The formal definition of nostalgia speaks of a sentimentality for the past, the idea of "those good days", or that "everything was better before". However, that definition has changed over the centuries. Its fundamental Greek roots indicate "nóstos" and "álgos", a desperate longing... the desire to return home. And when doctors first identified nostalgia, they concluded that its effects could be mortal if not treated immediately...
The story begins with a young Swiss milkmaid who fell down a slope in 1688. She was taken to the hospital, remained unconscious for several days, the doctors treated her, and her physical condition gradually improved. However, all she did when awake was sit in her bed, refusing food and medicine. The only thing she repeated was "Ich will Heim", "I want to go home". Once her parents removed her from the hospital and returned home, her recovery was complete.
That young woman was one of the first to be diagnosed with "nostalgia", a term created by Dr. Johannes Hofer, who had already identified this disorder among Swiss mercenaries. Those soldiers desperately shared their desire to return home, and when presenting his thesis, Hofer spoke of nostalgia as a "pathological patriotic love", an "intense and dangerous homesickness". Sadness and depression, a disease of displacement.
Nostalgia, the Distance That Kills
Convinced that health experts had not given it enough attention, Hofer began working to identify the main symptoms of nostalgia: permanent sadness, fixation on the homeland, loss of sleep, "stupidity of the mind", low tolerance for jokes or injustices, loss of strength, vision and hearing problems, fever, loss of appetite and rejection of drink. These last points were what made nostalgia a potentially fatal condition.
Hofer also noted that the most affected were young people and teenagers sent to strange lands. Among his recommendations were dietary adjustments, hot baths, "changes of circumstances", outdoor exercise, and socializing, leaving the most extreme treatments (bleeding and purgatives) for advanced cases. If none of that worked, the only option was to return home, but if their situation did not allow it (such as being a member of the army or in some service role)... the consequences could be fatal.
Initially, nostalgia maintained a strong association with Swiss territory. A German doctor went so far as to blame "the air of the Alps", suggesting that the Swiss were so accustomed to the atmosphere of their home that they could not breathe in other regions. Another specialist, Albrecht von Haller, linked nostalgia to changes in altitude and recommended that the sick be placed in towers.
Over time, the hypothetical borders of nostalgia dissolved. It left the mountains to settle in the United States, France, and the European colonies. More than 5,000 soldiers were diagnosed with nostalgia during the Civil War. The last confirmed death "from nostalgia" was an American soldier fighting on the Western Front in 1918, but by then, the scientific community saw nostalgia differently. It had ceased to be a deadly disease to become a condition of the mind... however, that does not mean it does not deserve our attention.
Source: History Today
