"The term was coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer (1669–1752) in his Basel dissertation. Hofer introduced nostalgia or mal du pays ‘homesickness’ for the condition also known asmal du Suisse ‘Swiss illness’ or Schweizerheimweh ‘Swiss homesickness,’ because of its frequent occurrence in Swiss mercenaries who in the plains of lowlands of France or Italy were pining for their native mountain landscapes. Symptoms were also thought to include fainting, high fever, indigestion, stomach pain, and death…. In the eighteenth century, scientists were looking for a locus of nostalgia, a nostalgic bone."
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