THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



MAT, 1889. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



VI.— DIABOLISM AND HYSTERIA. 



Bx ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D., 



EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



PAKT I. 



IN the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science 

 in destroying the idea that individual lunatics are " possessed 

 by devils/' — in establishing the truth that insanity is physical 

 disease, — and in substituting for superstitious cruelties toward the 

 insane a treatment mild, kindly, and based upon ascertained facts. 



The Satan who had so long troubled individual men and 

 women thus became extinct ; henceforth his fossil remains only 

 were preserved; they may still be found in the sculptures and 

 storied windows of mediaeval churches, in sundry liturgies, and 

 in popular forms of speech. 



But another Satan still lived — a Satan who wrought on a 

 larger scale — who took possession of multitudes. For, after this 

 triumph of the scientific method, there still remained a class of 

 mental disorders which could not be treated in asylums, which 

 were not yet fully explained by science, and which therefore 

 gave arguments of much apparent strength to the supporters of 

 the old theological view : these were the epidemics of " diabolic 

 possession " which for so many centuries afflicted various parts of 

 the world. 



When obliged, then, to retreat from their old position in 

 regard to individual cases of insanity, the more conservative the- 

 ologians promptly referred to these epidemics as beyond the 

 domain of science — as clear evidences of the power of Satan ; and, 

 as the basis of this view, they cited from the Old Testament fre- 

 quent references to witchcraft, and, from the New Testament, St. 



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