nd merciful provision for lunatics, such
as was not seen in Christian lands; and this example led to better
establishments in Spain and Italy.
All honour to this work and to the men who engaged in it; but, as a
rule, these establishments were few and poor, compared with those for
other diseases, and they usually degenerated into "mad-houses," where
devils were cast out mainly by cruelty.(349)
(349) For a very full and learned, if somewhat one-sided, account of the
earlier effects of this stream of charitable thought, see Tollemer, Des
Origines de la Charite Catholique, Paris, 1858. It is instructive to
note that, while this book is very full in regard to the action of the
Church on slavery and on provision for the widows and orphans, the sick,
infirm, captives, and lepers, there is hardly a trace of any care for
the insane. This same want is incidentally shown by a typical example
in Kriegk, Aerzte, Heilanstalten und Geisteskranke im mittelalterlichen
Frankfurt, Frankfurt a. M., 1863, pp. 16, 17; also Kirschhof, pp. 396,
397. On the general subject, see Semelaigne, as above, p. 214; also
Calmeil, vol. i, pp. 116, 117. For the effect of Muslem example in Spain
and Italy, see Krafft-Ebing, as above, p. 45, note.
The first main weapon against the indwelling Satan continued to be the
exorcism; but under the influence of inferences from Scripture farther
and farther fetched, and of theological reasoning more and more subtle,
it became something very different from the gentle procedure of earlier
times, and some description of this great weapon at the time of its
highest development will throw light on the laws which govern the growth
of theological reasoning, as well as upon the main subject in hand.
A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was that,
according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of Satan is pride.
Pride led him to rebel; for pride he was cast down; therefore the first
thing to do, in driving him out of a lunatic, was to strike a fatal blow
at his pride,--to disgust him.
This theory was carried out logically, to the letter. The treatises
on the subject simply astound one by their wealth of blasphemous and
obscene epithets which it was allowable for the exorcist to use in
casting out devils. The Treasury of Exorcisms contains hundreds of pages
packed with the vilest epithets which the worst imagination could invent
for the purpose of overwhelming the indwelling Satan.(350)
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