When was the concept of depression first diagnosed?

[Fluff]

Is depression a new concept? Did it exist more after anti depressants were invented by drug companies?

I don't ever recall that many old people say they were depressed? Is that because of the horrors of the World Wars. Made them glad to even be alive?

[Dr Mordrid]

Hundreds if not thousands of years ago. It was known as 'melancholy' in the 19th to mid 20th century.

http://www.emental-health.com/depr_history.htm

Dr. Mordrid

[Gurm]

Yep, people used to DIE from it all the time. They wouldn't eat and would eventually just waste away.

[Dr Mordrid]

My first job was at the old Wayne County General Hospital at Eloise, which was not only a trauma center but housed 8,000 inpatient psychiatric patients in buildings named from A to N. In those days even depressed patients often had hospital stays lasting weeks.

Map:


Of course this was way before modern 'brain drugs' like Prozac or (in the case of mildly psychotic patients) Depakote, which could have sent the majority home in a few weeks. As such many could only be sedated & housed. Without putting many of them on some form of sedation (Librium etc.) things got very twitchy.

Then there was D building; 300 people you wouldn't want to be lefe alone with unarmed.

Tragic.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Is depression a new concept? Did it exist more after anti depressants were invented by drug companies?

I don't ever recall that many old people say they were depressed? Is that because of the horrors of the World Wars. Made them glad to even be alive?

As said before, it was often called other things. Also, people died of other things before Altzheimer's and whatnot could start to effect them. And when it did, it was considered "senility" and whatnot.

[Fluff]

Thanks for the clarification guys. Doc, I wouldn't like to think what D block was like. I guess nowadays they are able to treat the problems more before resorting to locking people up and forgetting.

[Nowhere]

A lot of it in literature of Ancient Greece already...
(and someow Aristotle, called by some the grandfather of psychology, hinted at it here and there)

[Dr Mordrid]

Doc, I wouldn't like to think what D block was like.

"D Building" was for chronically violent patients and the criminally insane. Many were in there for evaluatio after committing homicides, often multiples, housing after conviction and some were what we now call serial killers. Norman Bates would have been one of the milder 'guests'.

You couldn't hire in or work there safely as an attendant unless you were as big/strong as an American football lineman (> 2m tall, ~100+ kilos) & had some street smarts. It also had its own 24 hour contingent of the biggest, scariest Sheriff's deputies you've ever seen.

Directly behind D Building was the Western Wayne County Sheriffs Command Center, which housed another 30+ deputies and their armory. Yes, we had to call on their 'services'....regularly.

All the medical staffers rotated in & out of D Building to do exams and medical tests on the patients. It had it's own equipment because most all of the patients were too dangerous to transport to the main hospital, where they would be exposed to civilians.

It even had its own courtroom for sanity hearings, arraignments etc. with a rotating judge who held court 2 days a week.

When working there we were 'covered' by at least 2 armed deputies and 2 attendants. Depending on the individual patient an additional armed deputy and/or more attendants could be present. Each exam room, x-ray suite etc. had a 'panic room' we could lock ourselves into if something nasty started. I spent my share of time in one.

Some of the women were worse than the men. One radiology students mother worked as a Psychiatric RN. She was killed by a female patient who pulled an iron sink off the wall and crushed her skull with it.

I worked at Eloise for 20+ years in the General Hospital/trauma center with side trips to D Building and others. In that time there were quite a few patients so violent that hitting them with big doses of Thorazine just meant they smiled a lot while figuring a way to kill you.

Any questions?