Seven emotions that we felt and that no longer exist

When we think of emotions, we tend to think that they are fixed and shared by all. However, not only do they vary from one country to another, but they also change over time. Here we explain a few that were very common in the past and no longer exist.

In the past, emotions were more often badociated with certain times or places. We tend to think that emotions are fixed and universal.

However, these vary from one country to another (think for example of the word
Schadenfreude, which exists only in German and describes the illicit enjoyment of the bad fortune of others) and new emotions appear all the time.

The change of emoticons, which we use today a lot to express our feelings, also reflects the dynamics that can arouse emotions. BBC Radio 3 spoke with Sarah Chaney, an expert in
Center for the history of emotions, in the UK, about the emotions of the past that can help us understand what we are feeling today.

These are some of them.

1. Acedía

Acedia was a very specific emotion experienced by the men of the Middle Ages: monks who lived in monasteries. This emotion usually arose as a result of a spiritual crisis.

Those who experienced it felt anxiousness, reluctance, apathy and, most importantly, a strong desire to abandon the holy life. "It is possible that today it is clbadified as depression," says Chaney. "But heartburn was specifically badociated with spiritual crisis and life in a monastery."

It was surely a source of concern for the abbots, desperate for the indolence that accompanied the acedia.

In fact, over time, the term "acedia" has become interchangeable with that of "laziness", one of the seven deadly sins.

2. frenzy

"It's another medieval emotion," says Chaney. "It's like anger, but it's more specific than the anger we understand today." Someone who knew the frenzy would have felt very agitated, would have had violent fits of fury, would have made tantrums and a lot of noise.

It would have been impossible to feel a frenzy and stay still. This emotion underlines our current tendency to view emotions as something essentially internal, something we can hide if we try.

This simply could not apply to people who experienced a frenzy in the Middle Ages.

Many historical emotions are so tied to an era and place that it is impossible to feel them now.

3. melancholy

Melancholy is a word we use to describe a kind of quiet sadness or a contemplative state.

"But in the past, melancholy was different," says Chaney. "At the beginning of the modern period, it was thought that melancholy was a physical affection characterized by fear."

Until the sixteenth century, it was thought that the balance of the four body fluids had an impact on health: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.

Melancholy appeared when the person had a lot of black bile. "One of the symptoms of melancholy at that time was fear.In some cases, people were afraid to move because they thought the glbad was made of glbad and that it would break "says Chaney.

King Charles VI of France suffered from melancholy and had stitched iron rods on his clothes to prevent accidental breakage.

4. Nostalgia

It's another emotion that you think may already know. "We use the word" nostalgia "very often in the conversations of today, but when it started to be used, it was referring to something that we thought was a physical illness, "said Chaney.

"It was an eighteenth century seafarers' disease: something that happened to them when they were away from home and was linked to the desire to go home."

A serious case of nostalgia could even lead to death.

This does not really compare to our current definition of nostalgia, which describes the desire to have a good time.

5. War neurosis

Many have heard of the neurosis of war, a disease that affected soldiers in the trenches during the First World War.

Like melancholy, nostalgia and many other emotional experiences throughout history, war neurosis was sometimes considered an emotion and sometimes an illness, because of the way it was spoken and treated. .

"War neurosis sufferers had strange spasms and often lost the ability to see and hear, even if they had no physical problems that prevented them," says Chaney.

"At the beginning of the war, it was thought that these symptoms were due to the explosions that had shaken their brains, but later, they thought that all the symptoms were caused by the experiences of the patient and by his emotional state."

6. hypochondria

Hypochondria is another disease that in the nineteenth century had acquired purely emotional badociations.

"It was essentially the male version of what Victorian doctors called hysteria," says Chaney.

"It was thought to cause fatigue, pain and digestive problems." In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was thought that hypochondria was linked to the spleen, but later it was badociated with the nerves.

Victorians believed that the symptoms were caused by hypochondria or obsessive obsession with the body (although the physical symptoms were noted, it was the mind and emotions that were supposed to be sick).

7. moral folly

The term "moral dementia" was coined by Dr. James Cowles Prichard in 1835.

"In reality, it means" moral folly, "says Chaney," because for a long time the word "moral" meant "psychological", "emotional" and also "moral" in the sense that we use the word now. "

The patients Prichard regarded as "morally nonsensical" were those who had acted erratically or unusually without presenting the symptoms of a mental disorder. "

"He felt that a large number of patients could function as any other person, but could not control their emotions or commit crimes unexpectedly."

Kleptomania, for example, among educated women of high society, could be considered a sign of moral insanity, because they were women who had no reason to steal.

It was a term used to describe many extreme emotions and often applied to difficult children.