This article was originally published in the New York Times.
Before it reminded us of the glory days, nostalgia was a medical condition involving severe homesickness.
In Word Through The Times, we trace how one word or phrase has changed throughout the history of the newspaper.
In 1898, The New York Times reported that an American soldier had died from a disease so rare that it caused “considerable comment among physicians”: nostalgia. According to a medical authority quoted in The Times, nostalgia was “a form of melancholy brought about by an unsatisfied longing for home.”
