Mind4Youth

Author: Kaye W

Depression is a mental disorder/illness where it will change how someone feels, thinks and acts. It can affect sleep, appetite, and someone’s interests in things. It was previously called, “melancholia” but changed to “depression”. 

Depression was discovered ages ago in Mesopotamia. But there is no one to credit for the finding of depression. Instead of it being a physical condition in that time of age, it was considered as a spiritual condition. 

People believed it was a demonic possession responsible for depression which meant priests handled it. This was believed by different cultures like ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, etc. Since it was believed that demonic possession was responsible for depression, people with depression were beaten, physically restrained, and starved to try to get rid of the demons. Only a few doctors of ancient Greek and Roman suspected depression was a biological and psychological disorder. They handled their patients’ depression with massages, dieting, music, medication etc. 

A Greek physician named Hippocrates (460 – 370 BCE), proposed that four imbalanced body fluids (yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood) were the cause of depression. He recommended treatments were baths, exercise, diet and bloodletting (withdrawing blood 

from patients to relieve illnesses). But Cicero, a roman philosopher, suggested that depression was caused by grief, fear and rage. 

The belief of depression being caused by demonic possession started to rise once again and it was recommended that people with depression were to face starvation, beatings and even to being shackled. Those were the Common Era’s ways to treat depression. Ways of treatment for depression in the Middle Ages were burning, drowning, exorcisms and even being imprisoned in asylums. Robert Burton wrote a book called “Anatomy of Melancholy” in 1621 that explained the causes of depression and treatments. 

Doctors still believed that depression was a brain disorder in the 18th and 19th centuries. People with depression were to be rejected and imprisoned. The treatments in this time were staying underwater without drowning, dieting, vomiting etc. Lobotomies were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries so lobotomy was used to treat depression. Another form of treatment was electroconvulsive therapy, an electric shock to the scalp to create a seizure to treat depression.

In the 1950s, doctors finally had come to a conclusion that there were types of depression, one from genetics and the other one were from other problems in life. Soon, drug medications/antidepressants were a treatment for depression but they had side effects, such as weight gain, increased heart rate, nausea etc. And, more antidepressants were created in that time. 

Now, doctors and researchers are still learning about the causes and the treatments that could be helpful for people with depression since it is more complicated than it seems. Society is also more accepting about depression now. We also have more safe treatments for depression now. In conclusion, the study and treatments of depression have come a long way and we probably all hope that treatments for depression get even better in the future.