Saturday, May 5, 2012

History of schizophrenia

Written description of schizophrenia have been traced back to Egypt during the year 200 BC.

Ancient Greek and Roman literature indicated that the general population had an awareness of schizophrenia.

Hippocrates differentiated schizophrenia from physically caused disorders such as alcoholism, epilepsy and acute febrile reactions.

Early Egyptians theorized that the illness was caused by the gas in the ventricles of the brain. In medieval times, schizophrenia was believed to be caused by demonic possession.

The first comprehensive description of schizophrenia dates to the beginning of the 18th century.

Schizophrenia was defined as an early dementia in the 19th century. A french psychiatrist Benedict Augustine Morel, observed the ‘early deterioration of the mind’ in a patient and used the phrase demence precoce to describe what he observed.

The modern concept of schizophrenia was first formalized by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in 1896. He proposed that paranoid psychosis, hebephrenia and catatonia were forms of the same disease.
History of schizophrenia

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