WARNING: Some of the artifacts present may be difficult for some people to see. If you have are squeamish to blood and torture, the items in this archive may not be for you. Also, if you or anyone you know is experiencing any depressive or melancholia, please seek help. The assistance that you will find is helpful and nearly all of the methods you will see today are outdated.

Hello and welcome to my digital archive exhibit demonstrating the various prescriptions that have been used to treat melancholy throughout time. While viewing the exhibit, you will be able to experience different tools, methods, and locations that were utilized and believed to cure melancholy. The exhibit begins with entering a room that was designed after one that was used for solitary confinement. Once inside, the remaining artifacts will be placed around the room. These artifacts will include a spring lancet used for bloodletting, a mummified leech, a bucket and rag used for waterboarding, an electroconvulsive therapy machine, a trepanned skull, and a bottle of antidepressants.

Each of these artifacts have at one point been prescribed to a melancholic patient to try and stop their melancholia from continuing to plague them. Through this archive, I will discuss the way each artifact was originally used during their time of usage, as well as discuss how the world views the method today. One common factor that is evident with many of the early methods is how brutal and inhumane they are viewed as in today’s world. This is due to the scientific advancements that have been discovered that allowed for us to truly realize the mental, emotional, and physical harm that was being done to each of the patients that were prescribed these cures. A few of these prescriptions are used as punishments today because of the cruelty of them. This is seen with waterboarding and solitary confinement. The latter being used predominantly within jails for prisoners who act out of line, or for the ones who are seen as the most dangerous. Waterboarding on the other hand, is now most commonly associated with war and interrogations to force information out of people. While this is the case with a majority of the artifacts, some of them are still seen in medicine today, whether from being a more recent prescription, or having the science around the act become more known and safer. This is specifically seen with trepanning and antidepressants. Trepanning has witnessed the most dramatic change from its original intention, as now the purpose of cutting a hole through someone’s skull is used to do physical surgery on the brain, or to stop pressure from building up from a swelling brain. The only reason that it can still be associated with trepanning is due to the motion of cutting open the skull. Antidepressants, alternatively, is a very recent addition to the melancholy prescriptions. It is becoming more popular today and has become widely accepted and viewed as the safest, easiest, and most effective cure.

The way this archive is designed is to mimic an exhibit within a museum. The overall room that it is based within is solitary confinement. This dark and gloomy room sets the tone for the feeling of depression that overcame each and every patient that was prescribed one of these various cures. The remaining artifacts are scattered throughout the room to show what was used. Each artifact is set up to show what it looked like as well as try to develop the atmosphere of what it was like to use each of the methods. This involves headphones playing various sounds for each part of the exhibit. This ranges from skin slicing, water pouring, electricity, and of course screams.

In order to gather the information that is used within the archive, I utilized various scholarly search engines. These include ProQuest, JSTOR, and Google Scholar. Through each of these search engines, I was able to find and cite a variety of peer reviewed articles, medical journals, and other scholarly sources to develop a full understanding of each of these “melancholia cures”. By also utilizing the information provided in our textbook, The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva by Jennifer Radden, I was able to develop the full picture surrounding each of the artifacts.

So now that you know what I chose to create my archive on and how I found my information, you may be wondering why. Well, these various ways that people dealt with melancholy fascinated me. It was interesting to see why doctors, melancholic patients, and the general public believed why and how these methods worked. While looking at each method may not be the fairest judgement, it was interesting to me to see how we can look back on these different ways of dealing with melancholy and determining what implications would be brought up today. When putting myself in the mindset of someone during each method’s prime, it gives a more justifiable connotation. From rebalancing the 4 humors within the body, or fixing a damaged brain, each method has its reasoning for their use.

Now that you have learned a little about what this archive is, please enjoy, but be aware, as some of these methods may leave a mark. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to rweigand@highpoint.edu.