The Nosological Status Of Depression

Although the nineteenth century has seen a scientific revolution, the state of knowledge in psychiatric circles remained at the pre-scientific stage for a long period of time. It was not until Kraepelin, the founder of modern psychiatry, publis- hed his lehrbuch der psychiatrie in 1896 that a renewed interest was shown to the study of the aetiology and nosology of psychiatric disorders in general, and depres- sive ones in particular. Kreapelin subdivided mental illnesses into three major categories : dementia praecox, manic-depressive psychosis, and paraphrenia. By introducing this class- ification, kraepelin had established a nosological system that gave psychiatry its much needed scientific basis and respect in the medical community.