26
and had proved their advantages. In urging their adoption he certainly anticipated Pinel, and merited an equal fame.
Pinel, it is said (w), was first drawn to the study of Insanity, in 1785, by the shocking fate of a young friend of his, who became maniacal through excessive study, and in that state escaped from his father's house into the neighbouring woods, and was there devoured by wolves. About this time an asylum was established for the treatment of the insane. The first patient was sent to it by Pinel, and it was there apparently he made his first trial of humane and rational treatment. In 1791 the Société Royale de Médecine offered a prize for an essay on the most efficacious means of treating mental derangement. Pinel was one of the competitors. Whether he was successful, or not, is unknown. The political convulsions of that time have left a gap in the records of the Society.
In 1792, amidst the tempest of the French Revolution, Pinel was appointed physician to Bicêtre, and there found work to do, the doing of which has for ever placed his name high among the great and the good.
