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To summarize:
• In ancient times abnormality was thought to be caused by evil spirits or poison in the body.
• The Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) was one of the first to reject the idea that deities and demons controlled behaviour. He believed that the brain was the main center of intellectual activity and that abnormal behaviour was due to brain pathology.
• The writings and theories of Plato and Aristotle followed those of Hippocrates. Plato (429-347 B.C.) understood that behaviours resulting from mental illness needed special consideration.
• Treatment of the mentally ill improved during the time of Alexander the Great (about 332 B.C.). High-quality sanatoriums were built with pleasant surroundings where people could walk, dance, row along the Nile, or listen to music.
• Chung Ching, a medical man very much like Hippocrates, based his views of both physical and mental disorders on clinical observations and believed that stressful psychological conditions could cause organ pathology (physical illness).
• An early Swiss critic of the witchhunts, Paracelsus (1490-1541), rejected the idea of supernatural possession and focused on psychic causes for abnormal behaviour.
• A German physician, Johann Weyer (1515-1588), also believed that supernatural forces did not play a part in abnormal behaviour. He believed that a large majority of people imprisoned, tortured, and burned for witchcraft were, in fact, sick in mind or body.
• By the time French physician Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826) was placed in charge of a hospital for the insane of Paris, treatment methods of the eighteenth century were in dire need of reform. Pinel tried an experiment with the patients of the hospital. He wanted to treat them with kindness and concern instead of disdain and viciousness.
• William Tuke believed that a caring atmosphere was superior to the then prevalent brutal and dehumanizing one.
• A pioneering American, Dorothea Dix (1802-1887), was instrumental in changing the conditions prevalent in US asylums. She spoke about the inhumane treatment that the mentally ill faced, and she lobbied the government.
• While biological causes for abnormal behaviour were being heavily researched, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) began to investigate psychological causes. He established the first experimental psychology laboratory, and his methods set the standard for future studies.
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