Did they used to be focused on things like the humors and stuff like that? Was hypochondria/germophobia not really a thing before germ theory? Are there any other disorders that have changed/presented differently due to new widespread knowledge about the world?
In: Biology
Hypochondria has been around a long time, but you used to be able to do more drugs about it; one of the demographics that the field of patent medicine catered to was people who thought they might have something wrong with them but didn’t have a doctor who agreed.
Germophobia obviously would not have been called that, but if you read period literature you can find characters written into novels who have a fear of miasma/foul odors, of dirt, of disease in general. I feel like the words for anxieties change as much or more than the base fears themselves do.
Your instinct that the things these psychological disorders attach themselves to are culturally informed. Another example you may be familiar with is that paranoid schizophrenics are stereotypically concerned that the government or some other evil organization is either reading their thoughts or beaming thoughts into their brain through antennas.
In the earliest broadly accepted fully documented case of schizophrenia, a man believed that nefarious actors had invented a loom which could weave air, and that the air was affecting his mind by affecting the magnetic fluid in his body.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews
You may notice that this is obviously nonsense. It doesn’t make sense at all to talk about machines which can weave air to affect magnetic fluid. But if it isn’t obvious to you, I would like to also point out that experiments with pneumatics and magnetics and the development of powered looms were all recent phenomena in British society in the late 1700s. In other words, this man seized on the most plausible, newest technology, to explain why he felt that other people were messing with his body and mind.
By analogy, we can expect that people who are currently afraid of germs probably weren’t afraid of germs 500 years ago, because what they’re really afraid of is disorder and disease, and germ theory wasn’t something they had access to. So they would be scared of something else like miasmas and they would probably leave their windows open even when it’s freezing cold outside, or something like that.
As for the second part of your question, there were no anti-vaxxers before vaccines were invented. But in the first years there were hell lot of them. People used to make fun of Jenner, and there were so many pictures depicting people transforming into cows (first vaccines against smallpox were based on cowpox, after Jenner noticed that farmers who got cowpox very seldom were infected with smallpox).
An example of a “disease”, perception of which has changed, is “female hysteria”. Women were treated by almost torturing (sometimes hysterectomy or placement into insane asylum) for nothing.
Hypochondria itself used to be, according to a 1765 text by Robert Whytt, the male equivalent of Hysteria. Hypochondria arose from the hypochondriac region (the area just under the ribs, Whytt identifies it as the alimentary canal), hysteria arose from an ‘unsound womb’.
The hypochondriac and hysteric disorders can be reduced to two main categories:
* A too great delicacy and sensibility of the whole nervous system
* This can arise from being frequently ill, haemorrhages, fatigue, excessive grief, luxurious living, and want of exercise
* An uncommon weakness or a depraved or unnatural feeling in some of the organs.
Such people have a greater sensitivity in their nervous system, and so they suffer ailments “from causes too slight to make any remarkable impression on those of firmer nerves”.
Now in Whytts text, Hypochondria and Hysteria primarily relate to actual physical symptoms – what we’d now refer to as things like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, polydipsia, vertigo, migraine, things like that. There’s also one case that sounds a lot like type 1 diabetes.
He does though describe “low spirits” including mania and melancholy – these “may be frequently owing to some morbid matter in the blood, flatulent and improper aliments, or other causes affecting the stomach and bowels” and that it is “the nature of the obstructing matter or morbid state of the nerves of those viscera” that causes the symptoms.
His cures for Low Spirits, if you’re curious include:
* Exercise and cold baths (“the best remedies”)
* When owing to the weak state of the nerves of the stomach: a tincture of bark and bitters, spring water that contains iron, a proper diet, and riding.
* When from obstructions in the viscera, or foulness in the bowels: “aloetic purges” (laxatives), water from Harrowgate, England; salt of tartar
* When caused by loss of periods or by haemorrhoids: bloodletting
* When caused by excessive grief or distress of the mind: agreeable company, daily exericise (“especially travelling”), and a variety of amusements.
TLDR: at least in 1765, they believed that anxiety and mental health disorders arose from the gastrointestinal system
King Charles the 4th of France (1368–1422) is a famous example of someone who believed he was made of glass, a condition known as glass delusion. To protect himself from breaking, he would wear clothing reinforced with iron rods and stay wrapped in blankets for hours.
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