CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MEANS OF SUICIDE.

It is a somewhat curious fact, considering the immense number of feasible means of terminating one’s existence, that there should be such a small number of methods in constant use. To enumerate the possible means which should fulfil the necessities of the case, viz., to be certain and be speedy, would take too long, and would be unnecessary. The means that are used daily are practically very few; the following eight methods include almost every case: Hanging, drowning, shooting, cut throat and other wounds, falls from a height, placing the body in the path of railway trains and other vehicles, poison, and suffocation by want of air, or poisonous gases. Voluntary starvation, which was common in ancient Rome, is now almost unknown. The relative frequency of these means is found to vary in each country, and in each country varies with age, sex, occupation, and opportunity, but these several numbers are very constant year after year.

Whenever we find the use of an exceptional means, which causes prolonged or more exquisite torture, we constantly find evident traces of insanity─(Morselli). The sane man may kill himself, but he endeavours to do it as easily as may be.

The means I have said is governed by opportunity; for example, Russians, on account of their climate, live mostly indoors, and are forbidden by law to carry arms, so we find hanging most common. In Italy we have an out-door life, and arms are frequently carried, and there we find shooting and drowning the most common. And now of late years, in proportion to the spread of railways, we find the number of persons casting themselves under trains to increase.

HANGING is the most prominent means of suicide almost throughout Europe; the Germans are the most conspicuous for choosing this mode of death, and next the Russians; the Italians, on the contrary avoid it. It is by far the most common means used in England, and has of late years been gaining in frequency in many European countries, notably in France and Denmark. It is never so common among women as among men in any country.

DROWNING is the next most frequent means. Italy and France supply the largest proportions; its amount bears a definite relation to the average temperature; the cooler the climate the less frequent is suicidal drowning; it is rare in Russia. The annual reports show that it is decreasing in France.

The female sex is the especial patroness of death by drowning in every country; twice as many women as men drown themselves in Europe every year.

FIRE ARMS are used chiefly in Italy and Switzerland; they form the fifth means in order of frequency in England. In the neighbourhood of the military frontiers of Austria and Germany they are a frequent means of death.

CUT THROAT occupies about the same position as drowning in England and Ireland; but in no other country is it anything like so common. It is beyond all other wounds the most common. Opening of the veins is an almost forgotten practice.

FALLS from a height are a specially favoured means of destruction with the Italians; it is neglected by all other nationalities.

POISON is another mode of killing very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, especially in England and the United States. Some poisons are very easily procured by anyone, because they are used in the arts, whilst others are difficult to be obtained, and are seldom used for suicidal purposes, except by medical men and chemists.

The poisons most frequently used are: Opium, morphia, and their preparations; prussic acid, cyanide of potassium (used in photography), and essential oil of bitter almonds (used in cookery); carbolic acid and its preparations, the disinfectant liquids; oxalic acid (used in the arts, to clean metals); strychnia and its preparations, the vermin-killing powders.

Less frequently used are lunar caustic; the mercurial salts; the vegetable narcotics; the mineral acids; preparations of arsenic, phosphorus, and its preparations, chiefly vermin killers; and salts of copper.

SUFFOCATION by carbonic acid gas was first used in Paris. Closed charcoal stoves are common in France, and it is easy to destroy life by means of them in a small room. The practice is spreading in France, and has taken root in Germany also.

I now subjoin tables of the means employed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in London, and in Europe generally.

ENGLISH SUICIDES tabulated according to Means.

───────────────────────────┬─────────────┬───────────── │ 1881. │ 1882. MEANS, ├─────┬───────┼─────┬─────── │Male.│Female.│Male.│Female. ───────────────────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── Railways and other vehicles│ 44 │ 6 │ 51 │ 5 Fire-arms │ 118 │ 4 │ 121 │ 2 Cut throat │ 279 │ 60 │ 264 │ 56 Cuts and stabs │ 16 │ 2 │ 23 │ 3 Falls from a height │ 27 │ 13 │ 20 │ 21 Burns, scalds, explosions │ 2 │ 1 │ 5 │ 0 Drowning │ 271 │ 172 │ 240 │ 179 Hanging │ 474 │ 111 │ 528 │ 120 Strangling │ 37 │ 12 │ 30 │ 9 Suffocation by vapours │ 2 │ 0 │ 0 │ 0 Poison │ 147 │ 81 │ 117 │ 111 Other causes │ 59 │ 17 │ 47 │ 13 ├─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── TOTAL │1,476│ 479 │1,446│ 519 └─────┴───────┴─────┴───────

SUICIDES in ENGLAND: Relative use of various POISONS.

──────────────────────┬─────────────┬───────────── │ 1881. │ 1882. POISONS. ├─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── │Male.│Female.│Male.│Female. ──────────────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── Arsenic │ 6 │ 2 │ 4 │ 2 Mercury │ 0 │ 0 │ 4 │ 3 Ammonia │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 │ 1 Phosphorus │ 3 │ 5 │ 1 │ 5 Sulphuric acid │ 1 │ 1 │ 2 │ 1 Nitric acid │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 3 Hydrochloric acid │ 6 │ 1 │ 8 │ 2 Oxalic acid │ 7 │ 8 │ 13 │ 11 Carbolic acid │ 15 │ 18 │ 6 │ 13 Opium and morphia │ 33 │ 6 │ 20 │ 12 Alcohol │ 0 │ 1 │ 1 │ 1 Belladonna and aconite│ 1 │ 1 │ 1 │ 3 Chloroform │ 1 │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 Chloral │ 4 │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 Prussic acid │ 19 │ 1 │ 8 │ 3 Cyanide of potassium │ 15 │ 1 │ 10 │ 4 Strychnia │ 7 │ 9 │ 8 │ 11 Benzoline │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0 Vermin killers │ 0 │ 0 │ 7 │ 17 Disinfectant fluid │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 1 Other poisons │ 19 │ 24 │ 19 │ 18 ├─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── TOTAL │ 147 │ 81 │ 117 │ 111 └─────┴───────┴─────┴───────

As a comparison between England, as a whole, and London, I subjoin these figures, relating to cases in Central Middlesex during 1883 and 1884, investigated by Dr. Danford Thomas or myself:─

─────────────┬─────────────┬───────────── │ 1883 │ 1884 MEANS. ├─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── │Male.│Female.│Male.│Female. ─────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── Hanging │ 16 │ 1 │ 18 │ 4 Drowning │ 15 │ 10 │ 7 │ 4 Poison │ 13 │ 5 │ 21 │ 10 Fire-arms │ 12 │ 0 │ 8 │ 0 Cut throat │ 13 │ 4 │ 12 │ 3 Falls │ 5 │ 3 │ 1 │ 3 Stabs │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0 Railways │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 │ 0 Burns │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0 Suffocation │ 1 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0 Strangulation│ 1 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0 Other means │ 1 │ 0 │ 0 │ 0 ├─────┼───────┼─────┼─────── TOTAL │ 78 │ 24 │ 70 │ 25 └─────┴───────┴─────┴───────

REPORT of Registrar General for Scotland, 1881.

Population 3,745,485 Total Deaths 72,325 General Death-rate 19·31 Suicide Rate 48·5 Total Suicides 182 Of whom were Males 131 „ „ Females 51

TABLE of MEANS.

──────────────┬─────┬─────── MEANS. │Male.│Female. ──────────────┼─────┼─────── Railways │ 2 │ 1 Fire-arms │ 10 │ 0 Cut throat │ 26 │ 4 Cuts and stabs│ 2 │ 0 Hanging │ 44 │ 8 Drowning │ 27 │ 26 Poison │ 11 │ 9 Unstated means│ 9 │ 3 ──────────────┴─────┴───────

_N.B._─These are the latest statistics issued, 1885.

REGISTRAR GENERAL’S REPORT for IRELAND for 1882 and 1883.

General Death Rate, 1882, was 17·4; 1883 was 19·2.

Suicide Rate, 1882, was 20·7; 1883 was 24·7.

──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────── 1882. │ 1883. ──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── There were─ │There were─ │ 141 Homicides. │ 107 Homicides. │ 105 Suicides { Male, 81.│ 124 Suicides { Male, 89. { Female, 24.│ { Female, 35. ──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────

The MEANS were:

─────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────────────── │ 1882. │ 1883. MEANS. ├─────────┬───────────┼──────────┬────────── │ Male. │ Female. │ Male. │ Female. ─────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────── Hanging │ 24 │ 4 │ 19 │ 8 Drowning │ 14 │ 6 │ 17 │ 14 Shooting │ 21 │ 2 │ 20 │ 0 Cutting │ 13 │ 6 │ 25 │ 8 Poison │ 2 │ 4 │ 7 │ 2 Other means │ 7 │ 2 │ 1 │ 3 ─────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴──────────┴───────────

In a Report on the Health of the British Navy for 1883, there are six suicides described, which occurred during the year; 2 were by fire-arms, 1 by hanging, 2 by drowning, and 1 from poison.

I add here a table, supplied by the “Lancet,” of the relative proportional use of various means in the countries of Europe.

Per 1,000 Suicides.

───────────┬────────┬────────┬──────┬────────┬────────────┬─────── Means. │England.│Prussia.│Italy.│Belgium.│Switzerland.│France. ───────────┼────────┼────────┼──────┼────────┼────────────┼─────── Hanging │ 368 │ 608 │ 167 │ 545 │ 430 │ 450 Drowning │ 208 │ 182 │ 300 │ 228 │ 267 │ 290 Fire-arms │ 46 │ 109 │ 244 │ 118 │ 170 │ 110 Cutting │ 206 │ 54 │ 55 │ 39 │ 67 │ 40 Poison │ 94 │ 30 │ 61 │ 23 │ 33 │ 20 Falling │ 20 │ 9 │ 113 │ 15 │ 11 │ 30 Suffocation│ 30 │ 3 │ 22 │ 4 │ 13 │ 70 ───────────┴────────┴────────┴──────┴────────┴────────────┴───────

Legoyt has calculated the relative proportions of these causes in the two sexes, in Europe as a whole, thus:

──────┬────────┬─────────┬──────────┬───────┬──────┬─────── ── │Hanging.│Drowning.│Fire-arms.│Wounds.│Falls.│Poison. ──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┼───────┼──────┼─────── Male │ 521 │ 150 │ 134 │ 89 │ 26 │ 48 Female│ 395 │ 346 │ 8 │ 59 │ 27 │ 117 ──────┴────────┴─────────┴──────────┴───────┴──────┴───────

Of 151 suicides in New York, in 1883, 56 were from fire-arms, 19 hanging, 15 stabbing and cutting, 12 drowning, 11 falls from a height, 18 poisoning with Paris green, and 7 with opium.

These cases have been also tabulated in a manner showing the relative amounts of each means according to nationalities, and disclose the very remarkable fact, that English, French, Germans and Irish, when they have emigrated and are living in a foreign country, still retain their racial predilections for means of suicide; but they also shew that there is a tendency to follow the custom of a place, inasmuch as poison, the favourite means of the native of New York, becomes more frequent among the French and Germans there, than it is among French and Germans at home.

Of means rarely observed, I may mention, death by starvation; it is more rare now-a-days than it was in classical times; it requires extreme resolution to persevere in this means of self-destruction, and it is extremely painful.

One case of attempted crucifixion is on record, that of Matthew Lovat, in 1802, at Venice; he indeed made two attempts, but failed in both.

In Middlesex, last year, a man deliberately inhaled coal gas from the supply pipe in his room, and so died of suffocation and blood poisoning.

During 1881, there were five unusual cases in England; two persons blew themselves up with gunpowder, one person burned himself to death, one died of voluntary starvation, and one died from eating horsehair.

During 1880, one suicide was caused by drinking paraffin spirit, and another by swallowing pennies and pebbles.