page_title: Melancholia
hierarchical_section_title: Melancholia
caption_attribution_description: A man whose face exemplifies the melancholy temperament. Drawing, c. 1789. Iconographic Collections Keywords: Thomas Holloway; Johann Caspar Lavater
context_page_description: Melancholia is a mental condition characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions. Melancholia is a concept from ancient or pre-modern medicine. Melancholy was one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. In the 19th century, "melancholia" could be physical as well as mental, and melancholic conditions were classified as such by their common cause rather than by their properties. It is the predecessor of the mental health diagnosis of clinical depression and still exists as a subtype for major depression known as melancholic depression.
context_section_description: Melancholia (from Greek: µέλαινα χολή melaina chole "black bile", "blackness of the bile" also Latin lugere lugubriousness to mourn, Latin morosus moroseness of self-will or fastidious habit, and old English wist wistfulness of intent or saturnine) is a mental condition characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions. Melancholia is a concept from ancient or pre-modern medicine. Melancholy was one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. In the 19th century, "melancholia" could be physical as well as mental, and melancholic conditions were classified as such by their common cause rather than by their properties. It is the predecessor of the mental health diagnosis of clinical depression  and still exists as a subtype for major depression known as melancholic depression.
caption: A man whose face exemplifies the melancholy temperament (1789)
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