A progressive Arabian doctor is punished, flagellate whip themselves, and suicides are disgraced in the annals of psychiatric absurdity.
FROM THE ANNALS OF PSYCHIATRIC ABSURDITY
Rhazes the Arabian Doctor
From A.D. 865 to 925, Rhazes was an Arabian doctor who was considered to be and outstanding scholar of the times. He wrote over 200 different volumes on medicine, religion, philosophy, and astronomy. As he rose to prominence, he became physician-in-chief to the Baghdad Hospital, which was a remarkble institution of its time, because it had a ward exclusively for the mentally ill. Rhazes saw the body/mind connection with mental illness and even used a primitive form of psychotherapy. However, the Arabian doctor ran afoul of the other influential doctors who believed that all illness was the result of demon activity. Since Rhazes disagreed with the medical establishment he was sentenced “to be hit over the head with his own book, until the book or the head broke.” This early psychiatrist was rendered blind after this punishment. ( Taken from The History of Psychiatry by Franz. G. Alexander and Sheldon T. Sel;esnick) Read the entire post…