Squibb Academic Lecture: Attitudes Towards Mental Illness in Antiquity

Squibb Academic Lecture: Attitudes Towards Mental Illness in Antiquity

Abstract

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (1986) 20:454-462 SQUIB6 ACADEMIC LECTURE: ATTITUDES TOWARDS MENTAL ILLNESS IN ANTIQUITY R. D. MILNS* I should like to commence this lecture by saying how I have defined two of the words in the title. By ‘antiquity’ I mean specifically the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome, and I make this limitation, not because I wish to downgrade the undoubted achievements of other ancient civilisations, such as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but because the original, primary source material is accessible to me only when written in Greek or Latin, and I believe, as a matter of principle, that understanding of the thoughts and beliefs of an alien culture comes only through a knowledge of that culture’s language. Second, I have taken the term ‘attitudes’ in a broad sense to cover such aspects as popular beliefs, professional theorising and the ways in which society viewed its own, and the individual’s, responsibilities in matters concerning mental illness. These are the three main areas into which I have subdivided this lecture. Popular Attitudes to Mental Illness By ‘popular’ I mean attitudes to mental illness as seen in writers other than the philosophers and medical