Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles. Daniel Hack Tuke

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СКАЧАТЬ itself into the river St. Inny, which runs a few hundred yards in the valley below. It seems probable that the working of a large stone quarry in the hills above has cut off the main current of the spring.

To Carew's account Dr. Borlase adds that in his opinion "a similar bowssening pit has existed at a well in St. Agnes' parish." Among other Cornish wells which had healing virtues assigned them was St. Levan's, and the insane, no doubt, partook of them. "Over the spring," says Dr. Boase, "lies a large flat stone, wide enough to serve as a foundation for a little square chapel erected upon it; the chapel is no more than five feet square, seven feet high, the little roof of it of stone. The water is reckoned very good for eyes, toothache, and the like, and when people have washed, they are always advised to go into this chapel and sleep upon the stone, which is the floor of it, for it must be remembered that whilst you are sleeping upon these consecrated stones, the saint is sure to dispense his healing influence." Madron Well attained a great celebrity for healing diseases and for divining. "Girls dropped crooked pins in to raise bubbles and divine the period of their marriage."[21]

      Mr. W. C. Borlase, M.P., informs me that at St. Kea, near Truro, within the walls of the church, was a stone to which, within the memory of an old gentleman who died only about two years ago, an inhabitant of the parish, on becoming insane, was chained. He adds that just as Altarnun is Nun's altar, the parish of Elerky is derived from St. Kea's altar (Eller or Aller-kè).

      Scotland was still more remarkable than Cornwall for its lunacy-healing wells and extraordinary superstitions, surviving also to a much later period; in fact, not yet dispelled by civilization and science. Every one has heard of St. Fillan's Well (strictly, a pool) in Perthshire, and knows the lines in "Marmion"—

      "Then to Saint Fillan's blessed well,

       Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,

       And the crazed brain restore."

This well, derived from the river of that name in the vale of Strathfillan, and consecrated by the saint who, according to tradition, converted the inhabitants to Christianity,[22] has been ever since distinguished by his name, and esteemed of sovereign virtue in curing madness.

      There was an abbot living in the Vale of St. Fillan in 1703. "He is pleased," says Pennant, in his "Tour in Scotland" (vol. ii. p. 15), "to take under his protection the disordered in mind; and works wonderful cures, say his votaries, unto this day." It was, he says, a second Bethesda. He wrote in 1774.

Mr. Heron, the author of a "Journey through Part of Scotland," made in the year 1793, observes that in his day "about two hundred persons afflicted in this way are annually brought to try the benefits of its salutary influence. These patients," he continues, "are conducted by their friends, who first perform the ceremony of passing with them thrice round a neighbouring cairn; on this cairn they then deposit a simple offering of clothes, or perhaps of a small bunch of heath.... The patient is then thrice immerged in the sacred pool; after the immersion he is bound hand and foot, and left for the night in a chapel which stands near. If the maniac is found loose in the morning, good hopes are conceived of his full recovery. If he is still bound, his cure remains doubtful. It sometimes happens that death relieves him during his confinement from the troubles of life."[23]

      An Englishman who visited the spot five years afterwards (1798) says the patient was fastened down in the open churchyard on a stone all the night, with a covering of hay over him, and St. Fillan's bell put over his head. The people believed that wherever the bell was removed to, it always returned to a particular place in the churchyard next morning. "In order to ascertain the truth of this ridiculous story, I carried it off with me," continues this English traveller. "An old woman, who observed what I was about, asked me what I wanted with the bell, and I told her that I had an unfortunate relation at home out of his mind, and that I wanted to have him cured. 'Oh, but,' says she, 'you must bring him here to be cured, or it will be of no use.' Upon which I told her he was too ill to be moved, and off I galloped with the bell." To make this story complete, I should add that the son of this gentleman, residing in Hertfordshire, restored to Scotland this interesting relic, after the lapse of seventy-one years, namely, in 1869.

At Struthill, in Stirlingshire, was a well famous for its healing virtues in madness. "Several persons," says Dalyell, "testified to the Presbytery of Stirling in 1668, that, having carried a woman thither, they had stayed two nights at an house hard by the well; that the first night they did bind her twice to a stone at the well, but she came into the house to them, being loosed without any help; the second night they bound her over again to the same stone, and she returned loosed; and they declare also, that she was very mad before they took her to the well, but since that time she is working and sober in her wits." He adds that this well was still celebrated in 1723, and votive offerings were left; but no one then surviving knew that the virtues of the stone were in request. The chapel itself was demolished in 1650, in order to suppress the superstitions connected with this well.[24]

      The virtues of St. Ronan's Well were renowned of old, and are still credited. The lunatic walks round the Temple of St. Molonah, whose ruin near the Butt of Lewis remains. He is sprinkled with water from the well, is bound, and placed on the site of the altar for the night. A cure is expected, if he sleep; if not, the fates are considered adverse, and he returns home. My authority, Dr. Mitchell, records a case of recovery.

There is in Ross-shire a small Island on Loch Maree, called Inch or Innis Maree, where is a famous well, bearing the name of this saint,[25] who lived at the beginning of the eighth century. This well was celebrated for its virtues in the cure of mental disorders. Pennant, the author already quoted, visited it in 1769, and gave a graphic description of the superstitious practices connected with its supposed sanctity. "The curiosity of the place," he writes, "is the well of the saint, of power unspeakable in cases of lunacy. The patient is brought into the sacred island, is made to kneel before the altar where his attendants leave an offering in money; he is then brought to the well and sips some of the holy water; a second offering is made; that done, he is thrice dipped in the lake, and the same operation is repeated every day for some weeks; and it often happens, by natural causes, the patient receives relief, of which the saint receives the credit. I must add that the visitants draw from the state of the well an omen of the disposition of St. Maree; if his well is full they suppose he will be propitious; if not, they proceed in their operations with fears and doubts, but let the event be what it will, he is held in high esteem."[26]

This practice was, no doubt, closely connected with the belief of the inhabitants that the insane were possessed. "To preclude the demon from lurking in the hair, a special water was sometimes used; the patient was plunged over head and ears in a bath of Gregorian water,[27] and detained there just up to the drowning point."[28] Dr. Mitchell (Commissioner in Lunacy in Scotland) has given a most interesting account of similar Scotch customs associated with their treatment of their insane, practised from time immemorial, and therefore illustrating the proceedings of a remote antiquity, pagan as well as Christian. But I must content myself with a very brief reference to his descriptions. Writing of the island of Maree in 1862, he states that about seven years before a furious madman was brought there; "a rope was passed round his waist, and with a couple of men at one end in advance, and a couple at the other behind, like a furious bull to the slaughter-house, he was marched to the Loch side and placed in a boat, which was pulled once round the island, the patient being jerked into the water at intervals. He was then landed, drank of the water, attached his offering to the tree, and, as I was told, in a state of happy tranquillity СКАЧАТЬ