[Medical history of mental disorders of Esais Tegnérs]

Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846), poet, academician and bishop, was a leading personality in the field of culture in Sweden during the first half of nineteenth century. The cycle of poeme Frithiofs Saga made him famous even outside the Nordic Countries. In his poem Mjältsjukan (Spleen), written in 1825, he put into words his personal feelings of pessimism and depression. He suffered from depressed states of mind at several occasions, especially around 1805, 1825 and 1835. 1840 he became manic. This article gives an account of different judgements that have been made about the nature of his mental health reflecting current ideologies among literary historians and psychiatrists from his lifetime until today. During the twentieth century most of the discussion has focused on the diagnosis of manic- depressive illness. Bror Gadelius (1862-1938), professor at the Karolinska Institute, argued in favour of this diagnosis. Another psychiatrist, Torsten Sondén (1893-1953), however, made objections and asserted that the origin of the disease of Tegnér was a brain lesion. The conclusion of this article is that the mental illness of Tegnér could be classified as a bipolar mood disorder according to modern diagnostics.