This is an image of a lesser-known hero of the Early Modern period, the Dutch physician Johann Weyer (1515-1588). In an age of witch-hunts, when many women accused of consorting with the devil were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, tried in law courts, and executed by burning, Weyer outspokenly wrote that such practices were inhumane, becoming one of the first to argue against the witch-hunts of his day.
Books like the _Malleus Malificorum_ and the treatise _Daemonologie_ by the British monarch King James had fueled widespread suspicion about the prevalence of witches, who were often described in terms of their abominational sexual practices with demons. Weyer instead thought that women accused of witchcraft likely had mental illness (he used the term “melancholy”) and should be treated more with tools analogous to modern psychiatry rather than punishment.
In 1563, Weyer published his thoughts in a work called _De praestigiis daemonum_, and stated that physicians should evaluate the women suspected of witchcraft, and not law-courts. Although this book eventually gained sympathy, initially it was unpopular, with the Catholic church putting it on the _Index_ of banned books.
Books like the _Malleus Malificorum_ and the treatise _Daemonologie_ by the British monarch King James had fueled widespread suspicion about the prevalence of witches, who were often described in terms of their abominational sexual practices with demons. Weyer instead thought that women accused of witchcraft likely had mental illness (he used the term “melancholy”) and should be treated more with tools analogous to modern psychiatry rather than punishment.
In 1563, Weyer published his thoughts in a work called _De praestigiis daemonum_, and stated that physicians should evaluate the women suspected of witchcraft, and not law-courts. Although this book eventually gained sympathy, initially it was unpopular, with the Catholic church putting it on the _Index_ of banned books.
Source(s): Vol 207 issue 6 2015 _The British Journal of Psychiatry_, de praestigiis daemonum: the origin of psychiatric history -taking, by George Huntington p 489. Cambridge UP.
