The First recorded case or the history of depression

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Hi Im curently a student at the Radnor Middle School and Im currently working on my project in depression, and find it hard look for the history of depression. Please send me the links or answer the question.

-- Quan yoon (gsq_89@msn.com), October 12, 2004

Answers

Historical "firsts," though very popular, almost always turn out to be difficult to establish because things almost never appear "full blown." Instead, they come together piecemeal over a long period of time, reducing the argument of which instance was "first" into one of which event "counts" as an instance of the concept in question.

With respect to depression, are you going to include the venerable "melancholy"? If so, Aristotle said somewhere (I don't have the exact reference with me) that Plato suffered from melancholy (I don't know the Greek term he used). Then there's Robert Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1621, with new editions extending to 1651). I believe that the term, "depression," is of early 20th century origin, but I may be wrong about that.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), October 12, 2004.


If not a first, certainly another "classic" example is King Saul in the Old Testament--the future King David helped Saul's depression by playing the harp. Another "idea" you can trace is that of the four temperaments: melancholic, choleric, sanguine, and phlegmatic--which goes back to the ancient Greeks as well.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@cox.net), October 12, 2004.

Of course Aristotle would say that Plato had depression, because Aristotle looked downward, not upward. In other words, he was looking at the wrong thing generally.

-- Thomas Jefferson (thomjeff76@yahoo.com), October 15, 2004.

A great reference book would be "Listening to Prozac", which has a great deal of information on the history of treatment of depression, particularly how the psychiatric profession began to work with pharmaceuticals rather than with other treatments such as shock therapy. If you have any specific questions you can write me. I will help quickly find the chapters you need in "Listening to Prozac".

-- Becky P. (bparton@prodigy.net), October 18, 2004.

And then, after you've done what Becky P. suggests, make sure you also read the critical response, _Talking Back to Prozac_, by Peter Breggin.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), October 18, 2004.


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