hce_tcu
114年
英文
第 33 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.
What was one of the ways Victorian doctors attempted to treat melancholy?
- A Prescribing antidepressant drugs to fight melancholy
- B Encouraging patients to spend time in nature and engage in physical activity
- C Recommending that patients isolate themselves to avoid stress
- D Suggesting patients avoid any form of physical exertion
思路引導 VIP
若我們回頭看看文章中 Dr. Beach 被稱為「較為現代 (modern approach)」的那套觀點，他認為治療憂鬱時，病人的身體活動與所處的環境應該要產生什麼樣的連結？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
恭喜你準確地選出 (B)！這代表你展現了優秀的長文資訊檢索與比對能力，能從眾多歷史醫療觀點中篩選出正確的治療方案。
維多利亞時代的治療觀點
這題的核心在於文章第四段所提到的「現代療法」。文中明確指出，由於十九世紀還沒有抗憂鬱藥物（排除 A），Dr. Beach 建議治療憂鬱應同時關注心理與生理。他具體提出的建議包含「在戶外運動」(exercise in the open air) 以及「欣賞宜人景色」(enjoy pleasant scenery)，這與選項 (B) 提到的親近自然與身體活動完全契合。至於選項 (C) 與 (D)，文中提到病人「躲避社會」是憂鬱的「症狀」而非建議的「療法」，且醫生是鼓勵運動而非避免運動，因此不能選。
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