[Self-description of a depressive patient--on William Cowper's pathobiography].

The life of an English poet of the eighteenth century who suffered from periodic depression, i.e. phasic depressive illness, is described. The study is based on a short autobiography and mainly on more than 400 dated letters addressed to a small number of relatives and friends. These sources allow the diagnostic evaluation, the description of the symptomatology and its change during the course of his illness. In their personal style these letters express the suffering during melancholy and the mastering of these experiences after recovery, within the framework of his religious convictions. The possibilities of care and treatment of a depressive patient at that time are also considered.