You can often judge a society by the way it treats its least fortunate members.

In particular, the disabled and the mentally ill.

Historical records dating back centuries paint a rather bleak picture of how various cultures dealt with mentally ill.

Evidence of attempts to treat mental illness can be found dating back as early as 5,000 bc.

As is seen in the number of human skulls that have been discovered containing signs of a

disturbing medical procedure known as trephination.

You see, early man believed that mental illness was the result of evil spirits and demons

inhabiting the body, and the best way to get rid of those evil entities was by giving them

an escape hatch, namely chiseling a large hole in the skull.

The belief that mental illness was caused by supernatural forces can be seen elsewhere

throughout many different cultures.

Ancient Hebrews thought that mental illness was inflicted upon people as a punishment from God.

The ancient Greeks held a similar belief, except such a punishment was thought to come from any of their pantheon of gods, who were believed

to be a particularly touchy lot who took offense at a lot of different things.

But as early as the 5th century, there were a few rogue physicians who began to reject this idea,

suggesting instead that the causes of mental illness might be a physiological condition

rather than a supernatural curse. It was the ancient Egyptians who seemed to be the most

forward-thinking in terms of treating their mentally ill. They would often

engage their patients in recreational activities such as dancing and painting as a way of taking

their minds off their troubles and soothing their battered psyches.

Even still throughout ancient Greece, Rome, and other cultures, treatment of Malta illness was often

left up to the local spiritual healer, instead of providing any sort of more earthly treatment.

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