[Mania and melancholia in the writings of Aretaeus].

In antique medicine mania and melancholia were diagnosed as impairment of sense and imagination. Aretaeus considered that the difference between them was that melancholia was "partial" insanity (anxiety of the soul caused by a single idea), while mania was insanity of the "whole soul". This concept led to extension of both terms, in particular melancholia which composed also paranoid and hallucinatory symptomatology. This concept persisted to the beginning of the 19th century.