Shakespeare's psychiatry, and after.

E live in an age of psychology.* Daily we read of mental mechanisms, of complexes, of the unconscious, of feelings of inferiority, of Freud and Jung, of psychosomatic medicine and of "tranquilizers". There is a growing public appreciation of the facts relating to mental disorder and to normal mental functioning, while the care of the mentally ill in hospitals and clinics receives much attention from legislative bodies and the general public. Today the mentally ill are looked upon as treatable, as sick, not of their own fault, and they are viewed with vastly greater compassion than was the case even seventy-five years ago. In all ages men have been interested in human behavior and motivations, and have attempted in one way or another to explain mental peculiarities. We flatter ourselves that we understand much more about the vagaries of human behavior than we did even a quarter of a century ago, but there certainly are still many gaps in our knowledge. If with all our present understanding of psychology, of physiology and anatomy, of the effects of environment, early nurture and heredity, we still have much to learn, what should we expect of the attitudes and knowledge in the time of Shakespeare, now nearly 400 years ago? Just as today, there were then generally held beliefs on the nature, the causation and the treatment of mental disorder. It seems appropriate on the occasion of this, the anniversary of the birth of the great dramatist, to review some of the notions that were prevalent in his day and that, like everything else which was of common knowledge then, were familiar to him. In Elizabethan times there was, of course, no such word as "psychiatry", and the related word "psychology" was invented by a German only in the latter part of Shakespeare's life (i59o). The word "psychiatry" so far has been traced back to i8i7, but it did not gain common currency until the close of World War I. There is no question that in Shakespeare's time, as in all periods of human history, there were persons who behaved in such a peculiar manner that they were considered to be abnormal. Some of the conditions were looked upon as proper subjects for treatment by the physician; whereas others, particularly those thought to be due to demoniacal possession, were held to fall within the domain of the clergy. Various terms were applied to the victims of mental illness. They were referred to as maniacs, as melancholics, as suffering from phrenitis, frenzy, lunacy or demoniacal possession. In viewing Shakespeare's