Psychiatric Disorders/Timeline in Psychiatry

1550 BC
The Ebers papyrus, one of the most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, briefly mentioned clinical depression.

4th century BC
Hippocrates theorized that physiological abnormalities may be the root of mental disorders.

280 BC
Greek physician and philosopher Herophilus studies the nervous system and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves.

250 BC
Greek anatomist Erasistratus studies the brain and distinguishes between the cerebrum and cerebellum.

705
The first psychiatric hospital was built in Baghdad.

11th century
Persian physician Avicenna recognized 'physiological psychology' in the treatment of illnesses involving emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings.

13th century
Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, one of the famous old psychiatric hospitals, was set up.

1590
Scholastic philosopher Rudolph Goclenius used the term psychology. Though often regarded as the "origin" of the term, there is conclusive evidence that it was used at least six decades earlier by Marko Maruliæ.

1656
Louis XIV of France created a public system of hospitals for those suffering from mental disorders.

1672
In English physician Thomas Willis' anatomical treatise "De Anima Brutorum", Psychology was described in terms of Brain Function.

1758
English physician William Battie wrote the Treatise on Madness which called for treatments to be utilized in asylums.

1808
Dr. Johann Christian Reil, German physician, anatomist, physiologist and psychiatrist, coined the term 'Psychiatry'.

1816
French physician Dr. Rene Laennec invented the Stethoscope.

1821
The element of Lithium was first isolated from Lithium Oxide and described by William Thomas Brande, an English chemist.

1893
Dr. Emil Kraeplin defined "Dementia Praecox", currently Schizophrenia.

1895
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered medical use of X- rays in medical imaging and was conferred the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

1899
Dr. Sigmund Freud published 'The interpretation of dreams'.

Alzheimer
Dr. Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, identified the first case of what later became known as Alzheimer's disease.

Blood Types
Austrian biologist and physician, Dr. Karl Landsteiner discovered the existence of different human blood types and in 1930, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1905
French Psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon created the Binet-Simon scale to assess intellectual ability, marking the start for standardized psychological testing.

1906
Dr. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Russian physiologist, psychologist, and physician, published his first Conditioning studies.

1908
The word schizophrenia was coined by Dr. Paul Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist.

1929
Dr. Hans Berger, German neuropsychiatrist, discovered human electroencephalography.

1934
Dr. Manfred Joshua Sakel, Polish neurophysiologist and psychiatrist, introduced insulin shock therapy; a precursor to ECT.

1936
Otto Loewi, Austrian-German-American pharmacologist, won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Medicine, which he shared with Sir Henry Dale, for his discovery of Acetylcholine, the first neurotransmitter to be described.

1938
Dr.Ugo Cerletti, Italian neurologist and Dr. Lucio Bini, Italian psychiatrist, discovered Electroconvulsive Therapy.

1948
Lithium carbonate's ability to stabilize mood highs and lows in bipolar disorder was demonstrated.

1949
Dr. Antonio Egaz Moniz, neurologist at the Lisbon Medical School won Nobel prize for his work on psychosurgery / lobotomy.

Chlorpromazine
The first published clinical trial of Chlorpromazine was conducted at Ste. Anne Hôspital in Paris.

Manual
The APA published the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

1960
The first benzodiazepine, Librium, was introduced, marking the rise of psychopharmacology.

1963
United States president John F. Kennedy introduced legislation delegating the National Institute of Mental Health to administer Community Mental Health Centers for those being discharged from state psychiatric hospitals.

1970
FDA approved Lithium for acute mania.

1972
Psychologist David Rosenhan published the Rosenhan experiment, a study challenging the validity of psychiatric diagnoses.

1977
The ICD-9 was published by the WHO.

1988
The first selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, 'Prozac', was released and quickly became most prescribed.

1988
US President George Bush declared 1990s as "The decade of the brain".

2000
The No Free Lunch organization was founded by Dr. Bob Goodman, an internist from New York.