A Short Background On Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder has a long history as seen by the etymology of melancholia and mania came from Ancient Greece. During the 2nd century AD, the Greek physician Soranus of Ephesus described mania and melancholia as distinct illnesses with different causes and but acknowledged that other people consider melancholia as a type of disease of mania. In the meantime, another Greek physician Arateus of Cappadocia recognized both symptoms and contemplated if they are however related.

A lot of people consider the book of Richard Burton in 1650 , The Anatomy of Melancholia, a milestone in bipolar disorder because of his discussions about depression. His work is considered to be a classic and today he is acknowledge as the " Father of Depression as a Mental Illness".

It was only during the 1850s that a clear conceptualization of a manic-depressive condition was formed, considering the very long history of bipolar disorder. Jules Baillarger and Jean-Pierre Fairet, both presented a disorder that has manic depressive syndrome but both cannot agree on who initialized and conceptualized this condition.

When the term "manic-depressive psychosis" was coined by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in 1913, it was considered a milestone in bipolar disorder. He studied the natural course of untreated bipolar patients and found out that the bouts of mania and depression were punctuated by symptom-free periods wherein the individual can function normally.

Meanwhile Dr initiated the use of lithium carbonate to treat manic-depressive psychosis. John Cade after the World War II. By 1950’s, hospitals began trying the effectiveness of lithium on their patients. However, Lithium was only approved as medication during the 70's by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Despite the long history of bipolar disorder, it is only institutionalized in 1968 during the first revision of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II). In 1980, the revision of Diagnostic and Statistic of Mental Disorder changed the term manic-depressive illness to bipolar disorder.