In confirmation of this view of Esquirol’s, the following cases are related:[47]—A gentleman of apparently sound constitution, aged 32, was married to a woman whom he affectionately loved. His affairs became deranged a few years after his marriage, which greatly discouraged him, and rendered him inactive, but without apparently affecting his health. He now embarked in a speculation which promised much advantage, and at first applied himself to business with unremitting assiduity. In the course of a month he encountered some difficulties, which depressed him beyond measure. He considered himself ruined, refused to quit his bed, and would not superintend his workmen, from a conviction that he was no longer capable of directing their operations. He complained of headache, heat in his stomach, &c. His affection for his wife and children, his pecuniary interests, all failed to rouse him from this moral and physical prostration. He reasoned sanely on the critical state of his affairs, and yet made no effort to rescue himself from his difficulties. Eight days passed in this way, when all at once he sprung from his bed in perfect integrity of mind and body. He resumed instantaneously all his activity for business, all his affection for his family. The same state, however, recurred ten or twelve times since, at irregular intervals, caused in general by trifling contrarieties of business, which, under other circumstances, would be considered as nothing. During several of these paroxysms he had impulses to suicide; but this dreaded catastrophe has not yet taken place. A female was admitted into the Salpetriere on the 23d of September, 1819, in the 34th year of her age, and fourteen years after marriage. At the age of 21 she had a child, after which she was affected with an ulcer in the foot, which was healed in six months. From this time she was troubled with cardialgia, at first slight, but afterwards with intense pain and vomiting of her food. At the age of 33 she became irresolute in her ideas and actions. She expressed an aversion for those things which she had been previously pleased with, and was occasionally incoherent. After suffering from other derangements of her general health, she abandoned her household affairs, became quite despondent, and tried more than once to commit suicide. In this state she was admitted into the hospital, and was put upon diluents, low diet, &c. As she shewed indications of having recovered, she was allowed to return to her family; but in a short period she was harassed with gloomy ideas, despaired of recovery, and expressed a desire to quit life, the duties of which she said she was no longer able to fulfil.