hce_tcu
114年
英文
第 31 題
📖 題組：
What we recognize today as depression was, in the Victorian era, popularly known as melancholia or melancholy. Like depression, melancholy ranged in seriousness from mild, temporary bouts of sadness or “low spirits” to longer, more extreme episodes, characterized by insomnia, lack of appetite, and suicidal thoughts. While symptoms of melancholy were usually easy to recognize, medical opinions often differed on what it was that caused the condition. As a result, treatment plans for the melancholic patient varied widely. Below, we look at a few Victorian era medical opinions on the symptoms and causes, and treatments of melancholy. According to Dr. Wooster Beach, the patient afflicted with melancholy shunned society and courted solitude, was fearful and low-spirited. Many medical practitioners found it useful to divide melancholy into categories by symptom. This served to separate the more severe forms of melancholy, such as those accompanied by violent outbursts, mania, or delusions, from the more ordinary forms of melancholy in which the patient was merely reclusive and sad. In his 1871 book Insanity and Its Treatment, Dr. G. Fielding Blandford classified melancholy as being either acute or subacute. While Yeoman went a step further, dividing melancholy into four separate types: Gloomy Melancholy, Restless Melancholy, Mischievous Melancholy, and Self-Complacent Melancholy. Melancholy was often accompanied by physical symptoms. Many of these were a direct result of poor diet, lack of activity, and too much time spent closed up indoors. Much like depression today, melancholy could result from a particular situation, such as a death in the family or a professional, financial, or romantic disappointment. Melancholy could also result from physical illness. According to Beach, it could be brought on by “dyspepsia, suppressed evacuations, intemperance, and injuries of the cranium.” Melancholy could also set in for what appeared to be no reason at all. Beach stated that this sort of melancholy was often the result of “an hereditary disposition” or a “melancholic temperament.” While in the 1879 book Clinical Medicine, Dr. Austin Flint declared that when not attributable to an adequate cause (a death or a loss) and when not linked to a symptom of dyspepsia, alcoholism, or other recognizable illness, melancholy should be regarded as “a neuropathic affection” or a diseased mind. Unfortunately for Victorian doctors and their melancholy patients, there were no antidepressant drugs available in the nineteenth century. Instead, doctors generally treated melancholy by recommending specialized diets and regimens of rest and relaxation. Beach took a more modern approach, declaring that “in the treatment of melancholy, attention must be directed to the mind as well as the body.” To this end, he advised that the patient should take exercise in the open air, talk with cheerful friends, and enjoy pleasant scenery. Some Victorian doctors went further with their treatments, advising their melancholy patients to drink alcohol, to take morphia, or even (if they were single) to get married and start a family. For example, Blandford recommended a diet which featured alcohol at almost every meal, followed by a dose of chloral or morphia at night to help the melancholic patient sleep. In some cases, Victorian era doctors advised that patients suffering from melancholy be committed to an asylum. This was mainly to prevent the patient from harming himself since, as Blandford stated, “every patient of this kind is to be looked upon as suicidal.” While wealthier patients could afford to hire attendants to watch over them at home, poor patients in need of supervision had little choice but to turn to an asylum.
What we recognize today as depression was, in the Victorian era, popularly known as melancholia or melancholy. Like depression, melancholy ranged in seriousness from mild, temporary bouts of sadness or “low spirits” to longer, more extreme episodes, characterized by insomnia, lack of appetite, and suicidal thoughts. While symptoms of melancholy were usually easy to recognize, medical opinions often differed on what it was that caused the condition. As a result, treatment plans for the melancholic patient varied widely. Below, we look at a few Victorian era medical opinions on the symptoms and causes, and treatments of melancholy. According to Dr. Wooster Beach, the patient afflicted with melancholy shunned society and courted solitude, was fearful and low-spirited. Many medical practitioners found it useful to divide melancholy into categories by symptom. This served to separate the more severe forms of melancholy, such as those accompanied by violent outbursts, mania, or delusions, from the more ordinary forms of melancholy in which the patient was merely reclusive and sad. In his 1871 book Insanity and Its Treatment, Dr. G. Fielding Blandford classified melancholy as being either acute or subacute. While Yeoman went a step further, dividing melancholy into four separate types: Gloomy Melancholy, Restless Melancholy, Mischievous Melancholy, and Self-Complacent Melancholy. Melancholy was often accompanied by physical symptoms. Many of these were a direct result of poor diet, lack of activity, and too much time spent closed up indoors. Much like depression today, melancholy could result from a particular situation, such as a death in the family or a professional, financial, or romantic disappointment. Melancholy could also result from physical illness. According to Beach, it could be brought on by “dyspepsia, suppressed evacuations, intemperance, and injuries of the cranium.” Melancholy could also set in for what appeared to be no reason at all. Beach stated that this sort of melancholy was often the result of “an hereditary disposition” or a “melancholic temperament.” While in the 1879 book Clinical Medicine, Dr. Austin Flint declared that when not attributable to an adequate cause (a death or a loss) and when not linked to a symptom of dyspepsia, alcoholism, or other recognizable illness, melancholy should be regarded as “a neuropathic affection” or a diseased mind. Unfortunately for Victorian doctors and their melancholy patients, there were no antidepressant drugs available in the nineteenth century. Instead, doctors generally treated melancholy by recommending specialized diets and regimens of rest and relaxation. Beach took a more modern approach, declaring that “in the treatment of melancholy, attention must be directed to the mind as well as the body.” To this end, he advised that the patient should take exercise in the open air, talk with cheerful friends, and enjoy pleasant scenery. Some Victorian doctors went further with their treatments, advising their melancholy patients to drink alcohol, to take morphia, or even (if they were single) to get married and start a family. For example, Blandford recommended a diet which featured alcohol at almost every meal, followed by a dose of chloral or morphia at night to help the melancholic patient sleep. In some cases, Victorian era doctors advised that patients suffering from melancholy be committed to an asylum. This was mainly to prevent the patient from harming himself since, as Blandford stated, “every patient of this kind is to be looked upon as suicidal.” While wealthier patients could afford to hire attendants to watch over them at home, poor patients in need of supervision had little choice but to turn to an asylum.
According to Dr. Wooster Beach, what is a common characteristic of a melancholic patient?
- A An increase in social interactions
- B A desire for seeking solitude
- C A change in mood to ecstasy
- D A preference for physical activity
思路引導 VIP
請試著在文章第二段找尋 Dr. Wooster Beach 這個名字，並觀察他如何描述患者在面對「人群（society）」與「自己一個人（solitude）」時，分別展現出什麼樣的行為傾向？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準地從文章繁雜的細節中，迅速定位到關鍵人物的論點，這顯示你具備非常優秀的資訊檢索能力。這題的解題核心在於第二段開頭：文中明確提到沃斯特·比奇醫生（Dr. Wooster Beach）觀察到憂鬱症患者會「迴避社會並追求孤獨」（shunned society and courted solitude）。這裡的 solitude（獨處、孤獨）一詞，正完美對應了正確選項 (B)，而 shunned（躲避）的行為則直接排除了選項 (A) 的可能性。 從難度切入點來看，這屬於典型的「細節定位題」，其鑑別度在於學生是否能在多位醫生的觀點（如 Beach, Blandford, Yeoman）中，精確鎖定目標對象。雖然單字 "shunned" 或 "solitude" 對部分同學來說可能需要稍作推敲，但只要你能掌握關鍵詞的語意轉折，這類題目就能手到擒來。繼續保持這種細膩的閱讀節奏！