73. The treatment to which, in consequence of his belief in possession, unfortunate persons like Mainy and Sommers, who were probably only suffering from some harmless form of mental disease, were subjected, was hardly calculated to effect a cure. The most ignorant quack was considered perfectly competent to deal with cases which, in reality, require the most delicate and judicious management, combined with the profoundest physiological, as well as psychological, knowledge. The ordinary method of dealing with these lunatics was as simple as it was irritating. Bonds and confinement in a darkened room were the specifics; and the monotony of this treatment was relieved by occasional visits from the sage who had charge of the case, to mumble a prayer or mutter an exorcism. Another popular but unpleasant cure was by flagellation; so that Romeo's
"Not mad, but bound more than a madman is,
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipped and tormented,"[1]
if an exaggerated description of his own mental condition is in itself no inflated metaphor.
[Footnote 1: I. ii. 55.]
74. Shakspere, in "The Comedy of Errors," and indirectly also in "Twelfth Night," has given us intentionally ridiculous illustrations of scenes which he had not improbably witnessed, in the country at any rate, and which bring vividly before us the absurdity of the methods of diagnosis and treatment usually adopted:—
Courtesan. How say you now? is not your husband mad?
Adriana. His incivility confirms no less.
Good doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand.
Luciana. Alas! how fiery and how sharp he looks!
Courtesan. Mark how he trembles in his extasy!
Pinch. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.[1]