Ivins’s friends and family had argued that his suicide last week and proceeding mental decline was provoked by being the target of FBI investigators who questioned his family and followed his every move in the last year. But the records released on Wednesday make it clear that . Ivins, a microbiologist who worked at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., had suffered from mental problems long before.

None of the e-mail, his lawyers point out in asserting their former client’s innocence, ever threatened a biological attack or acknowledged responsibility for one. The messages do, however, show that Ivins privately confided to an unidentified co-worker that he was deeply troubled.

A forensic psychiatrist consulted by the FBI found that Ivins had been treated with antidepressants and anti anxiety and antipsychotic medication, according to the documents.