PRACTICAL PROBLEMS 349 



large do so. Insanity has increased rapidly in remote dis- 

 tricts, as in Ireland, where the conditions of life have not 

 greatly altered. Moreover, this supposition is likewise nega- 

 tived by the falling death-rate. The fact that lunatics are 

 now better treated and live longer than formerly, and there- 

 fore accumulate, has been thought to explain it. But the 

 increase of insanity is admittedly too enormous to be covered 

 by this hypothesis. Besides, the sum total of lunatics is 

 diminished by improved treatment, so that many are now 

 cured who would have remained insane formerly. 



541. Formerly lunatics were treated with neglect or great 

 cruelty. " Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves 

 as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do." 1 No 

 lunatic asylum appears to have existed in antiquity. During 

 the dark ages the insane were revered as saints if their 

 delusions were in accord with the current theology ; other- 

 wise they were liable to be burnt as possessed of devils. 2 

 The Mahomedans, who were first in this field of charity, 

 established an asylum during the twelfth century. Only 

 four asylums are known to have existed in Christendom be- 

 fore the fifteenth century. Subsequently and gradually they 

 became more common ; but until lately their inmates were 

 treated like wild beasts. " In most countries their condition 

 was indeed truly deplorable. While many were burnt as 

 witches, those who were recognized as insane were compelled 

 to endure all the horrors of the harshest imprisonment. 

 Blows, bleeding, and chains were their usual treatment, and 

 horrible accounts are given of madmen who had spent decades 

 bound in dark cells. Such treatment naturally aggravated 

 their malady, and that malady in many cases rendered im- 

 possible the resignation and ultimate torpor which abbreviate 

 the sufferings of ordinary prisoners. Not until the eighteenth 

 century was the condition of this unhappy class seriously 

 improved. The combined progress of theological scepticism 

 and scientific knowledge relegated witchcraft to the world 

 of phantoms, and the exertions of Morgagni in Italy, of 

 Cullen in Scotland, and of Pinel in France renovated the 

 whole treatment of acknowledged lunatics." 3 



542. Until very recently, then, in the vast majority of 

 cases, the unfortunate lunatic was placed under conditions 

 which insured death or permanent insanity. From the 

 moment his mental unsoundness declared itself he ceased to 



1 As You Like It, III. ii. 



2 Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii., pp. 86-7. 

 3 Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 90. 



