History of Psychiatry: Madness,Science,Culture

Alcohol and its effects are well described in ancient Ayurvedic medical texts- Caraka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita. As well as describing various types of wine, they describe clear stages of intoxication. The descriptions match the modern symptoms of alcohol intoxication. The emphasis in management was on controlled drinking. The advised approach to drinking and the implications for modern clinical management are discussed further.

The treatise Diseases of Girls belongs to the Hippocratic collection. It probably dates from the end of the fourth century BC. A careful semiological survey suggests a diagnosis of hysterical insanity, a syndrome favoured by late nineteenth-century clinicians. Hippocrates' treatise seems to be the very first description of it in the history of Western rational medicine. This assertion is supported in two ways: by an elaboration of the modern diagnosis of hysterical insanity based on the work of Janet and Freud and by exclusion of the possibility of a religious origin, in the cult of Artemis, for the ancient syndrome. As a conclusion to this dual examination, we explore the relationship with the concepts of contemporary, mostly Anglo-Saxon, authors and international classifications (DSM III-R and I.C.D.-10).