From: drarwingnuttephd@gmail.com   
      
   Professor probes mental disorders in the ancient world   
   Dec 18, 2013 by Gary Shapiro   
      
      
      
      
   The examination of mental disorders would seem to be the almost exclusive   
   domain of psychiatrists and psychologists, not humanities scholars. Yet   
   William V. Harris, the William R. Shepherd Professor of History, has spent his   
   time in recent years studying    
   his chosen field--the history of ancient Greece and Rome--through the lens of   
   mental illness.   
      
   Harris, director of the Columbia Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, has   
   explored subjects in ancient times ranging from war and imperialism to   
   literacy and economic history. More recently, he began to focus on emotional   
   states, in books such as    
   Restraining Rage: the Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity in   
   2002, and Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity in 2009. "I've always   
   been interested in psychiatry and psychology, which I see as a quite natural   
   interest for historian,"    
   he said.   
      
   The examination of mental disorders would seem to be the almost exclusive   
   domain of psychiatrists and psychologists, not humanities scholars. Yet   
   William V. Harris, the William R. Shepherd Professor of History, has spent his   
   time in recent years studying    
   his chosen field--the history of ancient Greece and Rome--through the lens of   
   mental illness.   
      
   Harris, director of the Columbia Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, has   
   explored subjects in ancient times ranging from war and imperialism to   
   literacy and economic history. More recently, he began to focus on emotional   
   states, in books such as    
   Restraining Rage: the Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity in   
   2002, and Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity in 2009. "I've always   
   been interested in psychiatry and psychology, which I see as a quite natural   
   interest for historian,"    
   he said.   
      
   Chapter titles contributed by many of the conference participants include,   
   "The Early Greek Medical Vocabulary of Insanity" and "Plato on Madness and the   
   Good Life." Harris' own essay focuses on hallucinations, which he chose in   
   part because "describing    
   a hallucination is not an impossible task, it tends to be relatively brief,"   
   he said. "Try describing 20 years of depression. That is a very challenging   
   task."   
      
   He offers examples of ancient hallucinators, such as Pheidippides, the   
   Athenian courier who saw the god Pan on his famous run to Sparta, which is the   
   inspiration for today's long-distance running event.   
      
   Another outcome of his conferences was sorting out ancient terminology and   
   classifications, as he and his collaborators created a sort of Diagnostic and   
   Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of ancient times. "The names of mental   
   disorders that the very    
   best ancient thinkers have used don't often correspond to anything that exists   
   in the modern world in a neat and tidy way," Harris said. For example, the   
   word "phrenitis" appears in ancient texts to describe illness characterized by   
   delirium, fever and    
   death. Today, some scholars think it refers to encephalitis.   
      
   But using modern-day medicine to understand ancient illnesses doesn't always   
   work, Harris said. "There's always a temptation among historians of ancient   
   medicine to do retrospective diagnoses and to say, for example, that so-and-so   
   was a paranoid    
   schizophrenic," he said. "People have found this almost irresistible." But   
   ancient descriptions of cases are seldom complete enough to allow for a   
   retroactive diagnosis, he added.   
      
   Nor did the ancients have anything approaching a scientific community of   
   peers. The 2nd century Roman physician and philosopher Galen had colleagues   
   and friends, Harris explained, but nothing comparable to the peer review or   
   statistical support that    
   present-day doctors get.   
      
   Despite the addition of the new volume on ancient mental maladies, there are   
   many topics still to be plumbed, such as senility, demonic possession in   
   Christianity and Judaism, and the ancient custom of seeking cures for mental   
   (and other) illnesses by    
   invoking the help of the gods. "I regard this book as a useful publication,   
   but it's a very long way from being the last word on the subject," he said,   
   perusing its cover, which depicts a 16th century woodcut of Galen. "We are   
   left more with an agenda    
   than a whole set of answers."   
      
       
   Explore further: Ancient, modern DNA tell story of first humans in the Americas   
   Provided by Columbia University    
      
      
      
   http://phys.org/news/2013-12-professor-probes-mental-disorders-ancient.html   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)