Young College Girls Go Crazy

In ancient Israel it was held that disturbances of the mind or emotions were caused by "supernatural forces" or an angry God, as a punishment for sin or failure to follow the commandments. The Old Testament is replete with references to kings and commoners that go insane, and the Jewish prophets were thought to be psychologically abnormal because they acted in strange ways, departed markedly from the norm in appearance, and foretold of future events that few understood.
The Greeks replaced concepts of the supernatural with a secular view, believing that afflictions of the mind did not differ from diseases of the body. They saw mental and physical illness as a result of natural causes and an imbalance in bodily humors. Hippocrates frequently wrote that an excess of black bile resulted in irrational thinking and behavior.
Romans made further contributions to psychiatry, in particular the precursor to contemporary practice. They put forth the idea that strong emotions could lead to bodily ailments, the basis of today’s theory of psychosomatic illness. The Romans also supported humane treatment of the mentally ill, and to support such codified into law the principle of insanity as a mitigation of responsibility for criminal acts, although the criterion for insanity was sharply set as the defendant had to be found "non compos mentis", a term meaning with "no power of mind".
The Middle Ages, however, witnessed the end of the progressive ideas of the Greeks and Romans.