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Nostalgia: a ‘forgotten’ psychological disorder*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

George Rosen
George Rosen
Affiliation:
Department of the History of Science and Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, U.S.A.
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Extract

Nostalgia, a psychopathological condition affecting individuals who are uprooted, whose social contacts are fragmented, who are isolated and who feel totally frustrated and alienated, was first described in the 17th century and was a problem of considerable interest to physicians in the 18th and 19th centuries. by the 20th century it seemed to have disappeared, but reappeared under other labels.

Type
Original Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , November 1975 , pp. 340 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Notes and References

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8 Ibid., p. 180. Although Hofer speaks of a Latin name, the words from which he formed the term nostalgia are Greek.

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14 Ibid., p. 188.

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16 Jaspers mentions a Professor Detharding of Rostock who published a work on the air of Rostock in 1705 in which he disputed Scheuchzer on nostalgia. This controversy was again brought up by Zedler in 1735, according to Jaspers, but he gives no specific citation.

17 Onomatologia medica completa oder Medicinisches Lexicon das alle Benennungen und Kunstwörter welche der Arzneiwissenschaft und Apoteckerkunst eigen sind deutlich und vollständig erkläret zu allgemeinem Gebrauch, heraus-gegeben von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Aerzte und mit einer Vorrede begleitet von Herrn D. Albrecht von Haller. Ulm: Franckfurt, in der Gauvinischen Handlung, 1755, p. 1072Google Scholar.

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30 See footnote no. 7.

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32 Zimmermann, op. cit., p. 485.

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46 Larrey, D. J. (1821). Recueil de Mémoires de Chirurgie, Compère, Paris.Google Scholar For this paper I have used the American edition: Surgical Essays by Baron D. J. Larrey, translated from the French by John Revere, M.D., Baltimore, N. G. Maxwell, 1823, pp. 153–205. For an interesting account of Larrey's career see Soubiran, André: Le Baron Larrey Chirurgien de Napoléon, Paris, Fayard, 1966.Google Scholar

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48 Ibid., pp. 177–179. For the cruise of 1787–88 to whichLarrey refers see Larrey, D. J.: Mémoires de Chirurgie Militaire, et Campagnes, vol. 1, Paris, J. Smith, 1812, Pp. 28–48Google Scholar (see Pp. 45–48).

49 This is borne out by a comparison between the essay on nostalgia and his account in volume IV of his Memoires.… vol. 4, Paris, J. Smith, 1817, Pp. 104–153 (see particularly Pp. 125–147).

50 Larrey, op. cit., pp. 157–159.

51 Matthey, Andre (1816). Nouvelles Recherches sur les Maladies de l'Esprit, Précedées de Considérations sur les Difficultés de l'Art de Guérir, pp. 94–95. J.-J.Pasch oud: Paris.Google Scholar

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68 This aspect of nostalgia was discussed by Albert Deutsch in his account of military psychiatry during the Civil War. However, he did not relate this episode to the larger history of nostalgia. See Deutsch, Albert (1944). Military Psychiatry: The Civil War, 1861–1865, in One Hundred Years of American Psychiatry, Pp. 367–384 (see Pp. 373–377). Edited by Hall, J. K. et al. Columbia University Press: New York.Google Scholar

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