ABSTRACT

In our renewed interest in the links between mind and body – a holistic approach to wellbeing – evident from a good deal of media coverage, as well as that by mental health support organizations, we are to some extent revisiting the thoughts on mental health of our forefathers. Porter’s (1987) fascinating history of psychiatry in the past three centuries reminds us how for a long period, the source of the problems of the mind were seen to lie in the body (principally the heart or abdomen – the intestines), and therefore the solutions too (bleeding, enemas). Of course the links between nervousness and the workings of the intestines have long been recognized, though more commonly in the opposite direction – mind affecting body. Certain foods were thought to be damaging or beneficial to the mind; for example, Cheyne, writing between 1724 and 1743, believed that heavy eating was linked to heavy spirits, and depression sometimes the result of too much rich food. Cheyne’s cure was milk and seeds.