Possibly the earliest account of a disturbed mind is recorded in a 3,500-year-old Hindu text that describes a man who is “gluttonous, filthy, walks naked, has lost his memory and moves about in an uneasy manner”.
In the Bible’s Old Testament, in the first Book of Samuel, we read that King David simulated madness to gain safety:
And he changed his behaviour … and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
