Learn About Depression in the

Past

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Oddly enough, a lot of what we can learn

about depression in the past comes from

literature.

For some reason, a tendency towards melancholy often

seemed to be associated with the

ability to write well – it was part of the poetic

temperament.

Poet after poet wrote rather introspective works about what it felt like to be in the

black depths of melancholy or depression

.

Perhaps we could take a leaf out of their books and turn to

journaling as a form of self-expression and

therapy.

The list of poets who seemed to suffer from

depression in some form or other (at least if their poetic works

are anything to go by) reads like a list of the great authors of the English language:

John Donne, John Milton, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord

Byron, Gerald Manley Hopkins and possibly

even Samuel Coleridge as well.

However, you don’t have to be as good a poet as they were to benefit from getting

your feeling and thoughts out on paper.

The first major scientific work on

melancholy or depression was written

in 1621 by the philosopher Richard

Burton.

his work’s full title was the rather unwieldy “The Anatomy of

Melancholy: What it is, with all the Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics & the

Several Cures of it,

in Three Partitions, with their Several

Sections, Numbers and Subsections,

Philosophically, Medicinally and

Historically Opened and Cut up”. We’ll call

it the Anatomy of Melancholy for short!

If you can handle the old-fashioned English and a few bits and pieces of

Latin (some of which are translated), then you can

read it for yourself at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10800/10800-h/10800-h.htm

.

This work investigates what we would call

depression, drawing on all branches of science

that were known at that time. It’s quite a big work – you have

been warned!

Some of the cures listed by Burton are

quite interesting.

In agreement with many modern thinkers, he claims that diet can

be used to treat melancholy and (in his terms) balance out

the bodily humours.

Some of the things that he suggests as

suitable items of diet include chicken,

mutton, wheat bread, plain water, apples

and oranges,

which is all very well, but he has a huge long list of forbidden foods that include a lot that doctors today would consider to be very healthy (cucumbers

and cabbage, for example).

He also suggested eating food in

moderation and in season, which today’s

naturopaths would agree with heartily.

Other cures include moderate exercise,

baths, fresh air and an active love life.

And the best sort of exercise, according to Burton, is exercise

that works the mind as well as the body

and is fun to do.

Music is also recommended to

ease a troubled mind, whether you play it or

listen to it. All good advice!

He also states that “Whosoever… shall

hope to cure this malady in himself or any other, must first

rectify these passions and perturbations of

the mind: the chiefest cure consists in them.

A quiet mind… is the only pleasure of the

world,” indicating that a troubled mind is one of the biggest caused

of depression (yes, they knew that back in

the 1600s!),

and suggests that people seek help by

getting rid of obsessive and negative thoughts – which is precisely the

sort of thing that hypnosis and hypnotherapy

try to do.

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