This article historically examines the ideological background that opened the way to the transformation of the notion of melancholia into the concepts of depression and bipolar disorder, based on changes in medicine and psychology during the 19th century. The older notion of melancholia was remodeled and its transition to the concept of depression disorder was facilitated by the concept of lipemania, introduced by Esquirol, who first emphasized the primarily affective nature of the disease. Finally, once the necessary conceptual conditions had been attained, melancholia and mania were merged into the concept of periodic, circular and alternating (or even simultaneous) insanity. Consequently, its strict descriptive standards were relaxed, culminating in Kraepelin's synopsis.
Melancholia; bipolar disorder-history; depressive disorder-history; history of psychiatry