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Ilza Veith, PhD

JAMA. 1970;212(1):127-131.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

I have been walking alone in the garden of Pembroke Lodge, and it has produced a mood of almost unbearable melancholia." These words were used by Bertrand Earl Russell in the third volume of his fascinating autobiography, and perhaps no other phrase could better convey to the reader Lord Russell's emotional state at the time of the writing.

Although "melancholia" is a well-known word in daily language and in literature, in psychiatric writings it has been supplanted by such technical terms as "depressive reaction," "affective disorder," or even "psychotic depressive reaction." In contrast to these recent terms, the word and concept of melancholia date back to the Greek ancestry of Western medicine.

At the time of Hippocrates, observed mood changes were related to the four humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), the preponderance or deficiency of which could determine a specific temperament or personality type in making a . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the departments of the history of health sciences and psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco 94122 (Dr. Veith).

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