Modified: 2020-04-22
Malleus Malificarum, or Hammer for Witches, was the first handbook of clinical psychology, in a way. It was written by two Austrian monks, and it specified how to identify and deal with the possessed. Some of its treatments included burning at the stake and dismemberment (being pulled apart by having horses attached to each limb, for instance). Even colonial America was not immune. The famous Salem witch trials were an example of a similar way of dealing with abnormal behavior.
Abnormal behavior shows historically based symptoms. For example, in the Middle Ages, whole villages would be affected by mass hysteria in the form of dancing sickness. The villagers would dance themselves into exhaustion over a period of several days. The Italian song, "La tarantella," is an example of the music that inspired such behavior. Before you think that such episodes are past us, they are not. You may read about or see on the TV news stories about all of the workers in an entire building falling sick at the same time. Very often, no physical cause for the illness can be ascertained. Those instances are examples of modern mass hysteria.
- Malleus Malificarum--book, adv., long, links, graphics
- Contains substantial portion in English translation of the book of the same title used to identify and condemn witches (the insane) during the Middle Ages and beyond. http://www.klammeraffe.org/~brandy/hexen/MalleusMalificarum/