From Psyche: “These thinkers recognised a number of mental and behavioural disorders as illnesses (bing), which were categorised and discussed in the earliest-known medical text in China, the Huangdi Neijing Lingshu Jing (the oldest parts of which date to the 4th century BCE). This text describes a number of mental illnesses, most prominently dian, marked by âunhappiness, headache, red eyes and a troubled mindâ, and kuang, marked by âmanic forgetfulness, flying into ragesâ and âwild activityâ, among other symptoms. Early Chinese medical scholars understood such mental illnesses to have a number of contributing causes, including overabundance of emotion, failure to control desires, the depletion of âvital energyâ from the organs â and the community to which one belongs.”
