d even as late as 1827, and in a few cases as late as 1850, there were
revivals of the old absurdity and brutality. Down to a late period,
in the hospitals of St. Luke and Bedlam, long rows of the insane were
chained to the walls of the corridors. But Gardner at Lincoln, Donnelly
at Hanwell, and a new school of practitioners in mental disease, took up
the work of Tuke, and the victory in England was gained in practice as
it had been previously gained in theory.

There need be no controversy regarding the comparative merits of these
two benefactors of our race, Pinel and Tuke. They clearly did their
thinking and their work independently of each other, and thereby each
strengthened the other and benefited mankind. All that remains to be
said is, that while France has paid high honours to Pinel, as to one who
did much to free the world from one of its most cruel superstitions and
to bring in a reign of humanity over a wide empire, England has as yet
made no fitting commemoration of her great benefactor in this field.
York Minster holds many tombs of men, of whom some were blessings
to their fellow-beings, while some were but "solemnly constituted
impostors" and parasites upon the body politic; yet, to this hour, that
great temple has received no consecration by a monument to the man who
did more to alleviate human misery than any other who has ever entered
it.

But the place of these two men in history is secure. They stand with
Grotius, Thomasius, and Beccaria--the men who in modern times have
done most to prevent unmerited sorrow. They were not, indeed, called
to suffer like their great compeers; they were not obliged to see their
writings--among the most blessed gifts of God to man--condemned, as
were those of Grotius and Beccaria by the Catholic Church, and those
of Thomasius by a large section of the Protestant Church; they were
not obliged to flee for their lives, as were Grotius and Thomasius; but
their effort is none the less worthy. The French Revolution, indeed,
saved Pinel, and the decay of English ecclesiasticism gave Tuke his
opportunity; but their triumphs are none the less among the glories of
our race; for they were the first acknowledged victors in a struggle of
science for humanity which had lasted nearly two thousand years.

CHAPTER XVI. FROM DIABOLISM TO HYSTERIA.

I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."

In the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science in
destroying the ide