Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface and methodological issues -- Phrenitis in Classical (5th-4th century BCE) and Hellenistic (3rd-1st century BCE) medicine -- Psychology and delocalising themes. Asclepiades, Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus -- Theoretical aspects of Imperial nosology : localization, semiotics, chronology, etiology (1st-6th century CE) -- Phrenitic people : patients and therapies in Imperial-age and Late-antique cultures (1st-6th century CE) -- Quasi phreneticus : phrenitis in non-medical sources in Imperial-age and Lateantique cultures (1st century BCE-7th century CE) -- The Byzantine and medieval periods : medical receptions of phrenitis in Greek, Latin and Semitic languages (6th-14th century CE) -- The construction of the phrenitic in larger society : from the medieval to the Early-modern period -- Phrenitis in the modern and Early-modern worlds : anatomy, pathology and the survival of Graeco-Roman medicine (16th-19th century CE) -- The modern age : the 'death' of phrenitis.