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2000 Years of ADHD? The Obtuse Man and ADHD in Ancient Greece
One Story of ADHD from the 3rd Century BCE
Today, we’re going to learn about the Obtuse Man of Theophrasus, the earliest known written example of a character with ADHD in Ancient Greece, over 2000 years ago.
Although ADHD is often considered a modern phenomenon, and an abnormality or disorder, did you know that we actually have good evidence that ADHD is a normal neurodivergence?
The presentation or traits of ADHD are due to a genetic variation, or possibly several variations, just like autism and some other things most medical literature currently classifies as neurodevelopmental differences.
How do we know this? Well, besides current technology that allows researchers to actually look at how the brains of ADHD folks work in real-time, we have a lot of evidence of folks with ADHD in historical sources.
I know a lot of people feel like ADHD appeared out of nowhere in the 1980s and has kind of taken over kids’ brains since then, but that’s not true. People have been writing about neurodivergences that look a lot like ADHD throughout history.
How Do We Find Ancient ADHD?
Obviously, people didn’t call ADHD “ADHD” two thousand years ago, or even two hundred years ago, so…
