PSYCHIATRY IN

ANCIENT TIMES
THE OLDEST PSYCHIATRIC STATUS
EBERSS PAPYRUS

1900 B.C., CLINICAL PICTURE OF DEPRESSION

BIBLE, OLD TESTAMENT: MADNESS OF THE KING SAUL,
MELANCHOLY
MAGICAL CAUSES OF MENTAL DISORDERS ASSYRIANS,
BABYLONIANS, MENTAL DISORDERS MARK OF MORAL
INSANITY, SIN, PUNISHMENT
ANCIENT GREECE HEALERS, TEMPLE MEDICINE

HIPPOCRATES
460 370 B.C.

MENTAL DISORDER
Had natural causes and needs treatment
FIRST CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL
DISORDERS
MELANCHOLIA
MANIA
PHRENITIS
Brain fever

WRONG BELIEFS (due to little knowledge in

physiology
HYSTERIA- only women are affected/
Wandering Uterus- longing for children

4 Body Fluids or Humors

Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm mixture of fluids

cause mental illnes

 Plato mentally disturbed individuals who committed

crimes should only pay for the damages and not be
punished like normal people
Humane treatment
Insanity- legal term for mental disorder that implies
lack of understanding as required by the law
therefore having lack of responsibility for ones acts
Aristotle- gave descriptions of consciousness\
thinking is striving toward elimination of pain
Believed the Hippocratic theory of disturbances of
the bile

ROME, A.D.
GALEN - scientific approach
Contributed to the anatomy of the nervous
system
MENTAL DISORDERS causesd by physical
or mental categories (injuries, alcohol excess,
fears, frustrations)
FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE Fall of the
humanistic and scientific education and attitudes
Superstitious beliefs, Demonology

Middle Ages
Greek medicine survived in Islamic Countries
Baghdad- 1st mental hospital was established,
followed by other such as Damascus
Humane treatment

Avicenna- prince of physicians, Canon of

Medicine
Different approach in dealing with patient

Europe: back to supernatural explanations

Demonology
Theology

In Europe: peculiar trend in abnormal behavior

Mass Madness- group behavior disorders: hysteria
---dancing, jumping, convulsions
Tarantism dancing mania in Italy
St. Vitus Dance- other European countries
Acts similar to worshipping the Greek god
Dionysus
Banned by the church
Possible cause: guilt and conflict
When old rites reappeared, it was attributed to a spiders
bite

In Europe: peculiar trend in abnormal behavior

Lycanthropy act like wolves/ possessed by wolves
Madness in Europe peaked during the time of
oppression, famine and pestilence (Black plague)
They didnt believe in natural causes

Middle Ages
SPECIAL MONASTERIES HOSPITALS, humane treatment
SATANIC POSSESSIONS
TORTURE EXORCISM, Flogging, starving, insulting
WITCH TRIALS witches made a pact with the devil so they can
cause anything

Interpretation of witchs behavior: impoverished

John Wesley: giving up on witches is giving up on the bible
1487 MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
(JAKOB SPRENGER/ HEINRICH KRAEMER)

Torture to gain confessions

Resurgence of Scientific Questioning in

Europe
Paracelsus: physician who believes that mania
is a form of disease
Advocated bodily magnetism or hypnosis
Beliefs are affected by his astral beliefs
lunatic (luna or moon) moon causes abnormal
behavior

Teresa of Avila: canonized nun who influenced

thinking of the present day
As if sick : illness of the mind

Resurgence of Scientific Questioning in

Europe
Johann Weyer or Joannus Weirus: The Deception of
Demons)
Witches were really in the mind and that great wrongs
were done to them
Some accepted his work, founder of modern
psychopathology
Weirus Hereticus Weirus Insanus

Reginald Scot:devoted life to exposing fallacies of

withcraft
King James I of England: gave orders to burn Scots
book
St. Vincent de Paul: mental disease is no different
from bodily disease

Early Asylums
Bedlam: St. Mary of Bethlehem Monastary
in London
Deplorable
The violent patients were exhibited, less harmful
were made to beg in the streets

San Hipolito, Mexico

Lunatics Tower in Vienna
Patients live between walls
Exhibited for a fee

Early Asylums
Pennsylvania Hospital
provided cells for mental patients

The Public Hospital in Virginia

1st hospital in US devoted to mental patients
Electric shocks, bleeding, blistering, water treatments,
drugs, starvation, solitary confinement, straightjackets,
diet.

Geel Shrine- humane. Christian treatment

Princess reincarnated as St. Dymphna

Humanitarian Reform
Phillippe Pinel
treat with kindness and consideration
removed chains from patients, provide sunny
rooms, allowed to exercise

Jean-Baptiste Pussin
First ordered the removal of chains in La Bicetre

Jean Esquirol
Succeeded Pinel and helped established modern
hospitals

Humanitarian Reform
William Tuke
Established the York Retreat, a pleasant country
house

Samuel Hitch
Introduced trained nurses to Gloucester Asylum
and supervisors
Changed public opinion

Benjamin Rush and the Moral Management

in America
Founder of American Psychiatry
Engage in more humane treatment in
Pennsylvania Hospital
Wrote Medical Inquiries and Observations upon
the Diseases of the Mind- 1st systematic treatise
Views are tainted with astrology
Invented a device the tranquilizer- more
torturous

Moral Management
A wide-ranging method of treatment that focused
On a patients social, individual and occupational needs

More public acceptance

Dorothea Dix ang Moral Hygiene Movement

Moral Hygiene Movement
Advocated the method of treatment that focused
almost exclusively on the physical well-being of
hospitalized mental patients

Dorothea Dix
Carried a zealous campaign that aroused people
and legislatures to do something about the
inhuman treatment accorded the mentally ill
Credited for opening institutions and asylums in
different countries
Made efforts to change public attitudes on the
Mentally ill.

Emil Kraepelin
Grouped most of the insanities into two large
categories: dementia praecox and manicdepressive illness
Integrated clinical data. Worked out one of
the first systematic classification systems, a
forerunner of the modern DSM