Treatment Of Melancholia Research Articles

“A Fantasy of Untouchable Fullness”: Melancholia and Resistance to Educational Transformation

AbstractThe progressive language of growth and development that informs our shared ideal of the educated subject also informs the curricular structure of schooling, in which new learning builds upon established knowledge and students' development depends upon their desire to take on those identities associated with various achievements of knowledge. Each re‐creation of the student's identity requires a new production of the student's former identity as an uneducated self — a negative statement of the self‐overcome, fashioned in the language of the curriculum. But what of those objects of attachment or aspects of the child's identity that can neither be integrated in the student's educated identity nor accounted for as a recognizable lost object of childhood? In this essay James Stillwaggon argues that considering the student subject in terms of its melancholic attachments offers some alternatives to thinking of student identity primarily in terms of its progressive learning function. Julia Kristeva's treatment of melancholia as “asymbolia,” or against the representational function of language, is especially significant to this discussion, as it highlights the melancholic's resistance to the most basic educational purpose, namely the further engagement of the subject in language.

Analysis on medication regularity of modern traditional Chinese medicines in treating melancholia based on data mining technology

To analyze the prescription and medication regularities of traditional Chinese medicines in the treatment of melancholia in the Chinese journal full text database (CNKI), Wanfang Data knowledge service platform, VIP, Chinese biomedical literature database (CBM) in based on the traditional Chinese medicine inheritance support platform software, in order to provide reference for further mining traditional Chinese medicines for the treatment of melancholia and new drug development. The traditional Chinese medicine inheritance support platform software V2.0 was used to establish the prescription database of traditional Chinese medicines for treating melancholia. The software integrated data mining method was adopted to analyze four Qis, five flavors, meridian distribution, frequency statistics, syndrome distribution, composition regularity and new prescriptions. Totally 358 prescriptions for treating melancholia were analyzed to determine the frequency of prescription drugs, commonly used drug pairs and combinations and develop 22 new prescriptions. According to this study, prescriptions for treating depression collected in modern literature databases mainly have the effects in soothing liver and resolving melancholia, strengthening spleen and eliminating phlegm, activating and replenishing blood, regulating liver qi, tonifying spleen qi, clearing heat and purging heat, soothing the mind, nourishing yin and tonifying kidney, with neutral drug property and sweet or bitter flavor, and follow the melancholia treatment principle of "regulating qi and opening the mind, regulating qi and empathy".

Bioactivity Guided Isolation of Quercetin as Anxiolytic Compound from Elaeocarpus ganitrus Beads

Context: In folk medicine the dried fruits of Elaeocarpus ganitrus Roxb. (Elaeocarpaceae), have been used in the treatment of melancholia, manic conditions and other psychological disorders. Objective: To isolate the anxiolytic constituent of E. ganitrus using bioactivity guided fractionation. Materials and methods: Crude extracts of E. ganitrus fruits were prepared using petroleum ether, chloroform and ethanol in a Soxhlet apparatus and finally the marc was boiled with water. Dried extracts were evaluated (50, 100, 200, 400 or 800 mg/kg, p.o) for antianxiety activity in mice using elevated plus maze apparatus (EPM). The most active ethanol extract (1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 mg/kg) was given to animals to observe acute toxicity, and observed for 14 days. Further the bioactive ethanol extract was subjected to column chromatography to isolate the bioactive constituent. The isolated constituent was further evaluated for antianxiety activity using EPM assay, light/dark chamber and double mirrored chamber model of anxiety. The structure of isolated compound was elucidated by IR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR spectral data. Results: Results showed that no mortality was reported even after 14 days. This indicated that ethanol extract was safe up to a single dose of 5000 mg/kg p.o. Antianxiety activity guided fractionation of ethanol extract led to the isolation of 3,3',4',5,7-pentahydroxyflavone. The above isolated bioactive compound (25 mg/kg, p.o) exhibited significant anxiolytic activity in mice using EPM assay, light/dark chamber and double mirrored chamber model of anxiety. Conclusion: It is concluded that 3,3',4',5,7-pentahydroxyflavone is responsible for antianxiety activity of traditionally used E. ganitrus. Keywords: Antianxiety, central nervous system, elaeocarpus, flavonoids, rudraksa, quercetin.

‘Scattered Genealogies’: Melancholia and the Libro de buen amor

As an emblematic text that brings into focus the losses inherent in human love, the Libro de buen amor is permeated by melancholy undertones. While the Libro's accounts of amorous distress have often been interpreted in the light of the protagonist's unscrupulous behaviour, their presence in the text in fact produces essential discoveries about the nexus of traditions coalescing around melancholia at the close of the Middle Ages. Weaving together insights from previus analyses, this study places the Libro within the broad history of melancholia by examining its treatment of melancholia, lovesickness, and acedia within the web of relationships emerging around the concepts of love and sexuality in the medical, religious as well as literary discourses. Arising in the wake of the troubadours’ attempts to revaluate the concept of love and contemporary with the secularization of acedia that brought the Patristic view of tristitia into popular discourse, the Libro's polymorphic representation of melancholia is filtered through the widely disseminated tradition of lovesickness and the humoral doctrine of temperaments. The poem thus synthesizes the intellectual shifts and new directions that, toward the end of the Middle Ages, prepared the terrain for a new understanding of human experience.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor efficacy in severe and melancholic depression.

Depression with melancholic features appears to be a discrete affective syndrome characterised by profound psychomotor, cognitive and mood disturbances that are qualitatively different from other forms of depression. Some investigators have hypothesised that melancholia may have a neurological basis with psychomotor disturbances associated with selective alterations in dopamine neurotransmission and disturbances in basal ganglia function. A number of studies have examined the role of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of melancholia. Although relatively few prospective trials have focused on melancholic depression, several retrospective meta-analyses and trials in populations that are likely to include a high proportion of melancholic patients have provided a wealth of data. While some early studies suggested that SSRIs might be less effective in the treatment of melancholia, the results of these may have been biased and confounded by several side-effects of tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), which might contribute to their apparent efficacy. It appears, however, that the SSRIs may vary among themselves in their apparent efficacy in melancholia. In this regard, sertraline may be more efficacious than other SSRIs and similar to TCAs in the treatment of patients with melancholia. Several studies have suggested that the presence of melancholic features may predict a good response to sertraline, and it has been hypothesised that this may be the result of the relatively potent dopaminergic activity of sertraline, compared with other SSRIs.

Effectiveness of fluoxetine and doxepin in treatment of melancholia in depressed patients

Effectiveness of fluoxetine and doxepin in treatment of melancholia in depressed patients

Effectiveness of fluoxetine and doxepin in treatment of melancholia in depressed patients

It has been suggested that serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may be less effective than tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) in treatment of melancholic depression. We treated 36 depressed ambulatory patients with doxepin or fluoxetine in a double-blind, randomized 6-week trial with placebo run-in. Seven patients treated with doxepin and 13 patients treated with fluoxetine met diagnostic criteria for melancholic depression. Average daily dose was 169.4 +/- 41.6 mg for doxepin and 36.8 +/- 18 mg for fluoxetine. We observed a 50% response rate in both treatment groups, using as outcome criterion reduction of Hamilton Depression Scale Score to less than 10. Regardless of how strict the definition of response, we found fluoxetine to be as effective as doxepin in our group of melancholic outpatients.

Comparative efficacy of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and tricyclics in the treatment of melancholia

The popularity of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors stems from their apparent efficacy for numerous disorders and their favorable side effect profile. However, several studies have suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may be relatively ineffective for treating melancholia. The objective of this study was to compare the responses to fluoxetine and nortriptyline of older patients with both severe depression and heart disease. The outcome of 22 hospitalized patients with unipolar depression and heart disease who were treated with fluoxetine was compared to the outcome of 42 comparable patients treated with nortriptyline. The average age of the fluoxetine group was 73 years, and their mean pretreatment score on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale was 26; the average age of the nortriptyline group was 70, and their mean pretreatment Hamilton score was 28. Of the 42 nortriptyline-treated patients, 28 were responders, six were nonresponders, and eight dropped out. The intent-to-treat response rate was 67% (28 of 42), and the response rate of the melancholic patients who completed the nortriptyline trial was 83% (20 of 24). Of the 22 fluoxetine-treated patients, five were responders, 13 were nonresponders, and four dropped out. The intent-to-treat response rate was 23% (five of 22), and the response rate of the melancholic patients who completed the fluoxetine trial was 10% (one of 10). Fluoxetine appears to be significantly less effective than nortriptyline for treating hospitalized elderly patients with unipolar major affective disorder, especially those with the melancholic subtype and concurrent cardiovascular disease.

Paroxetine in the treatment of melancholia and severe depression

Meta-analyses of the worldwide paroxetine database assessed the efficacy of this compound in the treatment of both DSM-III defined melancholia and hospitalised patients with severe depression (HAMD > or = 25). The analysis for melancholia included 178 paroxetine treated patients and 66 patients treated with placebo. Paroxetine was significantly superior to placebo in the treatment of melancholia and a clear dose-response relationship was established. The meta-analysis for severely depressed hospitalised patients included 109 paroxetine treated patients and 107 patients treated with a tricyclic/tetracyclic control. Paroxetine and active controls showed comparable efficacy in the treatment of severely depressed hospitalised patients.

Paroxetine in the treatment of melancholia and severe depression

Paroxetine in the treatment of melancholia and severe depression

Treatment of melancholia with tranylcypromine

Nine of 12 outpatients meeting DSM-III criteria for melancholia responded to treatment with the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) tranylcypromine. Responders were less depressed before treatment and after treatment than were nonresponders. MAOIs appear useful in treating endogenous depressions.

Treatment of melancholia with tranylcypromine.

Nine of 12 outpatients meeting DSM-III criteria for melancholia responded to treatment with the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) tranylcypromine. Responders were less depressed before treatment and after treatment than were nonresponders. MAOIs appear useful in treating endogenous depressions.

Dexamethasone suppression tests in antidepressant treatment of melancholia. The process of normalization and test-retest reproducibility

• Pilot studies suggest that changes in response to the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) in melancholic patients receiving antidepressants might represent a laboratory marker of clinical progress. We performed weekly DSTs in 31 hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder, primary and endogenous subtypes, during drug-free and subsequent treatment periods. Most nonsuppressors had progressive normalization of DST responses in conjunction with clinical improvement, DST normalization usually preceded or coincided with good clinical response, and failure to normalize was often associated with poorer clinical outcome. Occasional patients with baseline dexamethasone suppression become nonsuppressive after withdrawal from medication, but the DST has no apparent value as a serial marker in patients with welldocumented normal DST findings. Our results extend the construct validity of the DST as a state-related marker in nonsuppressors and suggest future clinical applications.

Opium as a tranquilizer.

We have seen in our survey that our current search for a drug that will calm without sedating is not in any sense new. Over the centuries opium has been used as a tranquilizer and also for its effect as a hypnotic. It was used throughout the spectrum of psychiatric diagnoses but primarily for hysteria and hypochondriasis in its earliest history, then for mania for over a century, and more recently in the treatment of melancholia. Its use in psychiatry reached a peak in the middle of the 19th century, when many doctors considered it the greatest pharmaceutical aid that psychiatry had available. It was about this same time however that this favored psychiatric treatment began to be considered an occasional cause of mental illness and finally as morphinomania, a psychiatric disease itself. But not all psychiatrists recognized it as a disease, and we see in the late 19th century a final irony in the fact that as overcrowding increasingly plagued mental hospitals, addicts whose condition was frequently caused by physicians were turned away in favor of patients with other types of disorders.

The treatment of melancholia in private practice

The treatment of melancholia in private practice

Porphyrinemia and Porphyrinuria: A Warning Regarding Their Importance in Roentgen Therapy

HOW many radiologists recognize the importance of porphyrinemia and porphyrinuria and the possible source of danger in the sensitization, by means of drugs, of the tissues to light? How many of you have had your attention called to this subject at any time? Because of the rather recent introduction of hematoporphyrin (commercially known as Photodyne and other names) into general use in medical therapeutics, particularly in neuropsychiatry in the treatment of melancholia and allied depressive conditions, and the decidedly too promiscuous taking and prescribing of barbituric acid derivatives as sleeping powders, it is altogether likely that some radiologists may have reason to wonder why erythemas appear after moderate or even mild dosage. I am calling your attention to this subject because I have had that experience myself and have been called to help another radiologist who had a scare because of the same thing. As the result of a series of experiments with hematoporphyrin, to determine its photobiologic properties and effects, Hausman1 reported, in 1916, that by hypodermatically injecting solutions of that agent, white mice, rats, and guinea pigs were rendered so highly sensitive to light that when they were exposed to it they became toxic and died; but when these same injected (control) animals were kept in the dark they were apparently unaffected. Huehnerfeld2 and others later reported that while animals so treated showed marked photodynamic effects when the hematoporphyrin was injected under their skin, no such effects resulted when the drug was administered orally, except when large doses were given. Rats fed with large doses became toxic and died within three or four hours after being exposed to bright sunlight. These rats showed fatty degeneration of central liver lobules, hyperemia of the skin and other pathology. Meyer-Betz,3 while experimenting with hematoporphyrin, administered 0.2 gm. under his own skin and then irradiated an area on his arm with a Finsen lamp, with a resulting ulceration in the irradiated area. Two months later he suffered a “light stroke,” with the production of giant edema and deep pigmentation of the skin. While the literature of the manufacturers of hematoporphyrin claims that this drug has no harmful effects, the proven fact that it sensitizes (and causes a sensitization) to light makes it very much worth our while to keep it in mind, because of the potential danger to our patients. What appears to be more important to us as radiologists is that in addition to hematoporphyrin, many commonly used sedatives, such as sulphonal, luminol, and other barbituric acid derivatives produce porphyrinemia and porphrynuria, with the resultant sensitization to light and irradiation. These agents also cause itching, which occuring simultaneously with and accompanying skin redness is decidedly liable to give the unwary radiologist unpleasant insomnia and additional gray hairs.

The Treatment of Melancholia by the Lactic Acid Bacillus

Melancholia, with its attendant constipation and faulty alimentation, lends itself at once to a dietetic form of treatment.Whether the constipation is dependent on defective innervation and is a direct symptom of melancholia or is the initial cause of this mental disturbance, it matters not so far as our endeavours in treatment are concerned.

Age in Relation to the Treatment of Melancholia. Therapeutical Notes

On looking through some of the numerous observations on the treatment of melancholia by drugs, the most striking point is the diversity of opinion as to their use. This disagreement comes out perhaps most strongly in the case of opium, no doubt because it has been the medicine most widely tried. One leaves the study of the subject with the uncomfortable feeling that the whole drug treatment of melancholia is still quite empirical; for eminent observers press that opium should always be tried in every melancholic, while other no less eminent physicians are equally strong in condemning its use in every case. Our own excuse for adding to the over abundant literature on this subject is that we desire to point out some indication in the use of the two drugs, opium and sulphonal, to which we are convinced that more weight than is generally thought should be given. We have been repeatedly struck by the marvellous effects of opium in some cases of melancholia; and have as often been equally surprised at its utter failure in other cases closely resembling those in which we have been so successful. In hopes of finding some sufficient reason for such apparently contradictory results we have carefully examined the case books of this house for recent years, and have tabulated a sufficient number to warrant, we think, an examination of our conclusions by those who have wider opportunities. To these we have added a few non-asylum cases which we have been able to follow ourselves; which would go towards proving that these two drugs have an action independent of any advantage in any general asylum here. We do not propose to go fully into each case, as this would be unnecessary waste of space, and our remarks can be readily followed by a glance at the tables. No attempt has been made to classify, to arrange, or to select the cases beyond choosing only those in which opium or sulphonal has been given. One selection indeed we could not avoid. The material on which we have had to work being almost exclusively drawn from the upper and middle classes, it was inevitable that our patients should be drawn from the same classes; but this will probably not invalidate our conclusions.

The Treatment of Melancholia with Refusal of Food,

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