Notes for an histor ia of depr ESSION

Depression is the disease of melancholy. This is a state of mind where they ride
a range of negative feelings overwhelm us: pain, disillusionment, disappointmen
t, depression, lack of zest for life, sorrow, grief ... all of them chaired by a
decline in mood, accompanied by his own language. Depression no energy left, no
t wanting to do anything. Its symptoms are varied and can be physical (headaches
, chest tightness, discomfort, diffuse scattered by geography body), psychologic
al (the most important is the slump in morale and lack of future, everything bec
omes negative past checkered by feelings of guilt), conduct (paralysis and block
ing behavior, crying easily), cognitive (this refers to the level of ideas and t
houghts, which become dark and distorted perception of reality against us, are t
errible ambush traps dotted) and social (also called assertive: fade and lose th
eir social skills and interpersonal treatment and communication become clumsy, s
hort, distant). It is more correct to speak of depression in the plural, since t
here are many methods and types that may emerge in the clinical reality. The dep
ressions are currently one of the great epidemics of modern society. In Spain th
ere around five million and people who have it. The history of depression.'s exc
iting. It is clearly a high-profile current illness and social prominence, but h
as always existed and is very suggestive review, if only to fly pen, some aspect
s of it. The first descriptions are made in the river channels of the Nile in Eg
ypt and Mesopotamia, the area where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Also in the
east in the culture of the Ganges and Yantzée There are some memories and desc
riptions in this regard. In Egypt the pharaohs were buried with the so-called bo
oks of the dead were deposited in the tombs of the pyramids. Some contain refere
nces to melancholy, as passageways through which had passed the life of that cha
racter . In Mesopotamia, the cradle of Sumerian and Babylonian civilization, the
first doctors were priests and what we now call depression, in those days was a
ttributed to demonic possession and other magical causes. The treatments were ba
sed on special pills, divination, oracles, astrology and bathrooms. It comes as
the first cyclical interpretation of melancholy, originated with the periodic mo
tion of celestial bodies. In cuneiform tablets from Ur of the Chaldees, and espe
cially in Nippur we find clay tablets containing songs and hymns to elevate the
mood of the people, especially in times of drought. Homer in the Iliad describes
in verse the landscapes of the soul in the anguish of grief and negativity. Pha
rmacon recommended the same, a mixture of herbs Egyptian or Nepenthes
Some three thousand years before our era, in China, and literary productions whi
ch are mentioned in passing, the sadness as a disease. The great philosopher Lao
Tsze the sixth century BC, who was keeper of the imperial court, mentioned in h
is writings the world of emotions, giving special prominence to the sadness and
disappointment. At the same time Confucius wrote on fatigue and depression in th
e Talmud book which gathers many Jewish traditions speaks of how mood disorders
are talking cure or distracted or finding suitable entertainment. As Hippocrates
said that melancholy is due to the so-called black bile corrupted humours. The
Hippocratic writings relate sadness to dry land, the elderly and autumn,season e
specially dangerous in people prone to this disease. Hippocrates advocated the t
reatment was evacuation of the humours of deviation from region to region, local
heat, baths, special diets, etc... The famous Hippocratic aphorisms are stained
ideas and thoughts of great psychological depth, and appropriate advice to get
out of negative life avatars. Various Greek and Roman physicians also worked in
the direction of diving in the back rooms of grief and depressive illness, Celso
. Areteo Cappadocia, Sorano of à efeso etc. Casiano V century, describes the wedge
or tedium vitae which is a mixture of apathy and senseless, accompanied by a bl
ockade and an unspecified malaise. A mixture of body disorders, rational and spi
ritual.. The wedge causes the medieval man dying of boredom, nothing happens not
hing happens everything is wrapped in a gray mist, floating and blurred that sli
des into a void of interest. Saint Isidore of Seville in the seventh century, in
his book Synonyms says symptoms of this disease;: anguish of the soul, black id
eas, accumulation of demonic spirits and deep despair. From the tenth to the thi
rteenth century figures stand Avenzoar, aberrations and Maimonides, and filósos
fos doctors who worked in this direction . Avicenna was a physician of the royal
court, is a synthesis of Aristotelian thought with the ideas of Hipocrtes medic
al and Galen. Spend a delightful pages to hysteria and melancholy. The revival i
s the golden age of melancholy. "this is shows how the stuff of poets, artists a
nd philosophers and Celsus, a physician of his time praising as a positive aspir
ation to be cast into the intricacies of body and soul, depriving of reason, and
in his writings said that melancholy is of natural origin. There are two descri
ptions do not want me in the ink of Adre in Laurents, physician of Henry IV, whi
ch describes the King's illness, advocating for a cure refined measures, improve
the air, the contact with nature, spread in the room roses, violets and lilies
and to smell of orange blossom and lemon zest, it also highlights this time, the
Spanish physician Francisco Vallés-sixteenth century in his book Magic describ
es a very interesting therapy, a syrup with about one hundred ingredients to cur
e melancholy, rejecting the sacred concept of the disease .. About the same time
, English Timothy Bright explains in his treatise on melancholy feelings of thes
e patients, recommending emetic and purgative. Already in the Baroque Robert Bur
ton in his Anatomy of Melancholy describes his own illness, as he was depressed,
and continuous observations mentioned body and somatic sensations, diffuse, wit
h great delicacy of nuance.
In the Enlightenment man starts with Descartes and Pascal. It is enthroned reaso
n. The world is intellectual sheath. The cult of free synthesize all human knowl
edge at that time. A great doctor of the time, Pinel,. Literally tells us "the b
lues is a mock trial that the patient is formed near the state of his body and h
is spirit." medicofilosofico In his Treatise tries to classify the different str
ains of melancholy and speech and moral treatment of some simple remedies and ph
armacotherapy. A prominent disciple Esquirol Pinel, follow your line. I want to
mention in this journey the figure of the Spanish doctor of Arab origin Arruft P
iquer, systematizing in detail the condition of the Spanish king Fernando VI, wa
s diagnosed of manÍamelancolÍa. This is the first description in the strict se
nse that is what today is called the Depression. bipolarie alternating phases of
high subsidence psicoógico. (depression) and of exaltation and psychological v
itality (euphoria). It anticipates the great nineteenth-century German physician
- Krepelin. The romantic psychiatry has many names as Baillarger and Falret . E
squirol I call depression. Lipemania, which was a sort of frenzy focused on a si
ngle theme, the psychological distress by a decrease in mood. In the century we
find dXIX psiaquiátrico positivism that means making a science of psychiatry ob
jects away from the demons of magic and the subjective. The English psychiatrist
Maudsly depression located away from any metaphysical speculation, and organic
disease in aproxmai This earned him the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1904 as he h
ad done some years before Paulov Griessinger Germany and Russia. The contemporar
y psychiatry is to Freud as one of the greats, with all the disputes you want. F
or him depression. is mourning the loss of loved object, from which springs the
blame and a range of feelings in that direction. There are many authors who work
ed during all that time putting in psychiatry at the level of other branches of
medicine. Today we must distinguish two types of depression, the endogenous caus
es that are due to biochemical and have a hereditary background and have an exce
llent prognosis, curing about 90 per cent of them. And the exogenous and motivat
ed are those triggered by life events: the woman is particularly sensitive to th
e frustrations and emotional and sentimental man is to professionals in the midd
le of one and the other is a medial aspect of depressive forms ranging and roam
and jump and move between them deserves special attention depressions calls. bip
olar, which as I mentioned earlier are those in which the subject happens to be
sunk to be hyper and happy. They are also endogenous and we now have drugs that
are able to stabilize mood and achieve this pace slow rotating and oscillating u
nequal (mainly sodium-type metals, lithium, rubidium, cesium, Topiramate etc.) W
ho has not had a real depression. clinic does not know is the sadness. Suffering
from depression can become so deep that only see out of that tunnel as suicide
depression in children are shown through the clothing of conduct. The boy of 101
2 years is still a sufficient emotional vocabulary and does not express
her feelings verbally, but through their behavior, stop playing, speaks very lit
tle, this self-absorbed, bored, cries often and has not focused school failure.
Parents should be able to dive in these children a little withered and blurred t
hat drift and who are as lost.
Women are three times more depression than men. There are several reasons,
lability which sometimes has its endocrine system, a much more developed psychic
sensitivity that man (you can love more and suffer more) and may be different w
ays depressed. in the course of life events genital mutilation (in the syndrome
premenstrual tension, such as postpartum depression, post abortion, pregnancy an
d menopause). Today has also improved its prognosis and treatment. In the dark l
abyrinth of mist uncertain and negative thoughts, depression is, now get out in
a very high percentage of cases, thanks to modern advances in psychiatry operate
d Enrique Rojas Professor of Psychiatry and author of the book Goodbye Depressio
n