Text-book of insanity : based on clinical observations for practitioners and students of medicine.

  • Richard von Krafft-Ebing
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of insanity : based on clinical observations for practitioners and students of medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    Thus for centuries the fate of the insane remained the same. Though Charles the tJreat had forbidden the burning; of witclies, and the noble Wier (1515) had applied to both emperor and tlic people Avith a petition to spare tlie blood of tlie sup]>osed witches, who wore only melancholic, insane, or hys- teric, yet these isolated voices were without eflect upon the superstitious nuisses, whose prejudices were nourished bj- the church. Thus it happened that witch-trials continued to occur as late as the eighteenth century. With the age of the Reformation began a better time also for medicine, but it was long before medicine emerged from the struggle with superstition, mysticism, and scholasticism ; freed herself from the bonds of the church and the blind authority of tlic ancients; and was supported by the positive investigations of Vesalius and the unan- swerable polemics of Paracelsus. As early as the sixteenth century in the domain of psychiatry the beginnings of a clearer understanding are apparent. Wier's enlighten- ing efforts were supported by Porta and Zachias. The writings of Prosper Alpin, Mercurialis, Bellini, and Fernelius disclose the first signs of a new scientific revision of psychiatry. Felix Plater (1537- 1614) even attempted a classification of mental diseases. The influences of Bacon and Harvey mark initial stages of advancement in the natural sciences. In psychiatry the beginnings were puerile. For a long time it was dis- puted whether the insane were possessed by evil spirits, and therefore to be left to the priests, or whether they were patients to be treated by physicians. The most enlightened among the physicians were still in doubt whether the nature of insanity was to be attributed to disturbances of the Hippocratic himiors. Attempts at cure were either trifling or entirely wanting; they demonstrated only to what a depth science had fallen. Just as in the earlier times attempts were made to drive out the devil, so now physicians soiight to drive out delusion; and, ignorant of its origin and nature, they made use of the most ridiculous measures. A patient who believed himself to have no head was to be cured by hav- ing a hat of lead put on his head; to an hysteric woman who believed she had a snake in her stomach, an emetic was to be given, and a lizard placed in the vomit; a patient who thought himself so cold that he believed nothing but fire could give him back his natxiral w'armth, Zacutus Lusitanus (1571-1642) sewed up in furs, which he set on tire. An excellent picture of the life and suffering characteristic of that time is given by Stenzel in his history of the Prussian State. It is the story of Johann Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich, son of William the Rich and Maria of Aus- tria, who both suffered the sad fate of becoming insane. The duke was men- tally weak from his youth, and never capable of ruling his people. Before he became completely insane he was troubled with the groundless idea that some one wished to kill him. and therefoi^ he spent many nights sleepless in his armor. After he had wounded many of the people of the court in an out-