By Jennifer Young
Historic treatments of depression have varied, but Eli Lily and Company’s 1972 discovery of Prozac (generic fluoxetine) has proven one of the safest, most effective, and least costly treatments for the too-common mental plague.
The earliest mention of depression dates to Mesopotamia. The ancients believed it was a matter of spiritual illness—a possession by demons–and many civilizations, including Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese, believed it to be a spiritual malady. More times than not, it was the priests who were called to deliver relief and not the physicians. Treatments for this all-too-common illness included beating, starvation, bloodletting, stoning, burning, and physical restraint.
A more humane take on this illness didn’t present itself until the 17th century, when Robert Burton published his volume, The Anatomy of Melancholy. It was Burton’s view that patients experiencing melancholic symptoms should adopt a healthy diet, get sufficient sleep, and listen to music. While a handful of the materials used in Roman medicine proved mildly effective (e.g. St. John’s Wort and valerian root), patients who displayed signs of serious depression were locked away in an asylum and subjected to quack remedies like being spun on a stool, insulin treatment, shock treatment, trepanning, and, in the early-to-mid 20th century, lobotomies.
