, see Kirchhoff, as above, p. 337; 

 and, for a most striking picture of this dark side of convent-life, drawn, indeed, by a de- 

 voted Roman Catholic, see Manzoni's " Promessi Sposi." On Anna Renata there is a strik- 

 ing essay by the late Johannes Scherr, in his " Fammerschlage und Ilistoricn." On the 

 general subject of hysteria thus developed, see the writings of Carpenter and Tuke ; and, 

 as to its natural development in nunneries, see Maudsley, " Responsibility in Mental Dis- 

 ease," p. 9. Especial attention will be paid to this in the next chapter of this series — 

 "Diabolism and Hysteria." 



