His method was simple: for the brutality and cruelty which had prevailed up to that time, he substituted kindness and gentleness.

The possessed were taken out of their dungeons, given sunny rooms, and allowed the liberty of pleasant ground for exercise; chains were thrown aside.

At the same time, the mental power of each patient was developed by its fitting exercise, and disease was met with remedies sanctioned by experiment, observation, and reason.

Thus was gained one of the greatest, though one of the least known, triumphs of modern science and humanity.
The results obtained by Pinel had an instant effect, not only in France but throughout Europe: the news spread from hospital to hospital.

At his death, Esquirol took up his work; and, in the place of the old training of judges, torturers, and executioners by theology to carry out its ideas in cruelty, there was now trained a school of physicians to develop science in this field and carry out its decrees in mercy.( 381) (381) For the services of Tenon and his associates, and also for the work of Pinel, see especially Esquirol, Des Maladies mentales, Paris, 1838, vol.i, p.