The History of Melancholia Disease

BACKGROUND: Melancholia is a kind of depression with the most common symptoms of evident mental disorder, slimness, lack of enjoyment, feeling guilty and having no appetite. In modern medicine, the word “melancholia” only refers to mental and affective symptoms of depression. However, historically, it could have physical symptoms as well as mental symptoms and the atrabilious situations were categorized according to their common reasons rather than their specific characteristics. This study aimed to enlighten the history of this disease. METHODS: This is a review article concerned with cerebral diseases by collecting data from medical electronic databases including PUBMED and SID, historical psychiatry books and traditional medicine manuscripts. RESULTS: The first known physician to have scientifically looked at the mental diseases was Hippocrates (370-460 B.C), who should be accredited as the father of medicine. While physicians in the time of Hippocrates seriously believed in the metaphysics power in health and diseases, Hippocrates believed in natural laws. Plato (348-428 B.C) believed that human behavior is affected by his physical needs and instincts. In the course of Hippocrates’s theory about bodily humors, Aristotle considered a range of mental characteristics for each. Finally, Galen believed that cerebral disease causes mental diseases or disorders based on his own theories of anatomy. Persian physicians involved in this area were Rabban al-Tabari (838-870 A.D), Razes (865-925 A.D), Ali-Ibn Abbas Ahvazi (944-982 A.D), Al-ikhwan al bukhari the physician of the ninth century, Ibn Sina (980-1037 A.D), Gorgani (1040-1136 A.D) and Khaje Nasireddin Tousi (1201-1274 A.D). They considered cerebral diseases and health as a part of equality process; different organs accommodate a physical system and mutual dependence with the society and environment. CONCLUSION: Mental health has been reviewed from various aspects in view of ancient physicians. Feeble mindedness and behavioral disorder complications had already been addressed in earlier times too.