Limited notes in an ancient Egyptian document known as the Ebers papyrus appear to describe disordered states of concentration and attention, and emotional distress in the heart or mind. Some of these have been interpreted as indicating what would later be termed hysteria and melancholy. Somatic treatments typically included applying bodily fluids while reciting magical spells. Hallucinogens may have been used as part of healing rituals. Religious temples may have been used as therapeutic retreats, possibly for the induction of receptive states to facilitate sleep and the interpreting of dreams.
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, mental and/or disorders:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)