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==Louis Vivet: Multiple Personality==
In the mid-to-late 19th century, doctors were beginning to understand the mental processes of the human mind and began to treat mental health as an illness and not as some character flaw or punishment from god. In the 1860s and 1870s, doctors were beginning to develop modern psychiatry, especially in France. There was a great deal of public interest in this new science and it was widely reported in British newspapers. One case of mental illness that caused a sensation at the time, was that of Louis Vivet. He was the first person to be diagnosed with split or multiple personalities, known today as dissociative identity disorder. Vivet was born in 1863, to a prostitute in Paris, who neglected and abused him. He turned to crime at the age of 8 and was sent to a youth prison. When working on a farm he was bitten by a snake and became semi-paralyzed and unable to walk. At the time, those who were paralyzed were sent to a local asylum. One day, Vivet begins to walk suddenly and this astonished the doctors. A number of medics interested in psychiatry and placed him under hypnosis, to their amazement, they found that Vivet has multiple personalities. The Vivet case, with his reported dozen personality, was a topic of much debate in intellectual circles. It appears that Stevenson was aware of the story of the Frenchman. It seems that the idea for one person, to have two personalities was inspired by the story of Vivet. It was this case that persuaded him to write about the duality in human nature and human’s our inner struggle, as they are torn between good and evil.
[[File: Jekyll and Hyde 3.jpg |200px|thumb|left|A modern figure of Deacon Brodie]]
==Was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a Scottish criminal==
Edward Hyde in the work by Stevenson is not only the alter ego of Dr. Jekyll, but he was also the personification of the evil that lurks in every human. Hyde was not just a symbol he was based on a real-life figure, namely William Brodie. He was an infamous criminal and a clergyman and the young Robert Louis Stevenson was familiar with the story of his life and crimes. William Brodie, known as Deacon Brodie, was from one of the most eminent families in Edinburgh. His family was one of the wealthiest and esteemed in the Scottish capital and several Brodie’s had served in the City Council. Brodie was apprenticed to a cabinet maker and later established himself in business in the mid-eighteenth century. He made cabinets and also fitted locks for some of Edinburgh’s leading families. However, Brodie led a secret life, and he was addicted to gambling and had a secret lover<ref> Gibson, John Sibbald Deacon Brodie: Father to Jekyll and Hyde (Edinburg, Saltire Society, 1997), p. 12</ref>. In order to support his lifestyle, he used his locksmith skills to burglarize the homes of the wealthy. It is believed that Brodie robbed houses for 20 years until he was captured and publicly hanged. He successfully kept his double-life a secret for twenty years. Brodie was possibly a model for both Jekyll and Hyde. His double-life was similar to the one Jekyll led and his crimes such as burglary and theft are similar to those committed by Hyde in the novella. Stevenson was fascinated by Brodie, even though he had been hanged in the gallows many years before he was born <ref>Gibson, p. 13</ref>. Apparently, there was a cabinet made by the burglar in his family home and he wrote a play based on the criminal while a teenager. This is considered by some to be an early draft of what would become the ‘Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’.
