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Abstract: The concepts and management of mental health in Egypt are presented from the Pharaonic era through the Islamic Renaissance until today. Papyri from the Pharaonic period show that Soma and Psyche were not differentiated and mental disorders were described as symptoms of the heart and uterus. Although theories of causation were of a mystical nature, mental disorders were treated on a somatic basis. In the Islamic era, mental patients were neither maltreated nor tortured as a consequence of the belief that they may be possessed by a good Moslem genie. In the 14th century mental disorders was one of the four departments in Cairo's Kalawoon Hospital, a precursor of the place of psychiatry in general hospitals that was accepted in Europe six centuries later. The mental health services in Egypt today are described, and transcultural studies carried out in Egypt of the prevalence and phenomenology of anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, suicide, conversion and obsessive compulsive disorders are reviewed. The psychiatric services for children are in their infancy. Since 1983 the common and semi-accepted use of hashish has been joined by abuse by heroin and other substances.
Pharaonic Times and Mental Health
The concept of mental illness in Pharaonic Egypt was monistic and, in a mystical culture, it was attributed to bodily etiology and treated physically and psychotherapeutically (magicoreligious). The medical papyri from which our knowledge of ancient Egyptian medicine is drawn are the Kahun Papyrus (1825 BCE, rather incomplete and fragmentary, dealing with the morbid states attributed to the displacement of the uterus, discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1889), Ebers' Papyrus (1552 BCE, the world's oldest preserved medical document, published by Georg Ebers in 1875 and translated by Ebbell in 1937), Edwin Smith Papyrus (written about 1700 BCE, although based on texts written about 2640 BC, dealing mainly with surgery), Hearst Papyrus (similar to that of Ebers), Berlin Medical Papyrus (1350 BCE, dealing with prescriptions in an unsystematic arrangement) and the London Medical Papyrus (1350 BCE, containing mainly incantations against a variety of diseases and few prescriptions).
The role of the physician, magician and priest were not separated in Pharaonic times, suggesting there was no specialization in mental disorders, although psychotic and mental symptoms are mentioned in many clinical observations, mainly in the...