The Use of Prescription Drugs to Treat Children and Adolescents with Essay

The Use of Prescription Drugs to Treat Children and Adolescents with Mental Disorders - Essay Example It is important to note that only a very fortunate few were treated at this time. Many prehistoric sufferers of mental disorders were either killed as infants or left alone to die in the wilderness (Arieti 1974). This cruel and heartless treatment continued for several millennia. As people gained a wider understanding of the body and how it worked, they also gained greater knowledge of the brain and its possible abnormalities. The advent of Christianity and Islam led to more humane treatment of the mentally ill. The first psychiatric hospital appeared in the Byzantine Empire during the 6th Century A.D. (Arieti 1974). Over the next several hundred years, an enormous evolution of thought took place. Psychiatric patients were no longer seen as monsters to be gotten rid of in any way possible; they were seen as humans who needed medical help. Most of the responsibility for the care of the mentally ill fell on the shoulders of religious organizations, and this would cause more problems for mental patients during the European Reformation and Renaissance periods. They were often left to fend for themselves when the monasteries were dissolved (Arieti 1974). The European obsession with witch hunts during the 16th and 17th Centuries led to even more deplorable treatment of the mentally ill, who were incorrectly thought to be possessed by the devil, and were tortured or executed because of this (Arieti 1974). For a time, it appeared as if the treatment of mental patients was going to revert back to prehistoric cruelty. Then, in the 18th Century, the cultural period of Enlightenment began, and many psychiatric hospitals were reinstated (Arieti 1974). Some were formed out of the prison sy stem, while others sprang once again from religious organizations (Arieti 1974). The 19th Century ushered in a new era of psychiatry. Psychiatry had now become its own autonomous specialty, recognized as being independent from the field of