@article{ref1,
title="Wild melancholy: on the historical plausibility of a black bile theory of blood madness, or hæmatomania",
journal="History of psychiatry",
year="2020",
author="Verplaetse, Jan",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="Nineteenth-century art historian John Addington Symonds coined the term <i>hæmatomania</i> (blood madness) for the extremely bloodthirsty behaviour of a number of disturbed rulers like Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya (850-902) and Ezzelino da Romano (1194-1259). According to Symonds, this mental pathology was linked to melancholy and caused by an excess of black bile. I explore the historical credibility of this theory of 'wild melancholy', a type of melancholia that crucially deviates from the lethargic main type. I conclude that in its pure form Symonds' black bile theory of hæmatomania was never a broadly supported perspective, but can be traced back to the nosology of the ninth-century physician Ishaq ibn Imran, who practised at the Aghlabid court, to which the sadistic Ibrahim II belonged.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0957-154X",
doi="10.1177/0957154X19898653",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957154X19898653"
}