A great modern authority tells us that, although modern civilization tends to increase insanity, the number of lunatics at present is far less than in the ages of faith and in the Reformation period.

The treatment of the "possessed," as we find it laid down in standard treatises, sanctioned by orthodox churchmen and jurists, accounts for this abundantly.

One sort of treatment used for those accused of witchcraft will also serve to show this--the "tortura insomniae." Of all things in brain-disease, calm and regular sleep is most certainly beneficial; yet, under this practice, these half-crazed creatures were prevented, night after night and day after day, from sleeping or even resting.

In this way temporary delusion became chronic insanity, mild cases became violent, torture and death ensued, and the "ways of God to man" were justified.( 368) But the most contemptible creatures in all those centuries were the physicians who took sides with religious orthodoxy.

While we have, on the side of truth, Flade sacrificing his life, Cornelius Agrippa his liberty, Wier and Loos their hopes of preferment, Bekker his position, and Thomasius his ease, reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the other side, a troop of eminently respectable doctors mixing Scripture, metaphysics, and pretended observations to support the "safe side" and to deprecate interference with the existing superstition, which seemed to them "a very safe belief to be held by the common people."(369) (367) See D.H.Tuke, Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles, London, 1822, p.