IT ALL BEGAN when she lost her head. According to legend, Dimpna, a 7th-century Christian heroine, fled her native Ireland when her father, mad with grief at the death of his wife, developed an incestuous passion for his daughter. The father came after the girl and, rebuffed once more, beheaded her in the flatlands of what is now northern Belgium. Dimpna was canonised, and in medieval Europe developed a reputation for divine intercession that could heal madness. Her cult centred on Geel, a small Belgian town that forms one point of a triangle with Brussels and Antwerp. By the 19th century Geel had developed a system of foster care for the mentally ill in which patients, or guests as they are referred to, are adopted by families. It continues to this day. When at the turn of the 20th century the Belgian government threatened its existence with a decree that the insane should live in institutions, the whole town designated itself as an asylum.
Geel’s system can make heavy demands on the host families. Not everyone is deemed suitable for a foster placement—a high suicide risk and a penchant for pyromania are two counter-indications—“but the list of...
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1KXANxV
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