History and epidemiology of panic

Abstract

The conceptualisation and investigation of panic disorder have developed on two different axes, medical and psychological, for more than 100 years. In medicine, reports of acute anxiety attacks with cardiac, circulatory, and respiratory symptoms date back to the French Revolution, and terms such as “soldier's heart”, “neurocirculatory neurasthenia”, or “hyperventilation syndrome” have been used to describe them. In psychological medicine, anxiety attacks were first reported by Domrich in 1849. These attacks, which were thought to be caused by strong emotions, were classified mainly within neurasthenia, until Freud created the concept of anxiety neurosis in 1895.