catboxer said:
All of this reminds of an incident that occurs early on in the Book of Mark, when Jesus is exorcising a demon. When he asks the demon its name, it replies, "My name is Legion," which I take to mean, "I am many." It seems to me that this and the medieval pictures of devils and demons, might express a pre-modern awareness of the nature of schizophrenia, and an interpretation of the disease as diabolical possession. I have never seen a pre-modern clinical description of this illness (if anyone knows of one I would love see it), but it seems reasonable that people who lived before our time must have been aware of the voices which afflict schizophrenics, and the sensation experienced by the sufferers of having been invaded and taken over by sinister outside forces. But of course, all this is merely speculation.
Catboxer, I'm not sure where you draw the boundaries of modernism but here is some history which you might find interesting.
"Clinical descriptions" of of mental illness parallel the advent of psychiatry, which arguably could be placed in the second half of the 18th century. However, there were institutions for the mentally ill going right back to mediaeval times. These were known as "fool's houses". And we all know that the "mad" were often homeless. Shakespeare described them in King Lear:
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?
In fact it is interesting to associate the idea of the homeless madman with the archetype of the
Fool in Tarot. The fool with his staff was a standard iconograohic image in the middle ages. The image of the Fool wandering aimlessly, sharing visions and wisdom (perhaps nowadays understood as hallucinations and magical language) is an interesting one to consider when thinking of the origin of the Fool in Tarot.
Back to madness, in 1758 William Battye, the founding medical officer of St. Lukes' Hospital for the Insane in London, wrote the
Treatise on Madness in which he advocated the therapeutic value of asylums. I haven't read this but you might well find some definitions here. Battye believed that madness was curable. The Florentine "psychiatrist" Vincenzo Chiarugi wrote a three volume work
On Insanity in 1794. Another important figure in the advent of psychiatry as a profession was Philippe Pinel who was appointed to manage the Bicetre Hospice shortly after Charlotte Corday murdered Marat in 1793. Pinel also wrote extensively on the mentally ill and had some quite revolutionary (for the time) ideas on their treatment.
You may find some clinical descriptions of "schizophrenia" (which wasn't named then, by the way) or madness in these texts. It was not until 1897 that the German psychiatrist, Kraepelin, formulated the concept of schizophrenia, I think.
Someone earlier commented that people with epilepsy were also regarded as possessed by the Devil and often incarcerated with the mentally ill. This all reminds me of a point made by Diana somewhere else on Aeclectic that the Devil has been blamed for many things, probably unjustly.
I am just new to this discussion but it is very interesting to think about how the Devil has carried Western society's worst projections of it's own ignorance, fear and corruption and how this is represented in the Devil images.
Moongold
Thanks for the link Baba-Prague - indeed quite remarkable! I'm sure I would find your statues fascinating. I certainly love all things ancient and sometimes (slightly) bizarre. Oops perhaps I should rephrase that last bit to avoid volunteers? LOL. Ah, the tag line was not quite original, since I played about with it slightly. But what a great concept though... Heheh 
but as the histories of mental illness I have available to be right now have a fairly limited view I had a quick look around the net for some more information. 
. This information is probably not all that new to you but may be to others. It also shows the profound influence the Devil has had on our social and scientific (medical) history.