SUICIDE.

THE fact is indisputable that suicide is alarmingly on the increase, both in Britain and on the Continent. We are not, indeed, in possession of any perfect series of statistical records, by which to exhibit this in accurate numerical result, for the several cities, countries, and kingdoms of Europe; but the few which we do possess demonstrate that the crime, or rather the disease, has recently been making great progressive advances, far out-stripping (as we shall subsequently show) the proportional increase of population. Professor Grohmann has published an interesting table of the suicides which took place in Hamburgh, from 1816 to 1822 inclusive, exhibiting an increase greatly beyond the most rapid increase of population. In 1816 only two are recorded, though this is probably much below the actual number; for, in the following year, 1817, there are eighteen; but in 1822, we find no fewer than fifty-nine. Even this number, fifty-nine, though enormous when compared with two, is small in proportion to the population, which is estimated at 115,000 -small, we mean, when compared with the suicides in some other capitals, being only .0521 per thousand, while at Copenhagen, the proportion is .6 per thousand, and at Riechenbach as high as 16.6 per thousand, while at Paris, the proportion is only .42 per thousand, and at London as low as 2 per thousand. At Copenhagen, the number of suicides was nearly doubled within twenty years, namely, from 1787 to 1805: from 1787 to 1790, it was 181; from 1790 to 1795, it was 209; from 1795 to 1800, it was 261; and from 1800 to 1805, it was 319. But in 1817, we find only fifty-one suicides reported at Copenhagen.

M. Gasc, in a memoir lately read before the Academie Royale de Médecine, accounts in part for the increase of suicide in Paris, from the increased addiction to gambling manifested among all ranks of the Parisians. Whatever, indeed, raises a storm of conflicting passions in the human mind, must induce a corresponding tumult in the organic functions, and thus lead to violent disorders, fatal diseases, and, not unfrequently, to self-destruction. M. Gasc traces the propensity to gaming to two of the predominant passions of the human heartself-love and self-interest, which can seldom be checked, and cannot be subdued by the lectures of the divine, the exhortations of the philosopher, or the penal statutes of the legislature. He exhibits the gambler as a prey alternately to delirious joy, despair, and

From the Monthly Review.-No. XLII.-De l'Hypochondrie et du Suicide. Par J. P. Falret, M.D. Dictionaire des Sciences Médicales, Article Suicide. Par M. Esquiral. VOL. II.

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rage; and it is no wonder that the tremendous shocks which the brain and nervous system must receive in these paroxysms, should frequently destroy the intellectual faculties, and thus lead to insanity, furious mania, and suicide.

The widely extended system of specula tion may be ranked as one of the most influential causes of the increase of suicide, though it has been almost overlooked by those who have considered the matter systematically.

The following case, for which we are indebted to Dr. James Johnson, strikingly illustrates the preceding remark, and shows how the constitution may be undermined by rash, inconsiderate conduct, during the excitement arising from temporary circumstances. One day, on the Stock Exchange, when the rumours of failures at home and commotions abroad, were producing such alarming vacillations in the public funds, that the whole property of a gentleman of high probity, temperance, and respectability, was in momentary jeopardy; he found himself in so terrible a state of nervous agitation, that he was obliged to leave the scene of confusion and apply to wine, though quite unaccustomed to more than a glass or two at dinner. To his utmost surprise, the wine had no apparent effect, though he drank glass after glass in quick succession, until he had finished a whole bottle. Not the slightest inebriating influence was induced by this unusual quantity taken before dinner. His nervous agitation, however, was calmed, and he went back to the Exchange and transacted business with steadiness, composure, and equanimity. None of the ordinary effects of wine were produced at the time, but the ultimate consequence several days afterwards, was a severe attack of indigestion, to which he had not been previously subject:-a most curious and interesting fact, which shows, that although mental agitation masks, or even prevents the usual effects of wine and other stimulants at the time, and thus induces, and indeed enables men to take more than under ordinary circumstances; yet that the ulterior effects are greatly worse on the constitution, than if the stimulants had produced their usual excitement at the moment of their reception into the stomach. It is thus, we have no doubt, that the nervous system of thousands in this country is ruined; and, in numerous instances, the seeds of suicidal derangement sown, and that without the victims being conscious of the channel through which they have been poisoned.

M. Falret remarks most justly, that opposite extremes of severity and indulgence in education are amongst the most fertile sources of suicide: for if a boy be indulged in every whim and caprice while he is at home; if he be allowed to rule and domiNo. XX.-MARCH 14, 1829.

neer, not only over domestics, but even over his parents themselves (a case unfortunately by no means rare), what are we to expect of him when he enters upon life; when he mixes with the world, and finds that nobody will allow him to have his own way, or to exhibit his tyrannical habits. Is it to be wondered, that he will retire from the scene where he encounters nothing but continued rebuff and reiterated neglect, to brood in solitude over his past supremacy, and to sink into hopeless melancholy, or that he will take refuge at last in the dark uncertainty of

death.

On the contrary, when severe measures are employed to curb the propensities of youth, the young heart is broken and ruined, and the spirit of manliness is crushed down to shrinking timidity and slavish terror, which trembles at the parent's frown, and never dares relax into the smile of cheerfulness. The poor boy becomes melancholy and listless, and flies to solitude, to escape from the severities to which he is daily and unfeelingly subjected. He broods in silence over his misery, and, in all probability, will at last put an end to his unhappy life. These are not exaggerated pictures, though they are extreme cases, and they ought to be a warning and a lesson to all who may have the power to avert one of the most terrible diseases that can afflict humanity.

That suicide, like other species of madness, frequently runs in the blood of particular families, there can be no doubt. M. Falret gives a very striking instance of this. A young man committed suicide at Paris, and his brother was sent for from the country to attend his funeral. On seeing the body, he was seized with great agitation, and exclaimed with melancholy foreboding, "Alas! my poor father died by his own hand, and now my brother has fallen a victim to the same fate, which awaits me also, as I have been strongly tempted when on the way hither, to follow their example, and I A similar instance is mentioned by the celebrated Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. According to Dr. Burrows, the propensity to suicide will propagate its own type through successive races.

cannot avoid it."

"I have had several members of one family under my care where this propensity declared itself through three generations: in the first, the grandfather hung himself; he left four sons; one hung himself, another cut his throat, and a third drowned himself in a most extraordinary manner, after being some months insane; the fourth died a natural death, which, from his eccentricity and unequal mind, was scarcely to be expected. Two of these sons had large families: one child of the third son died insane; two others drowned themselves; another is now insane, and has made the most determined attempts

on his life. Several of the progeny of thi family, being the fourth generation, who are now arrived at puberty, bear strong marks of the same fatal propensity. None, I believe, of the children of the fourth son, of the second generation, who died a natural death, have manifested this predisposition."-Burrows' Commentaries.

Far too much appears to have been ascribed to climate in the production of suicide, systematic authors having been misled by the specious but inaccurate conclusions of Montesquieu, in his Esprit des Loix. M. Falret has therefore been at some pains to prove that it has but a very slight influence as a predisposing cause. The foggy climate of England has been much blamed; but in other climates, equally gloomy-Holland for example-suicide is by no means common, and besides, it is only within the last two hundred years that it has been so frequent in England. Temperature, however, seems to have a much more decided influence than the circumstances of moisture and dryness, storms or serenity usually understood by climate. M. Villeneuve, indeed, tells us that he observed a warm, humid, and cloudy atmosphere to produce a very marked bad effect at Paris, and that so long as the barometer indicated stormy, this effect continued. But it does not accord with this observation, nor with popular belief, that the month of November, so loudly reproached for conducing, by its gloominess, to despondency, despair, and suicide, is well ascertained both at London and Paris, to produce fewer cases of selfdestruction than any other month in the whole year.

At Westminster, Hamburgh, Copenhagen, and Rouen, the maximum number of suicides is in June and July, and the minimum in October and November. The inference, therefore, seems just, that at a high temperature, that is, when the thermometer of Fahrenheit ranges from 80 to 90 deg. suicide is most prevalent. April, indeed, appears from the Paris returns to be the highest in number, but this excess is plausibly accounted for, from the great increase of popu lation, especially those of the upper and middle ranks at this season. In London, Dr. Burrows estimates three-fourths more of these classes in spring, than in the other quarters-an increase sufficient to account for the greater number of suicides, without having recourse to either climate or temperature.

We must also refer to some other cause than climate or temperature to account for the extraordinary prevalence of suicide in some of the towns in Germany. At Potsdam, for example, exclusive of the military, we have 4.99 per thousand; at Merseburgh 6.5 per thousand; and at Reichenbach no less than 16.6 per thousand; while Paris

who were now undergoing all the tortures of bleeding, blistering, and purging, in Queensbury Hospital. He assured them that the fumigation and other precautions must have destroyed the contagion; and that if they would only keep a good heart, and dismiss their fears, he would pledge himself the fever would soon disappear. The effect of the doctor's speech was like magic. The minds of all in the house were instantly reassured. The tide of opinion set in a contrary direc tion, and several of the patients, then in the sick-room, recovered before night, and seven out of eight were quite well in a day or two. Not one of the other inmates of the house, from this day, fell ill for nearly a month afterwards. The patients who had previously been removed to the Hospital, went through a regular fever, some of them severely; and Dr. Hamilton had no doubt that all the girls in the sick-room, when he addressed them, would have gone through the

same course.'

Threatenings, however, of bleeding, blis tering, and purging, would seldom, we are afraid, have much influence in preventing suicide; but the terrors of an unknown state of futurity might, no doubt, be made to operate powerfully; while on the other hand, as M. Falret justly remarks, the religious systems of the Druids, Odin, and Mahomet, by inspiring a contempt for death, have made many suicides. The man, who believes that death is an eternal sleep, scorns to hold up against calamity, and prefers annihilation: the sceptic also often frees himself by selfdestruction from the agony of doubting. The maxim of the Stoics, that man should live only so long as he ought, not so long as he is able, is, we may say, the very parent of suicide. The Brahmin, looking on death as the real entrance into life, and thinking a natural death dishonourable, is eager at all times to get rid of life. The Epicureans and Peripatetics ridiculed suicide, as being death caused by the fear of death. M. Falret, however, goes perhaps too far when he pretends that the noble manner in which the gladiators died in public, not only familiarized the Romans with death, but rendered the thoughts of it rather agreeable than otherwise.

Misinterpretations of passages of Scripture will sometimes lead those who are piously inclined to commit suicide, such as M. Gillet, who hung himself at the age of seventy-five, having left in his own hand-writing the following apology "Jesus Christ has said, that when a tree is old, and can no longer bear fruit, it is good that it should be destroyed." He had more than once attempted his life before the fatal act. Dr. Burrows attended a nobleman, aged thirty, who from fear of poison, though he pretended it was in imitation of our Saviour's fast, took nothing but strawberries and water for three weeks,

and these in very moderate quantities. He never voluntarily abandoned his resolution to fast; but though he was at length compelled to take nutriment, inanition had gone too far, and he died completely extenuated. When sound religious principles produce a struggle in the mind, which is beginning to aberrate, the contest generally terminates in suicide.

"I knew a woman," says M. Falret, "who was convinced that the idea of suicide was contrary to her principles of religion; yet she destroyed herself in the persuasion that every rule has its exceptions, and that hers was a case exactly in point. Some murder themselves to get rid of the horrid thoughts of suicide; whilst others brood over them, like J. J. Rousseau, for months and for years, and at length perpetrate the very action which they dread."

The most extraordinary instance of the latter case, with which we recollect of meeting, was in a countryman of Rousseau's, who advocated suicide as a duty, and spent the greater part of a long life in writing a large folio volume to prove the soundness of his doctrine. After he had completed his work, he thought it was time to give a practical illustration of his principles, and at the age of seventy or eighty (we do not precisely recollect which), he threw himself into the lake of Geneva, and was drowned.

Instances of mutual suicide are by no means uncommon on the continent, and were not unknown in ancient times. Such incidents, it is remarked by Dr. Burrows, are rarely met with in England: its inhabitants are not romantic enough for these exhibitions. An attempted case of this kind, however, occurred within our own knowledge last November, in a village about five miles from London. A young couple, the wife aged sixteen, and the husband nineteen, a few months after marriage having discovered that money is much more easily spent than procured, and being unable to live as they could have wished, held a serious consultation on the subject, and came to the conclusion that their best and only remedy was at once to put an end to their wants by mutual suicide. After dining over this determination, the husband attended to his usual business during the afternoon, but took home with him at tea-time about a quarter of a pound of sugar of lead, for the purpose of executing their design. The whole of this poison was accordingly dissolved in a pot of coffee, and carefully strained and sweetened, to render it more palatable. The young man then deliberately wrote a letter, explaining the circumstances to his father, to whom he had previously sent a message, requesting him to call in the evening, and laid it on the table. Between four and five o'clock, each of the parties drank off half of the poisoned liquor, and in less than an hour the young man's

father having called, found them lying in one another's arms, nearly speechless. All that he could make out from either, was an indistinct muttering of the word "poison." Medical aid was instantly procured, but no persuasion could induce them to take any antidote, both heroically resolving to die, and remaining so fast locked in each other's arms, that it required the united strength of several persons to separate them. The young woman at length began to relax in her obstinacy; but retaining " strong in death" her feelings of obedience, as in duty bound, she imploringly said to her husband, “shall I take it, dear ?" To this he gave a direct negative, enforced with an oath; but her love of life prevailed: she disobeyed him, and took the medicine. The husband was not so easily managed; for the surgeon had to administer the medicine by main force. By persevering in these means, the deleteri ous effects of the poison were (though with considerable difficulty) successfully combated in both cases.

M. Falret is of opinion that suicide, as well as madness, is extremely rare in despotic governments, except, perhaps, during the awful crisis when free states pass into despotism; or in horrid tyrannies like that of Japan, where the slightest crime, or even an attempt at crime, is punished with deathdeath becoming in consequence so familiarized to the people, that a Japanese rips up his belly with all imaginable coolness. The profession of a soldier naturally leads to a contempt of life; but it is only in the idleness of peace that he commits suicide, or becomes a duellist. In active warfare he hardly ever seeks death voluntarily, not even in the greatest reverses: in the disastrous Russian campaign, suicide was scarcely known in the French army. With some exceptions, republics, on the other hand, seem to be favourable to suicide. It is not during the heat of civil commotions, according to M. Falret, that suicide is most prevalent; it is either immediately before their commencement, or when they are subsiding into a state of calmness; in the second, the uncertainty of domestic losses appal the mind and drive it to destruction. In a state of civilization, when almost every person has acquired a certain degree of knowledge, the mind is often called to exertions greater than it can bear; the passions are more violently agitated, and the desires are more craving in proportion to the difficulty of satisfying them; it is then that suicide is common: in Russia it is almost unknown.

An interesting comparison of the causes which produce suicide, may be made by means of the tables published by Professor Casper, of Berlin, with respect to the suicides in the Prussian capital within six years and a half, since 1817, though it may be remarked that a very large number are not accounted for.

We only recollect of two cases in which fire was made choice of as the instrument of self-destruction-that of the Philosopher Empedocles, who threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna, for which he is unmercifully ridiculed by Lucian; and that of a woman, whom we recollect, about twenty years ago, to have thrown herself into the furnace of an iron work.

In perusing M. Falret's work, we met with the following anecdote of Napoleon, which may, perhaps, give some solution of the question started at the period of his reverses, Why he did not commit suicide? When he was first consul, two suicides occurred in a single week in a regiment of the line, and, being apprehensive of the delusion spreading, he issued the following general order :

"A soldier should be able to subdue his passions, as the man who suffers mental pain without shrinking, shows as much real courage as he who stands firm under the fire of a battery; for, to become the prey of melancholy, or to commit suicide to escape from it, is like flying from the field of battle before the contest is decided."