152 Kant: A Biographysubdivides into three parts from those three members, Hepatick, splenetick,
meseraick."^24 Burton's book was apparently a favorite of Hamann's, and
Kant probably knew it as well. The "hypochondriacal winds" of his Dreams
of a Spirit-Seer, and the essay on the "Illnesses of the Head" suggest at the
very least that he knew of the concept. By the end of the eighteenth century
hypochondria had turned into one of the commonest disorders, afflicting
persons from every social stratum.^25 It is not surprising that Kant believed
he suffered from it. Nor was he alone, since Hamann and Kraus were also
professed hypochondriacs.
James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were also afflicted by it. Indeed,
Samuel Johnson's advice to Boswell was quite compatible with Kant's
advice to himself: "constant occupation of the mind, to take a great deal
of exercise, and to live moderately, especially to shun drinking at night."
Hypochondria could be a merely imagined sickness, but often it was not.
Nor would it be correct to think that it was merely a disease of the mind.
This is also what Kant believed. Though hypochondria has to do with fan¬
tasy and is largely based on the whims of the afflicted, "it is an evil, which
probably intermittently migrates through the entire nervous system, re¬
gardless which part of the body is its main location. It attracts primarily a
melancholic vapor around the seat of the soul," and this is why the patient
feels almost every sickness of which he hears, why he likes to talk of his
afflictions and likes to read medical books. Yet, "in society he sometimes
is overcome by good cheer, and then he laughs very much, eats well, and is
commonly viewed as a healthy person."^26 If he is overcome by some strange
idea that might cause him to laugh inappropriately in the presence of
others, or "if some dark representations awaken in him a violent inclina¬
tion (Trieb) towards something evil, and if he is anxious and afraid that it
might erupt (though this might never happen), then his state has similar¬
ity to insanity, even if there is no danger. The evil is not deeply rooted; it
disappears either by itself or through medication, at least insofar as the mind
(Gemüt) is concerned."^27 Kant knew what he was talking about. Indeed, in
claiming that hypochondria has both a physiological and a psychological
component he seems to be talking about himself.
Kant did not have just a vague feeling of discomfort, amplified by
brooding concern. It was not just that he had a tendency to believe that he
had sicknesses, which he might not have had; there was also an under¬
lying physiological cause of these feelings. The emotions or feelings that
"bordered on despair of living" were at least in his own mind and probably also
in reality connected with his narrow chest, which made breathing difficult