ABSTRACT
Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) superintended Parisian mental hospitals at the time of the French Revolution and wrote a book that proved to be a milestone in the history of psychiatry and psychology: A Treatise on Insanity (originally 1801; revised second edition, 1806). The French Revolution initiated not only a new political order, but also a revolution in attitudes toward mental derangement, which previously had been seen as a sign of demonic possession. Pinel and others reinterpreted mental derangement as a form of illness, a disease of the mind. He insisted on humane treatment of the mentally ill (a famous painting shows Pinel unlocking their chains), and he classified mental diseases, distinguishing among their major types. In some ways he was the French counterpart to the American Benjamin Rush; but while both men were among the founders of the field of psychiatry, Pinel approached the study of mental diseases more scientifically, relying more on direct observation and less on biblical and literary examples.
