By: Ted,
on 10/9/2015
The practice of medicine affects all of us. Understanding how doctors think about treating illness, even more so. With precision and passion, Muhkerjee clearly and concisely sheds light on the three principles that he sees as the laws that govern medicine. As illuminating as his Pulitzer Prize–winning book on cancer, Emperor of all Maladies, this [...]
By: Ted,
on 6/17/2015
Kean's latest achievement, lauded as his best yet, is a book about neuroscience, but don't let that intimidate you. Anyone who enjoys reading popular science books will appreciate the easy-to-understand explanations and wonderfully engaging stories that highlight the history of this field. Books mentioned in this post The Tale of the Dueling... Sam Kean Sale [...]
By: Mark Bittman,
on 5/12/2015
People ask me all the time what they can do to help improve the food system. Given that some of the problems that need fixing (like unsustainable agriculture, mistreatment of workers and animals, hunger, and diet-related disease, to name just a few) are so complex, widespread, and downright daunting, it's easy to overlook the things [...]
By: Rhianna Walton,
on 3/13/2015
Steven Brill's exposé of our staggeringly complex healthcare system should be required reading for all Americans. America's Bitter Pill clearly delineates the labyrinthine economic and political policies supporting the American healthcare industry, and provides a play-by-play account of the birth, construction, and consequences of the Affordable Care Act. The result is a nonpartisan rallying call [...]
By: Rhianna Walton,
on 2/12/2015
This slim foray into the contentious world of vaccination is courageous and stunning. In the book's introduction, Biss explains that her project began as an anxious new mother's research into the pros and cons of childhood inoculation, and ballooned into an exploration of the historical stigma and ongoing social significance of immunization. While Biss does [...]
By: Abby,
on 1/13/2015
Should you take vitamins? Is caffeine good or bad for you? How often should you exercise? If you're tired of trying to make sense of contradictory studies and new health fads, this quick, refreshingly direct read will give you sound guidance for a longer, healthier life. Books mentioned in this post A Short Guide to [...]
By: Frances E. Jensen,
on 1/5/2015
Things were changing in our household: the teen years had intruded into our otherwise harmonious, do-as-mom-tells-you relatively orderly world. As my two sons, who are two years apart, gradually began the "morphing" process from childhood into adolescence, I felt many things shift, most obviously our parent-child relationship. We were not unusual: this was happening in [...]
By: Rhianna Walton,
on 12/11/2014
A lot is made of the romance of bookstores. The smell of paper! The joy of discovery! The ancient, cracking leather bindings of books with dated inscriptions! And it's true that bookstores are magical places to browse and linger — just maybe not in the two days before Christmas. Because in the swirling mad hum [...]
By: DanP,
on 10/20/2014
How rapidly does medical knowledge advance? Very quickly if you read modern newspapers, but rather slowly if you study history. Nowhere is this more true than in the fields of neurology and psychiatry.
It was believed that studies of common disorders of the nervous system began with Greco-Roman Medicine, for example, epilepsy, “The sacred disease” (Hippocrates) or “melancholia”, now called depression. Our studies have now revealed remarkable Babylonian descriptions of common neuropsychiatric disorders a millennium earlier.
There were several Babylonian Dynasties with their capital at Babylon on the River Euphrates. Best known is the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty (626-539 BC) associated with King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) and the capture of Jerusalem (586 BC). But the neuropsychiatric sources we have studied nearly all derive from the Old Babylonian Dynasty of the first half of the second millennium BC, united under King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC).
The Babylonians made important contributions to mathematics, astronomy, law and medicine conveyed in the cuneiform script, impressed into clay tablets with reeds, the earliest form of writing which began in Mesopotamia in the late 4th millennium BC. When Babylon was absorbed into the Persian Empire cuneiform writing was replaced by Aramaic and simpler alphabetic scripts and was only revived (translated) by European scholars in the 19th century AD.
The Babylonians were remarkably acute and objective observers of medical disorders and human behaviour. In texts located in museums in London, Paris, Berlin and Istanbul we have studied surprisingly detailed accounts of what we recognise today as epilepsy, stroke, psychoses, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), psychopathic behaviour, depression and anxiety. For example they described most of the common seizure types we know today e.g. tonic clonic, absence, focal motor, etc, as well as auras, post-ictal phenomena, provocative factors (such as sleep or emotion) and even a comprehensive account of schizophrenia-like psychoses of epilepsy.
Early attempts at prognosis included a recognition that numerous seizures in one day (i.e. status epilepticus) could lead to death. They recognised the unilateral nature of stroke involving limbs, face, speech and consciousness, and distinguished the facial weakness of stroke from the isolated facial paralysis we call Bell’s palsy. The modern psychiatrist will recognise an accurate description of an agitated depression, with biological features including insomnia, anorexia, weakness, impaired concentration and memory. The obsessive behaviour described by the Babylonians included such modern categories as contamination, orderliness of objects, aggression, sex, and religion. Accounts of psychopathic behaviour include the liar, the thief, the troublemaker, the sexual offender, the immature delinquent and social misfit, the violent, and the murderer.
The Babylonians had only a superficial knowledge of anatomy and no knowledge of brain, spinal cord or psychological function. They had no systematic classifications of their own and would not have understood our modern diagnostic categories. Some neuropsychiatric disorders e.g. stroke or facial palsy had a physical basis requiring the attention of the physician or asû, using a plant and mineral based pharmacology. Most disorders, such as epilepsy, psychoses and depression were regarded as supernatural due to evil demons and spirits, or the anger of personal gods, and thus required the intervention of the priest or ašipu. Other disorders, such as OCD, phobias and psychopathic behaviour were viewed as a mystery, yet to be resolved, revealing a surprisingly open-minded approach.
From the perspective of a modern neurologist or psychiatrist these ancient descriptions of neuropsychiatric phenomenology suggest that the Babylonians were observing many of the common neurological and psychiatric disorders that we recognise today. There is nothing comparable in the ancient Egyptian medical writings and the Babylonians therefore were the first to describe the clinical foundations of modern neurology and psychiatry.
A major and intriguing omission from these entirely objective Babylonian descriptions of neuropsychiatric disorders is the absence of any account of subjective thoughts or feelings, such as obsessional thoughts or ruminations in OCD, or suicidal thoughts or sadness in depression. The latter subjective phenomena only became a relatively modern field of description and enquiry in the 17th and 18th centuries AD. This raises interesting questions about the possibly slow evolution of human self awareness, which is central to the concept of “mental illness”, which only became the province of a professional medical discipline, i.e. psychiatry, in the last 200 years.
The post Neurology and psychiatry in Babylon appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Mary Jo,
on 10/10/2014
A compassionate look at how the medical industry currently handles aging, terminal illness, and end-of-life issues. Often medical professionals ignore quality of life, or a person's overall well-being, in favor of more treatments. There are no easy answers, but our reluctance to address these issues has not helped us to make more informed choices. Books [...]
By: Keith M.,
on 7/9/2014
Far from the Tree is a document of such profound empathy that most readers will be stunned. Solomon navigates the barriers between parents and children with amazing emotional dexterity and an unmatched skill with words. There is not one person in this world who should not read this book. Books mentioned in this post Far [...]
By: Morgan R.,
on 9/9/2013
I read this during a formative period when I was not a teenager anymore but not quite an adult. It was perfect timing. All of my foibles and insecurities were obliterated with this poignant memoir of a girl who has a rare type of bone cancer in her jaw and undergoes surgery and later reconstructive [...]
By: Michelle M,
on 1/16/2013
Next time someone makes you mad, just pull out this book and start reading it. Then carefully arch your eyebrows over the cover and whisper "revenge is a dish best served cold." Or you could, you know, read it for the educational value. It's your call. Books mentioned in this post $6.98 Sale Trade Paper add to [...]
By: Lauren Slater,
on 11/6/2012
Describe your latest book. Right now I have my hands in several pots, so to speak. I have just finished a nonfictional autobiographical work called The $60,000 Dog, a book about the critical role animals play in my life, in all our lives, even though we give it scant thought. The book traces my trajectory [...]
