The victory of psychiatry over demonology: the origin of the nineteenth-century myth

In the presentation of the history of psychiatry, most textbooks devote a section to ‘demonology’. They usually propound the theory that belief in witchcraft invaded Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and that, thanks to the courageous activities of enlightened physicians, this mania was soon overcome. Nearly all textbooks conclude that this episode marked the ‘first psychiatric revolution’ and perhaps the true birth of psychiatry.