Nostalgia Was Once a Disease

In 1688, the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer observed a peculiar ailment affecting Swiss mercenaries serving far from their mountainous homeland (Review). To describe their condition, he combined the Greek words *nostos* (homecoming) and *algos* (pain), coining the term "nostalgia." This was not the sentimental feeling we know today, but a debilitating and sometimes fatal medical diagnosis. Physicians believed it was a neurological disease caused by demonic possession or a "lesion of the imagination," manifesting in severe physical symptoms like high fevers, stomach pain, loss of appetite, and intense anxiety.

The condition was considered so serious that its triggers were carefully managed. For instance, certain Swiss folk songs that evoked the sounds of alpine life were sometimes banned in military camps to prevent an outbreak of the malady among the troops. While treatments ranged from leeches and opium to forced pleasant thoughts, the only consistently effective cure was a discharge and a return trip home. Over the next two centuries, as our understanding of psychology evolved, nostalgia was gradually reclassified from a specific, physical disease into the universal, bittersweet emotion of longing for one's personal past.