ASYLUM, a place where persons flee for protection. Under the Mosaic dispensation cities of refuge were set apart to which the slayer might flee so that innocent blood should not be shed, in case the person was not worthy of death — that is, in case the act was acciden tal and not malicious. But among the ancients, outside of the Jews, it seems that temples, statues to the gods, and altars particularly con secrated for such purposes, constituted places of refuge for persons generally, and it was deemed an act of impiety to remove, forcibly, one who had fled to such an asylum for protec tion. However, Tiberius abolished all asylums except the temples of Juno and /Esculapius. These asylums finally passed over to the Chris tian world, and under Constantine the Great all Christian churches were made asylums for all those who were pursued by officers of jus tice or the violence of their enemies, and the younger Theodosius, in the year 431, extended these privileges to all courts, gardens, walks and houses belonging to the Church. In the
year 631 the Synod of Toledo extended the limits of asylums 30 paces from every church, and this privilege afterward prevailed in Catholic countries, and it is said to have been a strong armor of defense against the wild spirit of the Middle Ages, and not without good consequences at the time when force often prevailed against justice. But in later times as other and better systems of procedure in the administration of justice became adopted, asy lums were abolished in most countries. This seems to have been the origin, nature and ob ject of asylums, and such the common accepta tion of the term, but more recently in some countries, the name has been given to institu tions for the protection and care of the poor, blind, deaf and dumb and lunatics who are incapable of taking care of themselves.