"Over the arts and sciences of Greece and Rome the errors and ignorance of the Middle Ages gradually crept, until they enveloped them in a cloud worse than Egyptian darkness. The insane were again consigned to the miracle-working-ordinances of o o priests or else totally neglected. Idiots and imbeciles were permitted to go clotheless and homeless. The frantic and furious were chained in lonesome dungeons and exhibited for money, like wild beasts. The monomaniacs became, according to circumstance, the objects of superstitious horror or reverence. They were regarded as possessed with demons and subjected either to priestly exorcism, or cruelly destroyed as wizards and witches. This cruel treatment of the insane continued with little or no alleviation down to the end of the last century in all the civilized countries of Europe."
Let me quote a description of these Christian asylums.
"Public asylums indeed existed in most of the metropolitan cities of Europe, but the insane were more generally, if at all troublesome, confined in jails, where they were chained in the lowest dungeons or made the butts and menials of the most debased criminals. In public asylums the inmates were confined in cellars, isolated in cages, chained to floors or walls. These poor victims were exhibited to the public like wild beasts. They were often killed by the ignorance and brutality of their keepers."
I call particular attention to the following paragraph: "Such was the state of the insane generally throughout Europe at the commencement of this century. Such it continued to be in England so late as 1815 and in Ireland as 1817, as revealed by the inquiries of parliamentary commissions in those years respectively."
Dr. Tyler is entirely welcome to all the comfort these facts can give.
Not only were the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians far in advance of the Christians in the treatment of the mentally diseased, but even the Mohammedans were in advance of the Christians about 700 years, and in addition to this they treated their lunatics with great kindness.
The temple of Diana of Ephesus was a refuge for insolvent debtors, and the Thesium was a refuge for slaves.
Again, I say that hundreds of years before the establishment of Christianity there were in India not only hospitals and asylums for people, but even for animals. The great mistake of the Christian clergy is that they attribute all goodness to Christianity. They have always been engaged in maligning human nature—in attacking the human heart—in efforts to destroy all natural passions.
Perfect maxims for the conduct of life were uttered and repeated in India and China hundreds and hundreds of years before the Christian era. Every virtue was lauded and every vice denounced. All the good that Christianity has in it came from the human heart. Everything in that system of religion came from this world; and in it you will find not only the goodness of man, but the imperfections of man—not only the love of man, but the malice of man.
Let me tell you why the Christians for so many centuries neglected or abused the insane. They believed the New Testament, and honestly supposed that the insane were filled with devils.