may remark that the very existence of suggestion is a very (156) powerful motive in all weak minds. Children will do anything they see done, and the mainspring of such actions is the simple thought or suggestion. We have heard a gentleman confess that when in a position to do any act which he had never done, and that he was not in the habit of thinking about, the very thought seemed to create a desire to do the act in question. Once standing beside a line of rail, the thought of how easy it would be to see death's treasured mysteries by throwing himself before the approaching train, he felt a desire or impulse to do so, which, however, he had no difficulty in resisting by the consideration of motives for not doing so. This gentleman was perfectly sane, but the type of act and motive is the same in health and in disease: the comparative power to resist is only infinitely less in the latter than in the former.

233. Suicide in relation to Delusions.-As in all the other forms of partial moral mania, we find that it is frequently associated with intellectual disorder. Many men commit suicide under the influence of delusions. Voices from heaven urge them to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for a sinful world. M. Brierre de Boismont, in his work on "Suicide," has observed, concerning suicidal patients which had come under his cognizance, that eighty-three had hallucinations of hearing, thirty of sight; and in six there were illusions of hearing, thirteen of sight, thirty-three of smell and taste, and six of touch. We shall consider-1st. The modes of death; 2d. The age; 3d. The sex; 4th. Hereditary transmission; 5th. The seasons; 6th. The assigned motives in connection with this subject: as an intimate knowledge of the facts of diseased suicide will often enable the medical

jurist to determine whether the act, or the attempted act, was due to morbid mental conditions or not. There is evidence of the necessity of a more thorough knowledge of suicide and its relation to health in the frequency of the verdict given by coroners' juries of "temporary insanity."

Death.-The

234. The Modes of Death. The statistics with regard to suicide are not in a satisfactory condition. In one table

we find that the greatest number of suicides is ascribed to drowning, in another to strangulation, and this cannot be accounted for by supposing that they are the statistics of different countries. But one thing we gather from all the tables that we have looked at with reference to this matter-that drowning, strangulation, and the use of firearms are more frequently the immediate causes of death in cases of suicide than are precipitation, the use of cutting instruments, or poison. So far as we can ascertain, there is no guide to be found in the mode of death to the solution of the question as to sanity or insanity, as the same means are adopted by those who are sane as by those who are insane. Much ingenuity is manifested in many instances in the contrivances which are meant to procure death both by the healthy and diseased. Weak-minded persons not unfrequently try to injure themselves by swallowing things utterly indigestible. And in one case a large number of pebbles were swallowed with this intention, but nature, although it could not digest the stones, put up with the inconvenience, and no injury resulted.

? 235. Age in relation to Suicide.-Suicide does not occur very often early in life, although there are many instances of suicide committed by children on record. The ages at which it is most common in France is shown, so far as such a table can give a correct indication, in the following comparison: 3

We may add the following facts as to suicide in Geneva, as stated by M. Prevost:

See Dr. Winslow's Anatomy of Suicide, p. 283 et seq. Several interesting cases are given in the Reports of the Cri. Roy. Inst. for 1850, p. 20, and 1851, p. 13.

* Children know nothing of that breaking from prison which is called 'suicide,” says Victor Hugo (L'Homme qui Rit.)

See Bertrand, Traité du Suicide, p. 73.

236.

Sex in relation to Suicide.-Suicide is less common amongst women than men, if [158] statistics may be believed, and we confess that we have no belief in the infallibility of figures. If we did regard them with the reverence that some would have us, we would look upon suicide in males to suicide in females as bearing the same numerical relation that three does to one. But, upon the whole, we should say that self-murder is more common in the stronger than in the weaker sex. According to the experience of M. de Boismont, there is no such peculiar relation with respect to suicide of the two sexes in the insane. Another opinion seems borne out by all the evidence which is to be had in the case. tempts at suicide are not at all infrequent during pregnancy. Amongst the sane more unmarried persons of both sexes commit suicide than married; and when we turn to the insane, we find their relation reversed.

At

237. Hereditary Transmission in relation to Suicide. We must say we do not believe in the hereditary transmission of a tendency to commit self-murder as it is ordinarily understood. That many cases are to be found of father and son and grandsons committing suicide, or making the attempt, we are prepared to hear, and already believe; but we are inclined to think that in such cases the suicide was dependent upon a mental disease, which was transmissible, and upon circumstances which tried the individual and found him unable to stand the test. We are loath to credit the descent of something which has no real existence, except in so far as it originates in lack of mental power as regards a particular class of circumstances or objects. But we are most willing to credit the inheritance of tendencies, of strength or weakness, of disease or health. If education and nurture

teaches the child to have the same tastes and the same desires as its father, and it walks in his footsteps, we should expect to find the same form of disease, in relation to environment, developed, and probably the same or somewhat similar manifestations, by means of acts, resulting therefrom. Besides, so great is the power of suggestion, that the fact that a father committed suicide would have some considerable influence on the actions of the son. Example is not always merely the result of the reasoned advantages of a certain class of acts: it is as unreasoned a following as that of sheep after one another through a hedge. A boy once confessed to us that, having found a pound note, he meant to spend it, until he thought, from the fact of no inquiry being made for it, that it could not be a good one. The mere force of the suggestion restrained him from [159] making use of the note, and he had it in his possession for years. The proof of our proposition is found in the fact that the tendency to hereditary suicide, if we may use the expression, is found in those families where there is an association between suicide and insanity, and not in those families where the sole symptom of the disease was the suicide, or in those cases where the suicide is due to monomaniacal impulse. We know of one family in which the mother was insane, in which three of the children committed suicide, and two are at the present time subject to mania, with lucid intervals. Rush tells the story of a family. A lady was subject to suicidal insanity. She had two daughters, and they were similarly affected. She had two sons, who were twins: the one was found with his throat cut, the other almost in the presence of his wife killed himself by cutting his throat.

93

238. Suicide and the Seasons.--Suicide is most common in spring and summer, but, as Dr. Radcliffe has observed, "it does not follow that this arises solely, or even largely, from the meteorological character of the two seasons.' Everybody would have thought that November, with its dreary drizzling rain, its clinging mists, its gray sky, and its doleful winds, would have conduced to suicide more than the cheery spring, with its opening flowers, pleasant breezes, and

"Smale fowles maken melodie."

The epidemics which are authenticated have almost invariably taken place in June and July-the "dog-days." And we have quite recently been shocked by the announcement of the suicide of a well-known man of letters, which is ascribed to "the excessive heat." We quote a table from Dr. Winslow's book. Of 133 suicides, there were in

There are some most interesting statistics in Dr. Radcliffe's paper already quoted. With regard to the distribution of suicides in the [160] different counties of England and Wales, his analysis shows that Middlesex produces most self-murders, Westmoreland stands next in the scale, and Rutland and Cornwall stand lowest in the list of English suicide-producing counties. There is, of course, some close connection between instruction and suicide: the higher the civilization and education in a county, the more suicides do you find in it. But a comparison of the ranks of society shows that it does not take place so frequently in the higher ranks, although they are better educated, as in the lower middle, showing that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that it is for the want of the higher motives of morality that it really does take place so commonly amongst tailors, shoemakers, and small traders. But we are going out of our way to discuss a question when many lie to our hand-always a bad policy. With regard to the time of day at which self-murder is most commonly committed, we believe that we are correct in stating that more take place during the day than under "the blanket of the dark," more in the morning than in the evening.

? 239. Assigned Motives for Suicide. The assigned motive of the suicide, when it is the result of impulsive monoconia, is almost always trivial. There is a whimsical

Prevost Paradol died about 20th July, 1870.

Aglish Suicide Fields. By J. N. Radcliffe. Medical Critic and Psy. Journal, 7.1. 5., p. 701.