Burns suffered much from indigestion, producing hypochondria. Writing to his friend, Mr. Cunningham, he says, “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to a frame tremblingly alive to the tortures of suspense the stability and hardihood of a rock that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries with thy inquiries after me?” From early life, the poet was subject to a disordered stomach, a disposition to headache, and irregular action of the heart. He describes, in one of his letters, the horrors of his complaint:—“I have been for some time pining under secret wretchedness. The pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, and some wandering stabs of remorse, settle on my life like vultures, when my attention is not called away by the claims of society, or the vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of an executioner. My constitution was blasted _ab origine_ with a deep incurable taint of melancholy that poisoned my existence.” Nothing can be more interesting to a physician who is endowed with only a moderate share of the spirit of observation than to watch the progress of hypochondriasis in a number of patients, especially in regard to its effect on the mind. They always struggle, more or less in the beginning, with the lowness and dejection which affect them; and it is not until many a severe contest has taken place between their natural good sense and the involuntary suggestions which arise from the obscure and painful feelings of the diseased nerves, that a firm belief in the reality of such thoughts gains a full conquest over their judgment. A firm belief in any one perception never takes place until it has acquired a certain degree of force; and as all impressions which arise from the viscera of the abdomen are naturally obscure, we see the reason why these must continue for a great length of time, or be often repeated, before they can withdraw a person’s attention from the ordinary impression of external objects, which are clear and distinct, and before they acquire such a degree of vividness as to destroy the operations of reason. We meet every day with hypochondriacs in whom the disease is just beginning to be formed, and who, being possessed of a good understanding, seem unwilling to tell, even to their medical friends, the singular, and often melancholy, thoughts with which they are tormented. They acknowledge them to be unreasonable, and yet insist that they cannot help believing in them. A very curious display of this kind of struggle between the habitudes of reason and the approach of delirium is to be found in the diary of an hypochondriac, from which we make the following extract:—