George Cheyne and his Work
His next book The English Malady 1733, included case histories of some of his patients and a lengthy account of his own battle with obesity and depression. To Cheyne the English Malady was melancholy, not obesity itself, but obesity was one symptom of that melancholy a lowness of spirits, anxiety, insomnia and nervous agitation which was the result of modern, urban life and immoderate and luxurious lifestyle. As Roy Porter points out, when diseases were labelled by nationality it usually signified contempt and dread; syphilis, for example, was known to the British as the French disease and to the French as the Spanish disease. By calling his syndrome 'the English malady', Cheyne was in fact flattering his readers. He saw the syndrome as arising from English wealth, civilization and refinement. Just as today's celebrities talk of food intolerances, burn-out and exhaustion and check into health spas, clinics and retreats, so the eighteenth century elite also believed themselves particularly susceptible to nervous disorders and dietary complaints.
280 years ago. And all "experts" have done in the intervening centuries is change the name.
