ory of psychiatry and sorcery proves that we are not
exaggerating. It is not very long since the insane were regarded, not
as persons suffering from disease, but as criminals and sorcerers, and
were treated by punishment and exorcism. The ancients, on the
contrary, especially certain Greek and Roman physicians (notably
_Caelius Aurelianus_) had already recognized that insanity was a
disease of the brain, and had distinguished its different forms.

Even at the present day, we find among the Catholics and among certain
Protestant sects, as among savages, a belief in sorcery, and if this
belief got the upper hand, prosecution for sorcery--exorcism and other
forms of cruelty--would soon become the fashion.

Before the sixteenth century prosecutions for sorcery were universal,
and remained very common for a long time afterwards. It is only since
the time of the French Revolution that insanity has been recognized as
a mental disease. Even in the nineteenth century a German alienist,
Heinroth, punished the insane like criminals. The atrocious prejudice
of the people against the insane dates from the time of prosecution
for sorcery.

Even now we are the slaves of a prejudice which holds a legal
conviction sufficient to dishonor the prisoner and stain his character
for the rest of his days. Hans Leuss' book, _Aus dem Zuchthause_ (From
the prison), 1904, is very instructive on this point. Condemned to
prison himself, the author makes some wise and dispassionate
observations which give food for reflection. I may also quote the
words of Doctor Guillaume, who was for a long time superintendent of
the penitentiary at Neuchatel, and who is now director of the Swiss
federal bureau of statistics at Berne. The question we are dealing
with had been treated in a discussion in which I took part, and to
which Doctor Guillaume had listened silently. At the conclusion, he
said to us: "Gentlemen, in the course of my life I have become
acquainted with a large number of convicts, but I have never been able
to discover among them more than two classes of individuals; the one
class were diseased, and the others ... ah! the others; the more I
study their cases and their personality, I ask myself if I should not
have done as they did under the same circumstances!" It is unnecessary
to say that Doctor Guillaume did not mean to establish two clearly
marked classes, for most criminals represent a mixture of both; but
his main idea gives a good idea o