Page:Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind - Benjamin Rush.djvu/364

 two cases of it in the Bethlehem Hospital, one of whom, a boy of thirteen years of age, was perfectly sensible of his depravity, and often asked "why God had not made him like other men." He was, as might be expected, completely miserable, and often expressed a wish for death. An epitome of all that has been recorded, or perhaps seen, of this derangement in the moral faculties, has been given by Edgar of himself, in the tragedy of King Lear, in the following lines.

In the course of my life, I have been consulted in three cases of the total perversion of the moral faculties. One of them was in a young man, the second in a young woman, both of Virginia, and the third was in the daughter of a citizen of Philadelphia. The last was addicted to every kind of mischief. Her wickedness had no intervals while she was awake, except when she was kept busy in some steady and difficult employment.