3 2.0 DISEASES Class III. i/ * * h 



into his chamber and found the corpfeof his friend leaning over 

 the arm of a great chair, with the piftol on the ground by him, 

 the ball of which had been difcharged into the roof of his mouth, 

 and pailed into his brain. 



Mr. * and Mr. -, two young men, heirs to confiderable 



fortunes, (hot themfelves at the age of four or five and twenty, 

 without their friends being able to conjecture any caufe for thofe 

 rafh actions. One of them I had long known to exprefs himfelf 

 with diflatisf action, of the world ; at eighteen years of age he 

 complained, that he could not entertain himfelf; he tried to 

 ftudy the law at Cambridge, and afterwards went abroad for a 

 year or two by my advice j but returned difTatisfied with all 

 things. As he had an eruption for fome years on a part of his 

 face, which he probably endeavoured to remove by external ap- 

 plications ; I was induced to afcribe his perpetual ennui to the 

 pain or difagreeable fenfation of a difeafed liver. The other 

 young gentleman fhot himfelf in his bed-room, and I was inform- 

 ed that there was found written on a fcrap of paper' on his table, 

 " I am impotent, and therefore not fit to live." From whence 

 there was reafon to conclude, that this was the hallucinatio ma=> 

 niacalts, the delirious idea, which caufed him to deftroy himfelf. 

 The cafe therefore belongs to mania mutabilis, and not to taedi- 

 um vitse. 



Thofe, who have been employed during the firft half of their 

 lives in fome very active bufmefs, and fucldenly leave it, are li- 

 able to this kind of infanity, and even to fuicide ; of which. I 

 have known two inftances, one of them a Birmingham manu- 

 facturer, and the other a great and fuccefsful commander. This 

 may be afcribed to the accumulation of the fenforial power of 

 volition, and the want of motive to exert or expend it, and 

 which thence becomes painful. See pain of cold from the 

 want of (limulus. III. 2. 1. 17. 



This may afford confolation to thofe, whofe fituation in life 

 obliges them to ufe perpetual induftry in their occupations : they 

 may fay, that as they have been long in the habit of exerting 

 much voluntary action, they mud continue to employ them- 

 felves ; other wife that they mail fink into low fpirits, as it is call- 

 ed, and become unhappy. And as the continuance of activity 

 Is now neceflary to their happinefs, they had better employ 

 themfelves on fuch objects, as are ufeful to themfelves or their 

 connections, than to confume their time, and mifapply their la- 

 bour, in card-playing, wine-drinking, or fox-hunting, which are 

 rther methods of relieving ennui or the irkfomenefs of life by 

 exenion, and confequent expenditure of voluntary power. 



Lefs degrees of this malady are erroneoufly termed hypochon- 



driacifm, 



