[History of bipolar disorder: a consideration on ancient western literature].

We can find the description suggesting pathological shift from melancholia to mania in Diseases I (4th century BC) of Corpus Hippocraticum. However, it was 2nd century that detailed account concerning bipolar disorder in modern sense was supposed to appear. Especially the text of Aretaeus of Cappadocia contained several paragraphs indicating this disease. Thereafter in 6th century, Alexander of Tralles clearly mentioned the transition from melancholia to mania. In ancient world, both melancholia and mania embodied vast area of general mental derangement on the one hand, they had restricted meaning of depressive and manic state respectively in modern sense on the other. The situation mentioned above formed the heterogeneity of ancient madness as a whole.