Category: Historical
Titanic
Insane Asylums
History
The very first known insane asylums, or psychiatric hospitals, was established in the Arab world, specifically in Baghdad (918 CE) and Cairo. Before these institutions, individuals with mental illness were often cared for by their families.
Treatments
Bleeding and Purging #1
Mental illness was viewed as a disease of the body rather than the brain, and patients were often prescribed weeks of forced bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea in order to purge the body of its ‘melancholic humours’.
