Melancholy - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

Medical warning!
This article is from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Medical science has made many leaps forward since it has been written. This is not a site for medical advice, when you need information on a medical condition, consult a professional instead.

MELANCHOLY (Gr.,u€Xa-yxoXia, from pt Xas, black, and xoVi, bile), originally a condition of the mind or body due to a supposed excess of black bile, also this black bile itself, one of the chief "humours" of the body, which were, according to medieval physiology, blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy (see Humour); now a vague term for desponding grief. From the 17th century the name was used of the mental disease now known as "melancholia" (see Insanity), but without any reference to the supposed cause of it.

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