Posted by JohnD
Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:51:00 GMT
In January 1841, Abraham Lincoln, then a state legislator in Illinois, wrote to his law partner about securing a post for a physician who was then treating him for a nervous disorder called hypochondriasis, or hypo for short, a condition we would call major depression. “I have, within the last few days, been making a most discreditable exhibition of myself in the way of hypochondriaism and thereby got an impression that Dr. Henry is necessary to my existence. Unless he gets that place, he leaves Springfield. You therefore see how much I am interested in the matter.” And what was the treatment Lincoln was receiving?
As Joshua Shenk’s study, Lincoln’s Melancholy
reports, he likely undertook some version of the accepted remedies used by most practitioners. These were drawn from the first textbook of mental diseases in the United States prepared by Dr. Benjamin Rush. This was the physician and political figure who became famous as a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the foremost medical expert of the time. Rush’s approach to “hypo” was to scourge the body with biblical fury and so shock the patient back to a state of normality. Bleeding out enormous quantities, more than was drawn for any physical disease, was the first step, followed by purgatives that would violently empty stomach and bowels (mercury, arsenic or strychnine were the favored agents), immersion in successive hot and cold baths, painful mustard rubs, stimulants that could set off more intestinal fireworks, a starvation diet, vigorous exercise – all of which usually reduced a patient to trembling weakness. That was the point – to shake the black bile out of the system and kick start it at more balanced mental rhythms.
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Posted in Explanations, Fighting Depression, Men and Depression, Spirituality and Depression | Tags adaptation, Benjamin Rush, Civil War, depression, freedom, humor, hypochondriasis, Joshua Shenk, Lincoln, melancholy, mesmerism, poetry, purpose, slavery, suicide, transcendent, treatment | no comments | no trackbacks
