hernroth

Updated: June 7, 2025

At the dawn of the 19th century, the physician Hernroth still wrote that insanity was a moral sin of the insane, because "no one becomes insane, unless he forsakes the straight path of virtue and of the fear of the Lord." And on this assumption the insane were locked up in horrible dungeons, loaded down with chains, tortured and beaten, for lo! their insanity was their own fault.

Enrico Ferri - The Positive School of Criminology: Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901