When I studied the history of medicine in Germany, the syllabus revolved around Hippocrates, Galen and the polished Latin name “Avicenna.” Only later did I discover that Avicenna is in fact Ibn Sīnā, a Persian polymath whose eastern roots were disguised by translation and renaming. That discovery sparked a question: which other foundations of mental health care have been hidden in plain sight?
Mesopotamia - the legendary land between the Euphrates and the Tigris - was an open laboratory 4,500 years ago. Scribes pressed reed pens into soft clay and invented cuneiform, leaving not only trade accounts but also remarkably detailed medical records. By about 1900 BCE, two major handbooks circulated: one set of tablets arranged symptoms, causes and outcomes; another listed hundreds of treatments from head to toe. Every modern clinical manual owes an unspoken debt to this Babylonian model.
One tablet in the British Museum is devoted to miqtu, epilepsy. It separates seizure types, notes warning signs, recovery phases and triggers such as lack of sleep or strong emotion - details Western texts would describe only millennia later. The Babylonians attributed the attacks to demons, yet they already classified each seizure pattern with its own name, blending sharp observation with myth and giving us an early language for brain-based illness.
Even more striking is a case report of a clan chief whose life unravels: loss of wealth, nightmares, insomnia, anger, fear, exhaustion. We would call it severe depression with anxiety. In Babylon it was labelled “the anger of his personal god.” The diagnosis is religious, but the description of suffering could appear in any modern mental health chart.
Treatment followed a dual system. The asû - a herbal doctor and surgeon - handled visible wounds with salves, oils and knives. The ašipu - priest and exorcist - worked on the unseen level with prayers, smoke and amulets. After accidents the asû took charge; for epilepsy, delusions or compulsions the ašipu led, often side by side - an ancient forerunner of today’s multidisciplinary mental health teams.
Babylonian law also recognised psychological distress. The Code of Hammurabi set rules for the actions of a “confused” person and obliged family and temple to provide care. Early on, Mesopotamians understood that mental illness is not just private; it is a communal responsibility.
Pain carried a double meaning - body alarm and moral signal. A headache could mean an offended god; purification, offerings and herbs aimed to restore balance. Such beliefs endure: many in the Middle East still fear the “evil eye” or visit bonesetters. Culture shapes how we feel and heal - an inheritance from Mesopotamia that still guides us.
Why did this knowledge fade? When Aramaic replaced cuneiform and Alexander shifted the intellectual centre westward, the clay libraries fell silent. Only in the 19th century did Europeans decipher them. Scholars like James Kinnier Wilson and neurologist Edward H. Reynolds revealed that millennia before Hippocrates, Mesopotamia practised sophisticated, observation based mental health care.
This is more than historical trivia. Modern mental health often focuses on genes and brain scans, yet meaning, guilt and transcendence remain powerful healing forces. The Babylonian tablets remind us that care needs relationship, cultural context and shared responsibility. When today’s guidelines emphasise psychosocial and spiritual dimensions, they echo the work of the asû and the ašipu.
Depression, anxiety, obsession, psychosis - these conditions have always belonged to the human story. A medicine that sees the whole person may feel avantgarde in the 21st century; in Mesopotamia, the land of my Kurdish ancestors, it was daily practice 4,000 years ago.
Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a psychologist, author and publisher, an expert in psychotraumatology, trauma, terror and war, transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy and migration.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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