The incidence of depession rises in tandem with the drugs for its prevention.

Millions people worldwide are now thought to be taking Prozac

Prozac  the second bestselling medication worldwide, just behind the ulcer drug Zantac yet alongside its popularity depression’s rise has been irresistible.

In 1970, the psychiatrist Heinz Lehmann estimated that there were 100 million cases worldwide of depression. In the US alone, the number of consultations leading to prescriptions for antidepressants jumped from 2.5 million to 4.7 million between 1980 and 1989. In France, the number rose sevenfold between 1970 and 1996, and no fewer than 14 million prescriptions were were recorded in 1994 between 1980 and 1989. In France, the number rose sevenfold between 1970 and 1996 leading to prescriptions for antidepressants jumped from 2.5 million to 4.7 million and no fewer than 14 million prescriptions were recorded in 1994.

The World  Health Organisation predicts that depression will soon become the second largest public health problem – the largest is heart disease. What we are witnessing is an epidemic. But and 'Epidiemic' is caused by a virus - and depression is not a virus.

So how then did  the handful of 'melancholic' (as they were then termed) patients in the 1950s become the millions of 'depressives' in the 2000s

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