Melancholy, Spleen, Hypochondria
Mental diseases in Europe and England from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
pp. 95-116
in: Alfred Bellebaum, Robert Hettlage (eds), Missvergnügen, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
According to the London physician Nicholas Robinson in his New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack Melancholy (1729), "[t]he World … has been a long Time at a Loss to know what to make of those Disorders we call the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack Melancholy; nor have they been less puzzled to discover, under what Class of Diseases they might most properly range them."