Page:The psychology of insanity (IA psychologyofinsa00hartiala).pdf/15



of abnormal mental phenomena reach back to the very dawn of history, and are to he found in the oldest books of both the Eastern and Western worlds. Thus, in the Old Testament we read of Saul’s recurring periods of depression, when “the evil spirit from the Lord” was upon him. We read, again, of the delirium of Nebuchadnezzar, in which he believed himself changed into an animal — he “did eat grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs grew like the feathers of eagles, and his nails like birds’ claws.” Turning to the West, abnormal mental phenomena frequently appear in the pages of Homer. Ajax was tortured by the Furies till he fell upon his own sword, and we are told that Ulysses simulated madness in order to justify his abstention from the Trojan war. The famous Oracles are not altogether attributable to fraud, but are probably partly to be