Background and history of the interface between anxiety and vertigo

Abstract

The comorbidity of vertigo and anxiety has been an integral component of the medical literature since antiquity. In the works of Plato, the same terms were used in the context of vertigo, inebriation, height vertigo, disorientation, and mental confusion. In classical medicine, vertigo had the ambiguous status of being both a disease per se and a symptom of other diseases such as hypochondriacal melancholy. Further, two etiologies were described for vertigo: an origin in the head (brain) and an origin in the hypochondria (abdominal viscera). In the course of the development of a detailed neurologic taxonomy of vertigo in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a debate ensued whether agoraphobia was a form of vertigo or a distinct psychiatric condition. Elucidation of this forgotten debate, within its historical context, provides insights into the recent rediscovery of the balance-anxiety interface.