tigation of insanity by Paul of Aegina, the Moslem
treatment of the insane had been far more merciful than the system
prevailing throughout Christendom.(382)

(382) See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 110; also Trelat, as already cited.

In 1792--the same year in which Pinel began his great work in
France--William Tuke began a similar work in England. There seems
to have been no connection between these two reformers; each wrought
independently of the other, but the results arrived at were the same.
So, too, in the main, were their methods; and in the little house of
William Tuke, at York, began a better era for England.

The name which this little asylum received is a monument both of the old
reign of cruelty and of the new reign of humanity. Every old name for
such an asylum had been made odious and repulsive by ages of misery; in
a happy moment of inspiration Tuke's gentle Quaker wife suggested a new
name; and, in accordance with this suggestion, the place became known as
a "Retreat."

From the great body of influential classes in church and state Tuke
received little aid. The influence of the theological spirit was shown
when, in that same year, Dr. Pangster published his Observations on
Mental Disorders, and, after displaying much ignorance as to the
causes and nature of insanity, summed up by saying piously, "Here our
researches must stop, and we must declare that 'wonderful are the works
of the Lord, and his ways past finding out.'" Such seemed to be the view
of the Church at large: though the new "Retreat" was at one of the
two great ecclesiastical centres of England, we hear of no aid or
encouragement from the Archbishop of York or from his clergy. Nor was
this the worst: the indirect influence of the theological habit of
thought and ecclesiastical prestige was displayed in the Edinburgh
Review. That great organ of opinion, not content with attacking Tuke,
poured contempt upon his work, as well as on that of Pinel. A few of
Tuke's brother and sister Quakers seem to have been his only reliance;
and in a letter regarding his efforts at that time he says, "All men
seem to desert me."(383)

(383) See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 116-142, and 512; also the Edinburgh
Review for April, 1803.

In this atmosphere of English conservative opposition or indifference
the work could not grow rapidly. As late as 1815, a member of Parliament
stigmatized the insane asylums of England as the shame of the nation;
an