Phrenitis

This article covers the historical medical term; for inflammation of the diaphragm (from Greek phren ) see diaphragm # functional disorders and diseases .

A horse with phrenitis, farm animal husbandry & veterinary medicine & horse & disease , Georg Simon Winter von Adlersflügel .

Phrenitis (from ancient Greek φρενῖτις "brain inflammation") is a medical diagnosis from ancient times and the Middle Ages . A common definition in Latin was delirium continuum cum febre - persistent delirium with fever.

Development of the clinical picture

The disease was characterized, among other things, by the symptoms fever, chills (tremors), convulsions, ranting (delirious states, "brain rage"), fear and vomiting and was mostly fatal. The cause of the disease often mentioned by Hippocrates of Kos was seen in an inflammation of the diaphragm (Greek φρήν phren , "diaphragm", "spirit, soul, understanding"). The diaphragm was seen as the place where thoughts came into being. Since it is a mental illness according to the symptoms , the conception of the seat of the disease changed, and Galenus gave the brain and its skins as the seat of the disease in De symptomatum causis . The term was carried into the Middle Ages via Byzantine and Arabic texts. The division of mental illnesses into mania , melancholy and phrenitis was adopted and numerous doctors dealt with the topic. The phrenitis took a back seat to the other two diseases. Michael Ettmüller differentiated phrenitis from states of confusion and melancholy and understood it to mean brain inflammation accompanied by fever.
The training of psychiatry as a medical specialist discipline in the 19th century led to a completely different classification of mental disorders. Phrenitis is difficult to classify here because of the symptom 'fever'. Rather, it fits meningitis with the u. a. Symptoms 'fever', 'impaired consciousness', 'convulsions'. Phrenitis is not mentioned in the current ICD-10 disease classification system .

Phrenitis in ancient times

De medicina

After the disease had been described in the Corpus Hippocraticum (in Hippocrates it was associated with the image of a sick person who suddenly loses his mind, is agitated, confused, has delusions, speaks for no reason, screams, etc.), it was part of the ancient concept of disease, and their treatment has been given by numerous medical writers. Aulus Cornelius Celsus distinguished it in his encyclopedia De Medicina as acute and with fever from the fever-free tristitia , which stems from the black bile. Caelius Aurelianus defined phrenitis as an acute mental confusion with an acute fever . He discusses the treatment of this disease by Diocles of Karystus , Asklepiades of Bithynia, and others, from which one can see the significance it had. The treatment corresponds to the usual means of the methodologists : bloodletting, diet regulations, oil rubs, if necessary also keep calm and tie up.

literature

• Antje Bornemann: The clinical picture of phrenitis in the medicine of the Arab Middle Ages , Bonn 1988.
• S. Kornfeld: History of Psychiatry in the Manual of the History of Medicine founded by Theodor Puschmann , Hildesheim-New York 1971.
• Karl-Heinz Leven : Ancient medicine. A Lexicon , Munich 2005.
• Georg Sticker : Hippokrates: The common diseases first and third book (around the year 434-430 BC). Translated, introduced and explained from the Greek. Johann Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig 1923 (= Classics of Medicine. Volume 29); Unchanged reprint: Central antiquariat of the German Democratic Republic, Leipzig 1968, p. 117 (on brain rage, φρενῖτις, with or without fever, as a sign of a brain disease).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Leibbrand , Annemarie Wettley : The madness. History of Western Psychopathology. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich 1961 (= Orbis Academicus , II, 12), pp. 35-37.
2. ^ Karl-Heinz Leven: Ancient medicine. A lexicon. P. 700.
3. ↑ Antje Bornemann: The clinical picture of phrenitis ... . P. 10
4. ↑ S. Kornfeld: History of Psychiatry . Pp. 602-609
5. ↑ Michael Ettmüller: Overview of Medical Measures , Book 2, Section VI, Chapter 2
6. ↑ Georg Sticker : Hippokrates: The common diseases first and third book (around the year 434-430 BC). Translated, introduced and explained from the Greek. Johann Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig 1923 (= Classics of Medicine. Volume 29); Unchanged reprint: Central antiquariat of the German Democratic Republic, Leipzig 1968, p. 101 (quoted).
7. ^ Aulus Cornelius Celsus: De Medicina , Book III, 18
8. ↑ Caelius Aureelianus: De morbis acutis et chronicis , Celerum passionum , Book I, Chapter 1