古希腊和拉丁医学作者认为逃入孤独是精神障碍的令人信服的迹象,经常被描述为厌食症,一个充满医学话语之外的含义的词。虚构的人物雅典的丁满,典型的厌食症,可以阐明古代文化概念,即自我强加的与人类接触的隔离。为了应对这种越轨行为引起的不安感,Misanthropia被解释为“疯狂”,嘲笑各种类型的幽默,在哲学中受到道德谴责,并最终被基督教宇宙学妖魔化。这些遏制的各种尝试在这个时代的医疗工作中回响,使得在没有充分考虑文化背景的情况下,无法理解古代医学中的厌食症概念。
Ancient Greek and Latin medical authors considered a flight into solitude a compelling sign of mental disturbance, frequently described as misanthropia, a word fraught with meaning beyond the medical discourse. The fictionalised character Timon of Athens, the quintessential misanthrope, can shed light on ancient cultural concepts of self-imposed isolation from human contact. To cope with the sense of unease this deviant behaviour induced, misanthropia was explained as \'madness\', ridiculed in various genres of humour, morally condemned in philosophy, and ultimately demonized in Christian cosmology. These various attempts at containment echo in the medical works of the age, making it impossible to comprehend the concept of misanthropia in ancient medicine without taking full account of the cultural context.