Bipolar Disorder: Aretaeus Of Cappadocia

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Bipolar Disorder is one of the oldest known illnesses (Barg). The study of the disorder began in the first century when Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a greek physician and philosopher linked the ideas of melancholy and mania (Burton). Although his ideas went unobserved for centuries, his ideas became relevant in the modern era (Krans). The modern view of the disorder arose in the 19th century when Jean-Pierre Falret proposed the idea that it ran in families and had a strong genetic tie (Burton). In the 1900's, German psychiatrist Emil Kraerelin observed that the untreated disorder involved symptom-free intervals, which differentiated it from schizophrenia (Burton). This later was accepted as the prevalent theory in the 1930's (Barg). Throughout the

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