Les maladies épidémiques de l'esprit; sorcellerie, magnétisme, morphinisme, délire des grandeurs
Paul Regnard's 1887 Paris study for E. Plon, Nourrit et cie treats witchcraft, animal magnetism, morphine addiction and delusions of grandeur as epidemic mental illness, written for physicians and lay readers in the circle of Charcot's Salpêtrière. The plates reproduce seventeenth-century line engravings of possession and exorcism: small crosshatched interiors packed with broad-hatted men, coifed women, raised arms and bodies collapsing on tiled floors, useful for crowd gesture, period costume silhouettes and dense hatched shadow.
