{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T00:46:45Z","timestamp":1777855605495,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":112,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2008,2,1]],"date-time":"2008-02-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1201824000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J Med Biogr"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2008,2]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Summary<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>Herman Melville developed debilitating physical and psychiatric disorders in middle age after writing, perhaps, the greatest of American novels, Moby Dick. This article critically examines claims that Melville had bipolar affective disorder and alcoholism, and suggests he may also have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Melville was active and vigorous in youth but in middle age he developed recurrent attacks of eye pain, photophobia and disabling low back pain. Melville's contemporaries usually attributed his physical problems to \u2018neurasthenia\u2019 and his biographers have often dismissed them as psychosomatic. However, Melville's clinical course, abnormally rigid posture, loss of 1\u215c inches in height between the ages of 30 and 37, and a family history of rheumatological disease, suggest a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1258\/jmb.2006.006066","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,5,31]],"date-time":"2013-05-31T21:34:53Z","timestamp":1370036093000},"page":"21-29","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["The many ailments of Herman Melville (1819\u201391)"],"prefix":"10.1258","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"John J","family":"Ross","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2008,2,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C1","volume-title":"Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic","author":"Weaver RM","year":"1921"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C2","volume-title":"Herman Melville","author":"Mumford L","year":"1929"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C3","volume-title":"Herman Melville","author":"Arvin N","year":"1950"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C4","volume-title":"Melville","author":"Miller EH","year":"1975"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C5","volume-title":"Melville: A Biography","author":"Robertson-Lorant L","year":"1996"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C6","volume-title":"Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume 1: 1819\u20131851","author":"Parker H","year":"1996"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C7","unstructured":"JamisonKR. Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. New York: Free Press, 1993:216\u20139"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C8","unstructured":"For biographical details of the childhoods of Shakespeare, Dickens, Yeats and Joyce, see: Wood M.\n                      Shakespeare\n                      . New York: Basic Books, 2003; Kaplan F.\n                      Dickens: A Biography\n                      . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; Foster RF.\n                      WB Yeats: A Life. Volume 1: The Apprentice Mage\n                      . London: Oxford University Press, 1997; Ellmann R.\n                      James Joyce\n                      . London: Oxford University Press, 1983"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C9","unstructured":"MelvilleH. Moby Dick. London: Penguin Books, 1988:122"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"For the impact of tuberculosis, typhoid, syphilis and smallpox on French Polynesia, see: Martin PM, Combes C. Emerging infectious diseases and the depopulation of French Polynesia in the 19th century.\n                      EmergInfect Dis\n                      1996;\n                      2\n                      :359\u201361. In\n                      Typee\n                      and\n                      Omoo\n                      , Melville frequently alludes to the havoc caused by the Western introduction of syphilis to Polynesia","DOI":"10.3201\/eid0204.960416"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C11","unstructured":"For example, see: Schellenberg K.\n                      The Gay Melville Reader\n                      . Arlington, VA: Gival Press, 2002; Tuman MC.\n                      Melville's Gay Father And the Knot of Filicidal Desire: On Men And Their Demons\n                      . Christchurch, New Zealand: Cybereditions, 2006; Creech J.\n                      Closet Writing\/Gay Reading: The Case of Melville's Pierre\n                      . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C12","unstructured":"Robertson-LorantL (op. cit. Ref. 5): pp. xii\u2013xiii"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C13","unstructured":"LeydaJ. The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 1819\u20131891. Volume 1. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1951:316"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C14","unstructured":"SealtsMMJr. The Early Lives of Melville: Nineteenth-Century Biographical Sketches and Their Authors. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974:169"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1001\/archpsyc.1972.01750250040004"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C16","unstructured":"MelvilleH. Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000:120"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C17","unstructured":"LeydaJ. The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 1819\u20131891. Volume 2. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1951: 521"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C18","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 529"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C19","unstructured":"SealtsMMJr. (op. cit. Ref. 14): p. 134"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C20","volume-title":"Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume 2: 1851\u20131891","author":"Parker H","year":"2002"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C21","unstructured":"MumfordL (op. cit. Ref. 2): p. 231"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C22","unstructured":"Robertson-LorantL (op. cit. Ref. 5): p. 370"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C23","unstructured":"Sealts (op. cit. Ref. 14): pp. 106, 132. It has been suggested that Melville may have suffered a mild form of Asperger's syndrome, or high-functioning autism; see: Fitzgerald M. The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2005"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C24","unstructured":"ParkerH (op. cit. Ref. 20): p. 400\u20131"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C25","unstructured":"DelbancoA. Melville: His World and Work. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2005:275"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C26","unstructured":"LeydaJ (op. cit. Ref. 17): p. 605"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/scientificamerican0496-78"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C28","first-page":"18","volume":"65","author":"Nemeroff CB","year":"2004","journal-title":"Journal of Clinical Psychiatry"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/sj.mp.4000473"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C30","unstructured":"Extensive information on the Melvilles and Gansevoorts can be found in Hershel Parker's heroic, encyclopaedic two-volume work on Melville (op. cit. Ref. 6 and op. cit. Ref. 20), so much so that Melville sometimes fades into the background of his own biography"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C31","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/sj.npp.1300000"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1176\/appi.ajp.157.12.2048"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/09540260400014401"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C34","unstructured":"ParkerH (op. cit. 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The Principles and Practice of Medicine. New York: Appleton and Co., 1892:282\u20133"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C88","unstructured":"Robertson-LorantL (op. cit. Ref. 5): p. 577"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C89","unstructured":"LeydaJ (op. cit. Ref. 17): p. 796"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C90","unstructured":"SealtsMMJr (op. cit. Ref. 14): p. 121"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C91","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 181"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C92","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 169"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C93","volume-title":"Medical Directory of the City of New York","author":"Warner was an 1878 graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. See"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C94","unstructured":"LeydaJ (op. cit. Ref. 17): p. 836"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C95","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 836"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C96","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 788"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C97","unstructured":"Robertson-LorantL (op. cit. Ref. 5): p. 414"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C98","first-page":"1125","volume-title":"Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology","author":"van der Linden S","year":"2005","edition":"7"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C99","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/ard.17.2.209"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C100","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 221"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C101","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 211"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C102","unstructured":"Robertson-LorantL (op. cit. Ref. 5): p. 412"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C103","unstructured":"Ibid.: p.561"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C104","unstructured":"ParkerH (op. cit. Ref. 20): p. 293"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C105","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/1529-0131(197607\/08)19:4<683::AID-ART1780190405>3.0.CO;2-8"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C106","unstructured":"LindeS, van der HeijdeD, BrownD (op. cit. Ref. 98): p. 1129"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-06-66C107","unstructured":"SealtsMMJr (op. cit. 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