THE DEBATE IN ANTIQUITY ON THE LOCATION OF THE MIND: ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION

In one of the first chapters of his systematic account of the treatment of acute and chronic diseases, the Latin medical author Caelius Aurelianus (fifth century ce) discusses phrenitis, a psychosomatic disorder with symptoms including acute fever, mental confusion, a weak and fast pulse and various forms of abnormal behaviour such as the picking of threads out of clothing. Caelius Aurelianus, himself belonging to the medical school called the Methodists, begins his argument, as usual, with a survey of the views on the nature and origin of this disease held by doctors belonging to other schools of thought, in particular their views on the question of which part of the body is affected by the disease. His main reason for doing so is to show the contrast between his own and only correct treatment of the disease and the general confusion among other doctors: