He quoted English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's " Dejection " as a perfect description of his case : " A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear, / A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, / Which finds no natural outlet or relief / In word, or sigh, or tear . " English writer Samuel Johnson used the term " the black dog " in the 1780s to describe his own depression, and it was subsequently popularized by depression sufferer former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
