Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles Part 3

[21] These pa.s.sages from Dr. Borlase and Dr. Boase will be found in the valuable address at the Royal Inst.i.tution of Cornwall, by W. C. Borlase, F.S.A., 1878 (Journal of the Inst.i.tution, 1878, No. xx. pp. 58, 59). It forms a little work on Cornish Saints, and from it is derived the statement made in regard to St. Nonna or Nun.

[22] Honoured both in Scotland and Ireland on account of his great sanct.i.ty and miracles, he "exchanged his mortal life for a happy immortality in the solitude of Sirach, not far from Glendarchy, Scotland. His mother, Kentigerna, was also a woman of great virtues, and honoured after her death for a Saint" ("Britannia Sancta, or Lives of British Saints," 1745, p. 20).

[23] Vol. i. p. 282.

[24] "Darker Superst.i.tions of Scotland," p. 82. Macfarlane, "Geographical Collections," MS., vol. i. p. 154.

[25] Dr. Mitch.e.l.l has clearly shown that St. Maree is a corruption of Maelrubha, who came from Ireland, and not of Mary, as stated by Pennant.

[26] "Tour in Scotland and the Hebrides," vol. i. p. 332, edit. 1774.

[27] Or Gringorian water. In what respect it was special I do not know, but holy water is said to have been so called because Gregory I.

recommended it so highly. "In case," says Rabelais, "they should happen to encounter with devils, by virtue of the Gringoriene water they might make them disappear" ("Gargantua," i. 43). See Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable."

[28] "On Various Superst.i.tions in the North-West Highlands and Islands of Scotland, especially in Relation to Lunacy," by Arthur Mitch.e.l.l, A.M., M.D., 1862; from the "Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland," vol. iv. The aphorism of Boerhaave, relating to the treatment of lunatics, quoted by this writer, is entirely in keeping with the practice described in the text, "Praecipitatio in mare, submersio in eo continuata quamdiu ferre potest, princeps remedium est."

[29] _Op. cit._, p. 15.

[30] Mitch.e.l.l, _op. cit._, p. 18. He adds it was Murdoch's "calamity to live among an unenlightened people, a thousand years removed from the kindly doctrines of the good Pinel." "I am not here detailing what happened in the Middle Ages. It is of the nineteenth century--of what living men saw that I write." In the _Inverness Courier_, August 31, 1871, is an extraordinary account of dipping lunatics in Lochmanur, in Sutherlands.h.i.+re, in the district of Strathnaver, at midnight: "About fifty persons were present near one spot.... About twelve (affected with various diseases) stripped and walked into the loch, performing their ablutions three times. Those who were not able to act for themselves were a.s.sisted, some of them being led willingly, and others by force.

One young woman, strictly guarded, was an object of great pity. She raved in a distressing manner, repeating religious phrases, some of which were very earnest and pathetic.... These utterances were enough to move any person hearing them. Poor girl! What possible good could immersion be to her?... No man, so far as I could see, denuded himself for a plunge.... These gatherings take place twice a year, and are known far and near to such as put belief in the spell. But the climax of absurdity is in paying the loch in sterling coin.... I may add that the practice of dipping in the loch is said to have been carried on from time immemorial, and it is alleged that many cures have been effected by it" (Correspondent of the _Courier_, who witnessed the scene on the 14th of August, 1871).

[31] "Darker Superst.i.tions of Scotland," p. 190.

[32] _Op. cit._, p. 60; from "Trial of Alexander Drummond in the Kirktown of Auchterairdour," July 3, 1629.

[33] _Op. cit._, p. 61, "Trial of Marable Couper," June 13, 1616.

[34] _Op. cit._, p. 98.

[35] Dalyell, p. 550.

[36] Joyce's "Irish Names of Places," vol. i. p. 172.

[37] "Ancient and Present State of the County Kerry," p. 196.

[38] Joyce's "Irish Names of Places."

[39] "Letters from the Kingdom of Kerry, in the year 1845." Dublin, 1847.

[40] Vol. ii. p. 226. On witchcraft in Ireland see the "Annals of Ireland," translated from the original Irish of the Four Masters, by Owen Connellan, Esq. Dublin, 1846.

[41] His "Breviary of Helth" was published in 1547.

[42] This cross was made of sea sand, in the sixth century, by St.

Kentigern, called also St. Mungo. A collegiate church was erected there in 1449. He healed the maniacal by the touch. See "The Legends of St.

Kentigern," translated by Rev. William Stevenson, D.D., Edinburgh, 1874; and _Notes and Queries_, April 21, 1866.

[43] Page 976, ed. 1633. According to modern botanists, black h.e.l.lebore is not, as was for long supposed the ???e???? e?a? of Hippocrates.

Of several species growing in Greece, the medicinal virtues of _h.e.l.leborus orientalis_ resemble most nearly those of the cla.s.sic descriptions of _H. niger_. See "The British Flora Medica," by B. H.

Barton, F.L.S., and T. Castle, M.D., 1877, p. 203.

[44] Scot was born near Smeeth, 1545. He was educated at Oxford, and lived on his paternal estate. He was the son of Sir John Scot, of Scot's Hall. Died 1599. His famous work, "The Discovery of Witchcraft, proving the common opinions of Witches contracting with Divels, Spirits, or Familiars to be but imaginary conceptions; wherein also the lewde unchristian practices of Witchmongers in extorting Confessions, is notably detected; whereunto is added a Treatise upon the nature and substance of Spirits and Divels," was published in 1584. This is the t.i.tle of the second edition, which differs slightly from the first.

[45] _Op. cit._, p. 72.

[46] "Medical Councils," 1679; "Opera Medica," 1703.

[47] Edit. 1616. James says he wrote it "chiefly against the d.a.m.nable opinions of Wierus and Scot, the latter of whom is not ashamed in public print to deny that there can be such a thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old error of the Sadducees in the denying of spirits."

[48] Johann Wierus, born at Grave on the Meuse, Brabant, published his work against the prevalent view of witchcraft in 1567. See "Histoires, Disputes, et Discours des Illusions, et Impostures des Diables, des Magiciens infames, Sorciers, etc. Par Jean Wier, 1579." He died 1588, at Tecklenburg. His works were printed in one volume in 1660.

[49] _Op. cit._, p. 234.

[50] Henry Cornelius Agrippa was born in 1486, at Cologne, and was the contemporary of Paracelsus. Agrippa was the master of Wierus. He was Town Advocate at Metz and secretary to the Emperor Maximilian.

Imprisoned for a year at Brussels, on the charge of magic, and ceaselessly calumniated after his death. See Plancey's "Dict. Infern.,"

art. "Agrippa," and Thiers' "Superst." (vol. i. pp. 142, 143). See his Memoir, by Professor Morley, 1856. He was a doctor of medicine as well as law. He himself believed in witchcraft.

[51] As in Hamlet. "_There_" (England) "the men are as mad as he."

[52] "King Lear," Act iii. sc. 4.

[53] Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Lord Chancellors."

[54] _Notes and Queries_, vol. vi. p. 327, No. 153. A more extraordinary entry occurs under the same date: "Paid Thomas Hawkins for whipping 2 people y{t} had the small-pox, 8d." Under date 1648: "Given to a woman that was bereaved of her witts the 26 of Aprill, 1645, 6d." (_Op. cit._, No. 242, July 22, 1854).

[55] According to Dr. Brushfield, torture was practised in Scotland after it was used for the last time in England in 1640. No specimens of the "brank" are known to exist in Ireland or Wales.

[56] "Obsolete Punishments," Part I., "The Brank," by T. N. Brushfield, M.D., 1858, p. 20.

CHAPTER II.

BETHLEM HOSPITAL AND ST. LUKE'S.

The chief point of interest in the subject to which this chapter has reference, centres in the questions where and what was the provision made for the insane in England at the earliest period in which we can discover traces or their custody?

Many, I suppose, are familiar with the fact of the original foundation in 1247 of a Priory in Bishopsgate Street, for the Order of St. Mary of Bethlem, but few are aware at what period it was used for the care or confinement of lunatics, and still fewer have any knowledge of the form of the building of the first Bethlem Hospital--the word "Bethlem" soon degenerating into _Bedlam_.

Before entering upon the less known facts, I would observe that an alderman and sheriff of London, Simon FitzMary, gave in the thirty-first year of the reign of Henry III., 1247, to the Bishop and Church of Bethlem, in Holyland, all his houses and grounds in the parish of St.

Botolph without Bishopsgate, that there might be thereupon built a Hospital or Priory for a prior, canons, brethren, and sisters of the Order of Bethlem or the Star of Bethlem, wherein the Bishop of Bethlem was to be entertained when he came to England, and to whose visitation and correction all the members of the house were subjected.[57]

The following is the wording of the original grant, slightly abridged:--"To all the children of our Mother holy Church, to whom this present writing shall come, Simon, the Son of Mary, sendeth greeting in our Lord, ... having special and singular devotion to the Church of the glorious Virgin at Bethelem, where the same Virgin brought forth our Saviour incarnate, and lying in the Cratch,[58] and with her own milk nourished; and where the same child to us being born, the Chivalry of the Heavenly Company sange the new hymne, Gloria in excelsis Deo ... a new Starre going before them. In the Honour and Reverence of the same child, and his most meek mother, and to the exaltation of my most n.o.ble Lord, Henry King of England, ... and to the manifold increase of this City of London, in which I was born: and also for the health of my soul, and the souls of my predecessors and successors, my father, mother and my friends, I have given, and by this my present Charter, here, have confirmed to G.o.d, and to the Church of St. Mary of Bethelem, all my Lands which I have in the Parish of St. b.u.t.tolph, without Bishopsgate of London, ... in houses, gardens, pools, ponds, ditches, and pits, and all their appurtenances as they be closed in by their bounds, which now extend in length from the King's high street, East, to the great Ditch, in the West, the which is called Depeditch; and in breadth to the lands of Ralph Dunnyng, in the North; and to the land of the Church of St.

b.u.t.tolph in the South; ... to make there a Priory, and to ordain a Prior and Canons, brothers and also sisters, who in the same place, the Rule and Order of the said Church of Bethelem solemnly professing, shall bear the Token of a Starre openly in their Coapes and Mantles of profession, and for to say Divine Service there, for the souls aforesaid, and all Christian souls, and specially to receive there, the Bishop of Bethelem, Canons, brothers, and messengers of the Church of Bethelem for ever more, as often as they shall come thither. And that a Church or Oratory there shall be builded, as soon as our Lord shall enlarge his grace, under such form, that the Order, inst.i.tution of Priors, &c. to the Bishop of Bethelem and his successors shall pertain for evermore.... And Lord G.o.dfrey, Bishop of Bethelem, into bodily possession, I have indented and given to his possession all the aforesaid Lands; which possession he hath received, and entered in form aforesaid.

"And in token of subjection and reverence, the said place in London shall pay yearly a mark sterling at Easter to the Bishop of Bethelem.