Abstract

Psychiatry has a habit of ignoring its past, which is understandable but, in some instances, a mistake. It is my contention that some of the lacunae about mood disorder in today's psychiatric understanding and treatment may be illuminated by the medical lore captured in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). The implications of the present analysis for network based accounts of depression seem to encourage a reconsideration of therapeutic and remedial principles based on those found in Burton's work.