When I was first aware that I had been laid low by the disease$$$ I felt a need$$$ among other things$$$ to register a strong protest against the word "depression." Depression$$$ most people know$$$ used to be termed "melancholia$$$" a word which appears in English as the year 1303 and crops up more than once in Chaucer$$$ who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. "Melancholia" would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder$$$ but it was usurped by a noun with a blank tonality and lacking any magisterial presence$$$ used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground$$$ a true wimp of a word for such a major illness. It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times$$$ a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated -- the Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer -- had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless$$$ for over seventy-five years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug$$$ leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing$$$ by its insipidity$$$ a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control.
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