The
treatment of the "possessed," as we find it laid down in standard
treatises, sanctioned by orthodox churchmen and jurists, accounts
for this abundantly. One sort of treatment used for those accused
of witchcraft will also serve to show this--the "_tortura
insomniae_." Of all things in brain-disease, calm and regular
sleep is most certainly beneficial; yet, under this practice,
these half-crazed creatures were prevented, night after night and
day after day, from sleeping or even resting. In this way
temporary delusion became chronic insanity, mild cases became
violent, torture and death ensued, and the "ways of God to man"
were justified.[[119b]]
But the most contemptible creatures in all those centuries
were the physicians who took sides with religious orthodoxy.
While we have, on the side of truth, Flade sacrificing his life,
Cornelius Agrippa his liberty, Wier and Loos their hopes of
preferment, Bekker his position, and Thomasius his ease,
reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the other side, a
troop of eminently respectable doctors mixing Scripture,
metaphysics, and pretended observations to support the "safe
side" and to deprecate interference with the existing
superstition, which seemed to them "a very safe belief to be held
by the common people.
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