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oai:www.peertechzpublications.org:10.17352/2455-5460.000008 2016-05-05 PTZ.ADA:VOL2

From Black Bile to the Bipolar Spectrum: A Historical Review of the Bipolar Affective Disorder Concept Justin ThomasIan Grey<p>The terms melancholia and mania have their etymologies in classical Greek. Melancholia is derived from&nbsp; ‘melas’ (black) and ‘chole’ (bile), highlighting the term’s origins in pre-Hippocratic humoral&nbsp; theories&nbsp; [ 1 ].&nbsp; Where depression/melancholia&nbsp; was&nbsp; viewed as an excess of black bile, the humoral perspective saw mania as arising from an excess of yellow bile [ 2 ], or a mixture of excessive black and yellow bile [ 3 ]. The exact origins of the term mania however, are not&nbsp; as clear-cut as those outlined for melancholia. The Roman physician, Caelius Aurelianus, proposes several&nbsp; origins&nbsp; for&nbsp; the&nbsp; word&nbsp; mania, including&nbsp; the&nbsp; Greek&nbsp; word ‘ania’, meaning to produce great mental anguish.&nbsp; He also suggests&nbsp; ‘manos’, meaning&nbsp; relaxed or loose, which would approximate to an excessive relaxing of the mind or soul [ 4 ]. There are at&nbsp; least five other etymological candidates proposed by Aurelianus for the word mania and&nbsp; the&nbsp; confusion&nbsp; surrounding&nbsp; the exact etymology is attributed to its varied usage in the pre-Hippocratic poetry and mythologies [ 4 ]. </p> Archives of Depression and Anxiety - Peertechz Publications 2016-05-05 Review Article https://doi.org/10.17352/2455-5460.000008 en Copyright © Justin Thomas et al.