Editing Insanity (section)

===From the Middle Ages onward===
The [[Middle Ages]] typically continued a number of ideas of the Greeks and Romans, such as humoral theory, building on [[Galenic medicine|Galenic]] medicine, which remained foundational into the Modern Era. The [[Late Middle Ages|Late Medieval]] and [[Early modern period|Early Modern period]] saw the rise of mentally impaired people employed as [[Jester|court jesters]], which provided them a certain legal privilege. As in the classical world, certain bouts of madness could be associated with spiritual possession, and people who displayed psychoses could be seen in several ways depending on context, evoking anything from pity to revulsion, such as in the complex case of [[Charles VI of France]], who variously suffered from memory loss, confusion, and [[glass delusion]].{{clarify|date=April 2011}}

During the 18th century, the French and the British emphasised a need for humane treatment of the clinically insane,<ref>{{cite book|last=Scull|first=Andrew|title=Madhouses, Mad-doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era|year=1981|publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]]|location=Philadelphia|isbn=0-8122-7801-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/madhousesmaddoct0000unse/page/105 105]–116|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/madhousesmaddoct0000unse}}</ref> though the criteria for diagnosis and placement in an asylum were considerably looser than today, often including such conditions as [[speech disorder]], speech impediments, [[epilepsy]], and [[Major depressive disorder|depression]] or being pregnant out of wedlock.

Europe's oldest [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]] was the precursor of today's [[Bethlem Royal Hospital]] in [[London]], known then as ''Bedlam'', which began admitting the mentally ill in 1403 and is mentioned in [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]'s ''[[Canterbury Tales]]''. The first [[United States|American]] asylum was built in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]], circa 1773. Before advancements in therapeutic treatment during the 19th and 20th century, these hospitals were moreso used to isolate the ostracised mentally ill from society rather than cure them or maintain their health. Pictures from this era frequently portray patients bound with rope or chains, often to beds or walls, or restrained in [[straitjacket]]s.