Cases of women voluntarily refusing food and becoming severely emaciated, even starving themselves to death. Have been documented as far back as the fourth century.
In 13th century Europe, historical records tell of women saints who fasted and refused food as part of their religious practice.
In 1500 Simone Porta of Genoa, Italy wrote the first medical account of anorexia.
In 1689, one of the earliest cases of what is known as anorexia involved a 16 year old English boy. Richard Morton then published what is now considered the first English-language medical description of anorexia, although it had little impact. He described the occurrence of ‘nervous consumption’ a wasting different from tuberculosis and due to emotional turmoil.
By the 1870s, the term anorexia nervosa, meaning loss of appetite due to emotional reasons, had been coined to describe the self-starvation found primarily among upper-middle-class western European and American girls.
The term ‘anorexia nervosa’ was coined by Sir William Gull. He reported of two adolescent cases, one female and one make, which he describe as occurrences of ‘nervous consumption’ a wasting away due to emotional turmoil.
In 1914 a German pathologist, Morris Simmonds theorized anorexia nervosa to have an endocrine etiology and celled ‘Simmond’s disease’ or ‘pituitary cachexia’, but refuted later after World War II.
After 1960, the research by psychiatrist Hilde Bruch focused attention on the lack of self esteem and the distorted body image of the patients.
Bruch proposed that the self-starvation on anorexia nervosa represents a struggle for autonomy, competence, control and self-respect.
The history of anorexia
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