More recent research on the historical practice of trepanning supports the hypothesis that this procedure was medical in nature and intended as means of treating cranial trauma. It has been conjectured that the subjects may have been thought to have been possessed by spirits that the holes would allow to escape. Archaeologists have unearthed skulls (at least 7000 years old) that have small, round holes bored in them using flint tools. Some traditional cultures have turned to witch doctors or shamans to apply magic, herbal mixtures, or folk medicine to rid deranged persons of evil spirits or bizarre behavior, for example. Madness, the non-legal word for insanity, has been recognized throughout history in every known society. The term may also be used as an attempt to discredit or criticize particular ideas, beliefs, principles, desires, personal feelings, attitudes, or their proponents, such as in politics and religion. In law, mens rea means having had criminal intent, or a guilty mind, when the act ( actus reus) was committed.Ī more informal use of the term insanity is to denote something or someone considered highly unique, passionate or extreme, including in a positive sense. Another Latin phrase related to our current concept of sanity is compos mentis ("sound of mind"), and a euphemistic term for insanity is non compos mentis. From this perspective, insanity can be considered as poor health of the mind, not necessarily of the brain as an organ (although that can affect mental health), but rather refers to defective function of mental processes such as reasoning. Juvenal's phrase mens sana in corpore sano is often translated to mean a "healthy mind in a healthy body". In English, the word "sane" derives from the Latin adjective sanus meaning "healthy". In medicine, the general term psychosis is used to include the presence of delusions and/or hallucinations in a patient and psychiatric illness is " psychopathology", not mental insanity. In contemporary usage, the term insanity is an informal, un-scientific term denoting "mental instability" thus, the term insanity defense is the legal definition of mental instability. Conceptually, mental insanity also is associated with the biological phenomenon of contagion (that mental illness is infectious) as in the case of copycat suicides. Insanity can manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to other people. Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Engraving of the eighth print of A Rake's Progress, depicting inmates at Bedlam Asylum, by William Hogarth
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