(379) For remarkably interesting articles showing the recent efforts
of sundry priests in Italy and South Germany to revive the belief
in diabolic possession—efforts in which the Bishop of Augsburg took
part—see Prof. E. P. Evans, on Modern Instances of Diabolic Possession,
and on Recent Recrudescence of Superstition in The Popular Science
Monthly for Dec. 1892, and for Oct., Nov., 1895.
Speaking of the part played by Satan at Ober-Ammergau, Hase says: "Formerly, seated on his infernal throne, surrounded by his hosts with Sin and Death, he opened the play,... and... retained throughout a considerable part; but he has been surrendered to the progress of that enlightenment which even the Bavarian highlands have not been able to escape" (p. 80).
The especial point to be noted is, that from the miracle-play of the present day Satan and his works have disappeared. The present writer was unable to detect, in a representation of the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau, in 1881, the slightest reference to diabolic interference with the course of events as represented from the Old Testament, or from the New, in a series of tableaux lasting, with a slight intermission, from nine in the morning to after four in the afternoon. With the most thorough exhibition of minute events in the life of Christ, and at times with hundreds of figures on the stage, there was not a person or a word which recalled that main feature in the mediaeval Church plays. The present writer also made a full collection of the photographs of tableaux, of engravings of music, and of works bearing upon these representations for twenty years before, and in none of these was there an apparent survival of the old belief.
But, although the old superstition had been discarded, the inevitable conservatism in theology and medicine caused many old abuses to be continued for years after the theological basis for them had really disappeared. There still lingered also a feeling of dislike toward madmen, engendered by the early feeling of hostility toward them, which sufficed to prevent for many years any practical reforms.
What that old theory had been, even under the most favourable circumstances and among the best of men, we have seen in the fact that Sir Thomas More ordered acknowledged lunatics to be publicly flogged; and it will be remembered that Shakespeare makes one of his characters refer to madmen as deserving "a dark house and a whip." What the old practice was and continued to be we know but too well. Taking Protestant England as an example—and it was probably the most humane—we have a chain of testimony. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Bethlehem Hospital was reported too loathsome for any man to enter; in the seventeenth century, John Evelyn found it no better; in the eighteenth, Hogarth's pictures and contemporary reports show it to be essentially what it had been in those previous centuries.(380)
(380) On Sir Thomas More and the condition of Bedlam, see Tuke, History
of the Insane in the British Isles, pp. 63-73. One of the passages of
Shakespeare is in As You Like It, Act iii, scene 2. As to the survival
of indifference to the sufferings of the insane so long after the belief
which caused it had generally disappeared, see some excellent remarks in
Maudsley's Responsibility in Mental Disease, London, 1885, pp. 10-12.
The older English practice is thus quaintly described by Richard Carew (in his Survey of Cornwall, London, 1602, 1769): "In our forefathers' daies, when devotion as much exceeded knowledge, as knowledge now commeth short of devotion, there were many bowssening places, for curing of mad men, and amongst the rest, one at Alternunne in this Hundred, called S. Nunnespoole, which Saints Altar (it may be)... gave name to the church... The watter running from S. Nunnes well, fell into a square and close walled plot, which might bee filled at what depth they listed. Vpon this wall was the franticke person set to stand, his backe towards the poole, and from thence with a sudden blow in the brest, tumbled headlong into the pond; where a strong fellowe, provided for the nonce, tooke him, and tossed him vp and downe, alongst and athwart the water, vntill the patient, by forgoing strength, had somewhat forgot his fury. Then there was hee conveyed to the Church, and certain Masses sung over him; vpon which handling, if his right wits returned, S. Nunne had the thanks; but if there appeared any small amendment, he was bowsened againe, and againe, while there remayned in him any hope of life, for recovery."
The first humane impulse of any considerable importance in this field seems to have been aroused in America. In the year 1751 certain members of the Society of Friends founded a small hospital for the insane, on better principles, in Pennsylvania. To use the language of its founders, it was intended "as a good work, acceptable to God." Twenty years later Virginia established a similar asylum, and gradually others appeared in other colonies.
But it was in France that mercy was to be put upon a scientific basis, and was to lead to practical results which were to convert the world to humanity. In this case, as in so many others, from France was spread and popularized not only the scepticism which destroyed the theological theory, but also the devotion which built up the new scientific theory and endowed the world with a new treasure of civilization.
In 1756 some physicians of the great hospital at Paris known as the Hotel-Dieu protested that the cruelties prevailing in the treatment of the insane were aggravating the disease; and some protests followed from other quarters. Little effect was produced at first; but just before the French Revolution, Tenon, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, and others took up the subject, and in 1791 a commission was appointed to undertake a reform.