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Physiognomy of the melancholic temperament (drawing by Thomas Holloway, c.1789, made for Johann Kaspar Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy). Melancholia or melancholy (from Greek: µέλαινα χολή melaina chole, [1] meaning black bile) [2] is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval, and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood ...
For example, if a person tends to be too happy or "sanguine", one can assume they have too much blood in proportion to the other humours, and can medically act accordingly. Likewise for being too calm and reserved or "phlegmatic" from too much phlegm; excessively sad or "melancholic" from too much black bile; and too angry or "choleric" from ...
Melancholy may refer to: Melancholia, one of the four temperaments in pre-modern medicine and proto-psychology, representing a state of low mood; Depression (mood), a state of low mood, also known as melancholy; Major depressive disorder, a mood disorder historically called melancholy
The melancholic and choleric, however, shared a sustained response (dryness), and the sanguine and phlegmatic shared a short-lived response (wetness). This meant that the choleric and melancholic both would tend to hang on to emotions like anger, and thus appear more serious and critical than the fun-loving sanguine, and the peaceful phlegmatic.
The four temperaments clockwise from top left (sanguine; phlegmatic; melancholic; choleric) according to an ancient theory of mental states. In ancient Greece, disease was thought due to an imbalance in the four basic bodily fluids, or humors. Personality types were similarly thought to be determined by the dominant humor in a particular person.
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Depressive personality disorder, also known as melancholic personality disorder, is a former psychiatric diagnosis that denotes a personality disorder with depressive features. Originally included in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-II , [ citation needed ] , depressive personality disorder was removed from the DSM-III and DSM-III-R .
An example is the British comedian Spike Milligan, who suffered from a long cycle of manic-depressive states that were onset by severe mental breakdowns. [28] Milligan was capable of creating light-hearted humour and outrageous ideas, despite his manic state.