Mental Illness in the Middle Ages

Paper Summary:

The treatment of the insane in the Middle Ages can be assessed both in terms of the medical and spiritual treatments offered to cure insanity, and also by considering the social nature of insanity. This paper focuses on attitudes towards the insane, the legal status of the insane, medical opinions, attempts at cures and the role of hospitals. Conclusions are drawn in this paper as to what extent one can accept the traditional assessment of treatment as being bleak and uncaring.

From the Paper:

"Even the noted physician Antonio Benivieni accepted the potential role of the supernatural in mental illness, concluding with one patient that her symptoms 'went further than any violent symptoms produced by disease and even passed human power' and handing his patient over to 'physicians of the soul' to treat her. With cases of demonic possession, which were very often attributed to sufferers of epilepsy, only a supernatural solution could be effective."

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