Daughters of Sun. Mania, Melancholy and Love Sickness in Ancient Myth and Scientific Sources
Authors
Valentina Gazzaniga
History of Medicine and Bioethics Unit Sapienza Molecular Medicine Department - University of Rome, I
Silvia Marinozzi
History of Medicine and Bioethics Unit Sapienza Molecular Medicine Department - University of Rome, I
Keywords:
Lovesickness , Daughters of the Sun, Mania , Melancholy , Black bile
Abstract
Ancient medical and philosophical sources do not discuss the etiology of ovesickness, simply cataloguing its symptoms. The ‘informal’ connection between black bile and lovesickness turns, in later texts, into a disease in whick black bile overheats, changing its nature (in CH it is a cold and dry element), burning and producing smoke. The article analyze this ‘ontological’ changement; the Pseudoaristotelian Problema XXX can help in reconstructing the sense of the mythological stories of Pasiphae, Medea, Ariadne and Phaedra, women bound by a close family relationship.
