Chapter Xv. From "demoniacal Possession" to Insanity.

I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.

Of all the triumphs won by science for humanity, few have been farther-reaching in good effects than the modern treatment of the insane. But this is the result of a struggle long and severe between two great forces. On one side have stood the survivals of various superstitions, the metaphysics of various philosophies, the dogmatism of various theologies, the literal interpretation of various sacred books, and especially of our own--all compacted into a creed that insanity is mainly or largely demoniacal possession; on the other side has stood science, gradually accumulating proofs that insanity is always the result of physical disease.

I purpose in this chapter to sketch, as briefly as I may, the history of this warfare, or rather of this evolution of truth out of error.

Nothing is more simple and natural, in the early stages of civilization, than belief in occult, self-conscious powers of evil. Troubles and calamities come upon man; his ignorance of physical laws forbids him to attribute them to physical causes; he therefore attributes them sometimes to the wrath of a good being, but more frequently to the malice of an evil being.

Especially is this the case with diseases. The real causes of disease are so intricate that they are reached only after ages of scientific labour; hence they, above all, have been attributed to the influence of evil spirits.(341)

(341) On the general attribution of disease to demoniacal influence, see Sprenger, History of Medicine, passim (note, for a later attitude, vol. ii, pp. 150-170, 178); Calmeil, De la Folie, Paris, 1845, vol. i, pp. 104, 105; Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1838, vol. i, p. 482; also Tylor, Primitive Culture. For a very plain and honest statement of this view in our own sacred books, see Oort, Hooykaas, and Kuenen, The Bible for Young People, English translation, chap. v, p. 167 and following; also Farrar's Life of Christ, chap. xvii. For this idea in Greece and elsewhere, see Maury, La Magie, etc., vol. iii, p. 276, giving, among other citations, one from book v of the Odyssey. On the influence of Platonism, see Esquirol and others, as above--the main passage cited is from the Phaedo. For the devotion of the early fathers and doctors to this idea, see citations from Eusebius, Lactantius, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, in Tissot, L'Imagination, p. 369; also Jacob (i.e., Paul Lecroix), Croyances Populaires, p. 183. For St. Augustine, see also his De Civitate Dei, lib. xxii, chap. vii, and his Enarration in Psal., cxxxv, 1. For the breaking away of the religious orders in Italy from the entire supremacy of this idea, see Becavin, L'Ecole de Salerne, Paris, 1888; also Daremberg, Histoire de la Medecine. Even so late as the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther maintained (Table Talk, Hazlitt's translation, London, 1872, pp. 250, 256) that "Satan produces all the maladies which afflict mankind."

But, if ordinary diseases were likely to be attributed to diabolical agency, how much more diseases of the brain, and especially the more obscure of these! These, indeed, seemed to the vast majority of mankind possible only on the theory of Satanic intervention: any approach to a true theory of the connection between physical causes and mental results is one of the highest acquisitions of science.

Here and there, during the whole historic period, keen men had obtained an inkling of the truth; but to the vast multitude, down to the end of the seventeenth century, nothing was more clear than that insanity is, in many if not in most cases, demoniacal possession.

Yet at a very early date, in Greece and Rome, science had asserted itself, and a beginning had been made which seemed destined to bring a large fruitage of blessings.(342) In the fifth century before the Christian era, Hippocrates of Cos asserted the great truth that all madness is simply disease of the brain, thereby beginning a development of truth and mercy which lasted nearly a thousand years. In the first century after Christ, Aretaeus carried these ideas yet further, observed the phenomena of insanity with great acuteness, and reached yet more valuable results. Near the beginning of the following century, Soranus went still further in the same path, giving new results of research, and strengthening scientific truth. Toward the end of the same century a new epoch was ushered in by Galen, under whom the same truth was developed yet further, and the path toward merciful treatment of the insane made yet more clear. In the third century Celius Aurelianus received this deposit of precious truth, elaborated it, and brought forth the great idea which, had theology, citing biblical texts, not banished it, would have saved fifteen centuries of cruelty--an idea not fully recognised again till near the beginning of the present century--the idea that insanity is brain disease, and that the treatment of it must be gentle and kind. In the sixth century Alexander of Tralles presented still more fruitful researches, and taught the world how to deal with melancholia; and, finally, in the seventh century, this great line of scientific men, working mainly under pagan auspices, was closed by Paul of Aegina, who under the protection of Caliph Omar made still further observations, but, above all, laid stress on the cure of madness as a disease, and on the absolute necessity of mild treatment.

(342) It is significant of this scientific attitude that the Greek word for superstition means, literally, fear of gods or demons.

Such was this great succession in the apostolate of science: evidently no other has ever shown itself more directly under Divine grace, illumination, and guidance. It had given to the world what might have been one of its greatest blessings.(343)

(343) For authorities regarding this development of scientific truth and mercy in antiquity, see especially Krafft-Ebing, Lehrbuch des Psychiatrie, Stuttgart, 1888, p. 40 and the pages following; Trelat, Recherches Historiques sur la Folie, Paris, 1839; Semelaigne, L'Alienation mentale dans l'Antiquitie, Paris, 1869; Dagron, Des Alienes, Paris, 1875; also Calmeil, De la Folie, Sprenger, and especially Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, Berlin, 1840.

This evolution of divine truth was interrupted by theology. There set into the early Church a current of belief which was destined to bring all these noble acquisitions of science and religion to naught, and, during centuries, to inflict tortures, physical and mental, upon hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women--a belief which held its cruel sway for nearly eighteen centuries; and this belief was that madness was mainly or largely possession by the devil.

This idea of diabolic agency in mental disease had grown luxuriantly in all the Oriental sacred literatures. In the series of Assyrian mythological tablets in which we find those legends of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and other early conceptions from which the Hebrews so largely drew the accounts wrought into the book of Genesis, have been discovered the formulas for driving out the evil spirits which cause disease. In the Persian theology regarding the struggle of the great powers of good and evil this idea was developed to its highest point. From these and other ancient sources the Jews naturally received this addition to their earlier view: the Mocker of the Garden of Eden became Satan, with legions of evil angels at his command; and the theory of diabolic causes of mental disease took a firm place in our sacred books. Such cases in the Old Testament as the evil spirit in Saul, which we now see to have been simply melancholy--and, in the New Testament, the various accounts of the casting out of devils, through which is refracted the beautiful and simple story of that power by which Jesus of Nazareth soothed perturbed minds by his presence or quelled outbursts of madness by his words, give examples of this. In Greece, too, an idea akin to this found lodgment both in the popular belief and in the philosophy of Plato and Socrates; and though, as we have seen, the great leaders in medical science had taught with more or less distinctness that insanity is the result of physical disease, there was a strong popular tendency to attribute the more troublesome cases of it to hostile spiritual influence.(344)

(344) For the exorcism against disease found at Ninevah, see G. Smith, Delitzsch's German translation, p. 34. For a very interesting passage regarding the representaion of a diabolic personage on a Babylonian bronze, and for a very frank statement regarding the transmission of ideas regarding Satanic power to our sacred books, see Sayce, Herodotus,