Mental Hospitals in Pre-Modern Society

Abstract

Historians of the pre-modern period mostly come up with early Islamic society as the ‘true’ inventor of mental asylums. To Michel Foucault, it was the rational response of the Age of Enlightenment that separated the mad completely from society. This paper argues that the famous quest for the prima causa has led historians to not seeing more fundamental issues: what was really going on in hospitals, or the profound impact of demonology and possession in different cultures alike. Moreover, I argue that the roots of the existential approach towards the mentally challenged at least go back to Late Antiquity: the miracles performed by Jesus, and subsequently by the saints, caused certain categories of disabilities to become more established and canonized than others.