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First Mental Illness Treatment: Trepanation 

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First Mental Illness Treatment: Trepanation 

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Trepanation was the act of drilling or digging holes out of the skull to relieve hemorrhaging, head trauma, for evil spirits. The skin was cut, and then the skull was shaved back or drilled into creating a permanent hole in the skull. The image above shows some of the tools used in the 17th century by a naval surgeon.

Trepanation was discovered to first happen around A.D. 200-600, but primarily used during the 16th and 17th centuries. Trepanation was used to treat mental illnesses by creating a way for the 'bad spirits' to leave the body.

This was the first step in different treatments methods for mental illness, although this did not typically cure a mental illness, but created the start of understanding mental illnesses in general.

Sources(2)
https://www.livescience.com/62591-trepanation-explained.html
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/hole-in-the-head-trepanation/

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Bloodletting treatment for Mental Illnesses

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Bloodletting treatment for Mental Illnesses

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Bloodletting was the act of nicking veins in their forearm or neck and allowing it to drain up to 20-40 ounces. This corrected the balance of the four humors; blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. By correcting this balance, it cured many conditions including mental illnesses.

The photo above shows the act of bloodletting which began in the 1600s. This was often done by surgeons, and even barbers. This form of treatment was primarily used in midivil Europe, further becoming a practice in America later on.

This eventually was discredited by many surgeons in the 1800s  and is only used for a very small number of conditions.

Sources(3)
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/fun-fact-what-was-a-common-treatment-for-mental-illness-in-the-17th-and-18th-centuries
https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bloodletting

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Mental Illnesses in Women and Witchcraft

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Mental Illnesses in Women and Witchcraft

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Witchcraft was typically performed by women who were considered to be working with the devil and given magical powers. With an overall goal of pushing the devil onto Christians by performing evil deeds called malefici.

This photo above shows the first book written that talks about witchcraft. In Northern Europe in the 1600s, the first witchcraft trials; known as the Salem Witch Trials; started where witches were burned at the stake for common mental illnesses, such as epilepsy and hysteria, that were mistaken for witchcraft activities.

The witchcraft trials ended in the 18th century, which created the question of mental illness in women instead of the power of the devil.

Sources (3)
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/medicine-melancholy-and-mystical/
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/witchcraft-or-mental-illness
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591576605900947

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in 1676 London's Bedlam hospital was rebuilt to become the very first institute for mental illnesses. It specialized in the treatment of the 'mad' or 'lunatic'. Upon being rebuilt, it was designed to look like a palace, which as poorly built and was soon found to be falling apart.

The photo above is what the new hospital looked like before it started to crumble. Instead of removing patents, they were just moved into different quarters in closer, over populated areas of the hospital. Many treatments were used in this hospital, such as rational therapy, cold water therapy, and bleeding and purging.

Although this asylum was considered insane chaos. This led to other mental institutes starting in other places around the world. Thus creating the start of the mental asylum institutes.

Sources (2)
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161213-how-bedlam-became-a-palace-for-lunatics
https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/bethlem-royal-hospital-history-why-called-bedlam-lunatic-asylum/

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The use of restraints in mental asylums was used to control patents who were showing psychosocial actions such as aggression, self harm, and anti-social behavior. This created such violence that not only affected the patents but also the attendants putting them in restraints.

Many of these patients were beaten, chained to walls and beds, completely isolated from the human population. This resulted in a increase in mental illnesses and even death.

It wasn't until the late 1700s in Paris that it was considered an inhumane act, and these patients should be unchained and simply talked to. This created the vast increase of more humane treatments of mental institutes in later time periods.

Sources (2)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-psychology/chapter/mental-health-treatment-past-and-present/
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum

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Medication and Therapy Used to Treat Mental Illnesses

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Medication and Therapy Used to Treat Mental Illnesses

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The modern day treatment for mental illnesses is a combination of psychotherapy and medications. Psychotherapy was the use of talk therapy. It involved talking about how you are feelings and problems you are facing. In addition to medication to help improve symptoms, the effects of both of these are increasingly effective in treating mental illnesses. The photo above shows the different forms of therapy that can be used to help alleviate the symptoms of mental illnesses.

Without the history of mental illness treatments, the use of more humane treatments may not have been discovered and thus torture being the main treatment. By the use of medications and therapy, patients are spending less time in mental institutes when it is not needed.

Sources (2)
https://familydoctor.org/different-types-mental-health-treatment/
https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/the-history-of-mental-illness

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Phillipe Pinel will be the best to guide your through this exhibit. He was a French Physician in the 1700s. He distinguished 4 groups of mental illness; melancholy, mania, dementia, and mental retardation. He had a great method for treating patients with compassion and the including mental illnesses in use of medication.

He believed that instead of inhuman treatments patients should be humanely sat with and talk about what is going on in their head. He looked at how patients were being treated in the past for mental illnesses and realized it was doing no good and that there had to be a better way of treating these illnesses.

His changes of treatments help lay out the path of treatment for mental illness we currently see today.

Sources (1)
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/207489