Postscript to my recent post on the life of Alexander Cruden (1699-1770). We find it quite hard to imagine to imagine how people could found themselves so easily incarcerated in gaols or private asylums supposedly 'mad' or 'insane'. Julia Keay has an interesting comment on that fact. She said that when one looks that earlier centuries that the mad and insane are treated quite differently from those unfortunates of the 18th century because in former times they were usually left alone. When Robert Burton (1577-1640) wrote his justly famous Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) he took the view that melancholy was a complex phenomenon. For him it had physical, social, spiritual, biotic, mood and actions aspects to it. Burton saw melancholy (clinical depression) as related to sin and the devil but also realised that other matters contributed such as diet, fresh air, exercise, and amount of sleep. Burton also used the ancient idea of the four humours to explain depression:...
we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen --Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles