A Timeline for the Study of Mental Illness!

Bravo to the Society for Laingian Studies








3100 BCE

Menes, the founder of the 1st Dynasty writes The Secret Book of the Heart , describing 3 kinds of healers, the physician, the priest and the sorcerer.

460-379 BCE

Hippocrates believed the brain was involved in sensation and was as well the centre of intelligence, argued that psychological disorders originated from natural reasons as other diseases, rather than reflections of the displeasure of the gods or evidence of demonic possession, and defined such clinical pictures as mania and melancholia. He further pointed out the relationship between the human brain and epilepsias and mentioned dementia Greek medical writers set out treatments for mentally ill people that include quiet, occupation, and the use of drugs such as the purgative hellebore.

Earliest records of the study and practice of alchemy among the Greeks of Asia Minor. ... Go to Timeline