When Was Manic Depression First Discovered?

Often known as bipolar disorder today, manic depression has a history dating back to the time of Hippocrates. Much has been learned about the disorder over the past 150 years or so, leading to its current distinction as a disorder characterized by low lows (depression) and high highs (mania), affecting one in 100 people globally.

• One in every 100 people suffer from manic depression worldwide.

Ancient Science

• Hippocrates around the year 400 B.C. diagnosed "melancholy," which translates to "black bile." He believed it was biologically based. The first person to connect melancholy with gifted philosophers and thinkers was Aristotle, circa 360 B.C. Richard Burton's book, "The Anatomy of Melancholia," was written in 1650, based on symptoms of mania and depression described by Aretaeus of Cappadocia in Turkey in the second century. Burton's work was focused mainly on the depression aspect of the disorder.

"Melancholic Mania"

• Andres Piquer, physician to King Ferdinand VI of Spain, diagnosed a "melancholic-manic affect" in 1759. The term "bipolar disorder" stemmed from a discovery in 1854 by Dr. Jules Falret, who linked depression with suicide, describing the phenomenon as "folie circulaire," or circular insanity. His studies distinguished differences between depression and heightened moods in his patients, known today as mania.

Manic-Depressive Psychosis

• Falret's discovery was recorded in 1875 as "manic-depressive psychosis," a psychiatric disorder with a genetic link found in certain families. It was not until 1913, however, that the term "manic-depressive" was established by Emil Kraepelin after a study on the effects of depression and a short manic state in his patients.

Genetics

• While Falret's genetic link was fragile at best in 1875, by 1952, in an article published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, analyzed his theory and concluded that manic depression ran in families with a history of the disorder. Nonetheless, Congress did not recognize manic depression as an illness and, through the 1960s, manic-depressive patients were sent to institutions without funding.

Bipolar Disorder

• The National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI) was founded in 1979, securing manic depression and similar mental health disorders as legitimate. By the following year, NAMI had replaced "manic-depressive disorder" with the term "bipolar disorder" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association.

"Manic-Depressive Illness"

• Published by Oxford University Press in 1999, "Manic-Depressive Illness" by Frederick K. Goodwin, M.D., and Kay Redfield Jamison offered a comprehensive study of the disorder and became the definitive work on manic-depressive disorder.