ABSTRACT
The Neolithic Era (8000-3000 bce) became a victim of its own success. Over time Neolithic villages grew in population and those near rivers in fertile regions of the world thrived. With increased prosperity and the ability to grow and store food in granaries, Neolithic villages expanded, annexed, or conquered others. As early as 4000 bce in some regions of the world, cities and civilizations emerged with the ability to produce written records. This ushered in the era of the Ancient World and recorded history. Ancient river-based civilizations emerged in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. Although each of these civilizations would develop its own mythologies and world views, they all relied on similar highly centralized hierarchies with strong priestly castes who exercised tight control over the world of ideas and practices in each of their respective civilizations. To be sure, one goal of these early ancient civilizations was to produce strict conformity and monolithic thinking among their people. In terms of medicine and pharmacy, these priestly castes were literate and learned men who shaped the theories of illness and practices for treating patients within their respective civilizations. The beliefs and practices of these early ancient civilizations might appear quite harsh to modern sensibilities, but no one understood better than the people living in these ancient civilizations that they were one step away from the prehistoric barbarism that surrounded them. Closer to our own time, Sigmund Freud warned us that, “civilized society is perpetually threatened with disintegration.”2
