Well might he do so; for, ever since Caliph Omar had protected and encouraged the scientific investigation 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.