“Saw you not even now a blessed troopInvite me to a banquet, whose bright facesCast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?They promised me eternal happiness;And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feelI am not worthy yet to wear.”King Henry VIII.
“Saw you not even now a blessed troopInvite me to a banquet, whose bright facesCast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?They promised me eternal happiness;And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feelI am not worthy yet to wear.”King Henry VIII.
“Saw you not even now a blessed troopInvite me to a banquet, whose bright facesCast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?They promised me eternal happiness;And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feelI am not worthy yet to wear.”King Henry VIII.
“Saw you not even now a blessed troop
Invite me to a banquet, whose bright faces
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
They promised me eternal happiness;
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
I am not worthy yet to wear.”
King Henry VIII.
Many have, under the notion that the fear of death is beneficial to the mind, done their best to keep the idea constantly before them.
“If I must die, I’ll snatch at anythingThat may but mind me of my latest breath;Death’s-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bringInto my soul such useful thoughts of death,That this sable king of fearsShall not catch me unawares.”
“If I must die, I’ll snatch at anythingThat may but mind me of my latest breath;Death’s-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bringInto my soul such useful thoughts of death,That this sable king of fearsShall not catch me unawares.”
“If I must die, I’ll snatch at anythingThat may but mind me of my latest breath;Death’s-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bringInto my soul such useful thoughts of death,That this sable king of fearsShall not catch me unawares.”
“If I must die, I’ll snatch at anything
That may but mind me of my latest breath;
Death’s-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bring
Into my soul such useful thoughts of death,
That this sable king of fears
Shall not catch me unawares.”
Young raised about him an artificial idea of death; he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table by lamp-light. At the end of an avenue in his garden wasplaced on a seat an admirable chiaro-oscuro, which when approached presented only a painted surface, with an inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world.
Dr. J. Donne, the celebrated English divine and poet, is said to have longed for the hour of dissolution. Previous to his death, he gave instructions for a monument, which his friends had declared their intention to erect to his memory. A carver made him in wood the figure of an urn, and having secured the services of a painter, the Doctor ordered the urn to be brought into his chamber. Having taken off his clothes, he procured a white sheet, which was put on him, and tied with knots at his hands and feet. In this state he stood upon the urn, with his eyes closed, and a portion of the sheet turned aside in order to shew his lean, pale, and death-like face. In this posture, the painter sketched him; and when the monument was finished, it was placed by his bed-side, and was hourly the source of contemplation until his death.
The “lightening up before death,” so often perceptible, is but the result of venous blood being sent to the brain. When respiration becomes imperfect, the blood does not undergo the proper chemical change in the lungs (arterialization), and its effect on the sentient organ is such as is occasionally witnessed prior to dissolution. Abernethy considers the sensations of the dying similar to those experienced by persons labouring under delirium. He relates the case of a man who appeared, during his delirious state, to meet with old acquaintances. The companions of his youthful days flocked once more around him—old associations were revived. “How are you, my dear fellow?” he exclaimed. “It is long since we met. Give us your fist, my hearty. Now, that is a good joke; I never heard a better. Ah! ah! ah!”
We had once the painful duty of watching the expiring struggles of a man whose life had been one long career of vice and debauchery. His death was truly appalling. It was evident, from the expressions which escaped him when dying,that his mind had a vivid conception of the scenes in which he had played so conspicuous a part. “Now for the dice!” he exclaimed, with the fury of a maniac. “That’s mine! No! all, all is gone! More wine, d—— you; more wine! Oh! how they rattle! Fiends, fiends, assail me! I say, you cheat! the cards are marked! Now the chains rattle! O death! O death!” and with a terrific groan he breathed his last.
Among the causes which operate in producing the disposition to commit suicide, we must not omit to mention those connected with erroneous religious notions. M. Falret justly remarks, that the religious system 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 self-destruction 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 observe, the very parent of suicide. The Brahmin, looking on death as the very 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 fear of death. M. Falret, however, goes perhaps too far when he asserts 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. M. Gillet hung himself at the age of seventy-five, having left in his own handwriting 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 who, for fear of being poisoned, though he pretended it was in imitation of our Saviour’s fast, tooknothing but strawberries and water for three weeks, and these in very moderate quantities. He never voluntarily abandoned his resolution. He was at length compelled to take some nutriment, but not until inanition had gone too far; and he died completely attenuated. When sound religious principles produce a struggle in the mind which is beginning to aberrate, the contest generally ends in suicide.
Some murder themselves to get rid of the horrid thoughts of suicide; whilst others brood over them like Rousseau, for months and for years, and at length perpetrate the very action which they dread. A countryman of Rousseau’s, who advocated suicide as a duty, and who spent the greater part of a long life in writing a large folio volume to prove the soundness of his doctrine, thought it his duty, after he had completed his work, to give a practical illustration of his principles, and, accordingly, at the age of seventy, threw himself into the Lake of Geneva, and was drowned.
It may appear strange that religion, the greatest blessing bestowed by Heaven on man, should ever prove a cause of one of his severest calamities. But perhaps it would be more accurate to impute such unhappy effects to fanaticism, or to the total want of religion.
Instances very frequently occur in practice in which patients have appeared, some suddenly, and others gradually, to be seized with a species of religious horror, despairing of salvation, asserting that they had committed sins which never could be forgiven, who had never previously appeared to be under religious impressions. Some of these have been visited by divines of various denominations, and been induced to hear sermons and read books well calculated to dispel gloomy apprehensions, and excite religious hope and confidence. With some this has succeeded, especially when conjoined with medical aid; but it has been observed, that in the cases of those who have recovered, the patients haveemergedprecisely as theyimmerged; for as they before were unconcerned aboutreligious matters, so they remained after their recovery; thus the indisposition has been very erroneously imputed to religion when it has no kind of affinity to, or concern with it. Such cases almost invariably exhibit the same symptoms, which generally turn on these points—despair of temporal support, or despair of final salvation. But the medical practitioner, and not the divine, is the proper person to be consulted in such cases; and, however the mind may be affected in them, the patient is to be relieved by means of medicine. It may be added, that the agonies of mind under which some persons labour who are called fanatically mad arise from a sense of moral turpitude, independent of any peculiar religious tenets or opinions.
The true doctrines of Christianity, when properly inculcated, never excite a gloomy state of mind. “To be religious,” says South, “it is not necessary to be dull.” Cowper (perhaps, however, the most miserable and melancholy of men) beautifully says—
“True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,For others’ woes, but smile upon her own.”
“True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,For others’ woes, but smile upon her own.”
“True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,For others’ woes, but smile upon her own.”
“True piety is cheerful as the day,
Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,
For others’ woes, but smile upon her own.”
Persons who act from impulse liable to be influenced—Principle of imitation, a natural instinct—Cases related by Cabanis and Tissot—The suicidal barbers—Epidemic suicide at the Hôtel des Invalides—Sydenham’s epidemic—The ladies of Miletus—Dr. Parrish’s case—Are insanity and suicide contagious?
Themost singular feature connected with the subject of suicide is, that the disposition to sacrifice life has, at different periods, been known to prevail epidemically, from a perversion, as it has been supposed, of the natural instinct of imitation. This is not only the case with reference to suicide, but is witnessed also in cases of murder. The atrocities of the French Revolution are, to a certain extent, to be traced to the influence of this imitative principle. Persons whose feelings are not thoroughly under their command, who act from impulse and not from reflection, are very prone to be operated upon by the cause referred to. Man has been defined an imitative animal; and in many instances we witness this propensity controlling almost irresistibly the actions of the individual. Tissot relates the case of a young woman in whom this faculty was so strongly developed that she could not avoid doing everything she saw others do. Cabanis gives the account of a man in whom the tendency to imitate was so strongly marked, and active, from disease, that “he experienced insupportable suffering” when he was preventedfrom yielding to its impulses. A woman, in the ward of an hospital, will be seized with an epileptic fit; in the course of a short period, other cases will occur in the same ward. A child was brought into one of our metropolitan hospitals, labouring under a violent attack of convulsions. She had not been in the house five minutes before three children who were present were seized with spasmodic convulsions of a similar character. The commission of a great and extraordinary crime produces not unfrequently the mania of imitation in the district in which it happened. A criminal was executed at Paris, not many years ago, for murder. A few weeks afterwards, another murder was perpetrated; and when the young man was asked to assign a reason for taking away the life of a fellow-creature, he replied, that he was not instigated by any feeling of malice, but, after having witnessed the execution, he felt a desire, over which he had no control, to commit a similar crime, and had no rest until he had gratified his feelings. It is only on the same principle that we can account for the following singular case of suicide. It is related by Sir Charles Bell, in his “Institutes of Surgery.” The surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital who preceded Sir Charles Bell went into a barber’s shop, in the neighbourhood of the institution, to be shaved. As the barber was operating upon his chin, the conversation turned upon the case of a man who had been admitted the previous day into the hospital, and who had attempted, unsuccessfully, to kill himself, by cutting his throat. “He could easily have managed it,” said the surgeon, in rather a jocular strain, “had he been acquainted with the situation of the carotid artery. He did not cut in the proper place.” “Where should he have cut?” asked the barber, quietly. The surgeon, not suspecting what was passing through the barber’s mind, gave a popular lecture on the anatomy of the neck—pointed out the exact position of the large vessels, and shewed where they could easily be wounded. After the conversation, the barber made some excuse for leaving the room; and, notreturning as soon as was expected, the surgeon went to look for him, when he was discovered in the yard, behind the house, with his head nearly severed from his body!
The following case is, perhaps, more strange and inexplicable than the one just related. The brother of a hairdresser and barber had killed himself by blowing out his brains. The circumstance appeared to affect seriously the mind of his relative. He left his business for a few days; and then returned, apparently more tranquil in his mind. In the morning, several persons came in to be shaved; and, all at once, he felt a strong, and almost overwhelming, inclination to cut some one’s throat. He fought manfully, however, against this horrid desire. During the whole of the earlier part of the day, he had been able to resist the gratification of the feeling. Every time he placed the razor in contact with the throat, he fancied he heard a voice within him exclaim, “Kill him! kill him!” In the afternoon, an elderly gentleman came into the shop to be shaved; and when the barber had nearly concluded the operation, he was again seized with the desire; and, before he could summon courage enough to suppress it, he gave the man’s throat a tremendous gash; fortunately, however, the wound was not fatal.
Gall informs us of a man who, on reading in the newspapers the particulars of a case of murder, perpetrated under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, was instantly seized with a desire to murder his servant, and would have done so, had he not given his intended victim timely warning to escape.
Some years ago, a man hung himself on the threshold of one of the doors of the corridor at theHôtel des Invalides. No suicide had occurred in the establishment for two years previously; but in the succeeding fortnight, five invalids hung themselves on the same cross bar, and the governor was obliged to shut up the passage.
Sydenham informs us that, at Mansfield, in a particular year, in the month of June, suicide prevailed to an alarming degree, from a cause wholly unaccountable. The same thinghappened at Rouen, in 1806; at Stuttgard, in the summer of 1811; and at a village of St. Pierre Montjean, in the Valais, in the year 1813. One of the most remarkable epidemics of the kind was that which prevailed at Versailles in the year 1793. The number of suicides within the year was 1300—a number out of all proportion to the population of the town.
In the olden time, the ladies of Miletus, in a fit of melancholy for the absence of their husbands and lovers, resolved to hang themselves, and vied with each other in the alacrity with which they did the deed. In the time of the Ptolemies, a stoic philosopher pleaded so eloquently, one day, to an Alexandrian audience on the advantages of suicide, that he inspired his hearers with his principles, and a great number voluntarily sacrificed their lives.
A clergyman, master of a very large and popular school, the locality of which, for obvious reasons, it would not do to specify, recently informed one of his friends that he had discovered a new pupil in the act of practising a disgraceful vice. “Send him home to his parents, and say nothing about it,” was the friend’s judicious recommendation. The schoolmaster, however, placed great confidence in his own eloquence and the corrective powers of the birch. He assembled his boys, made an excellent harangue on the guilt of the delinquent, and gave him a sound flogging. The example of crime proved more influential than the example of punishment, and the vice spread so rapidly that the whole school was broken up in consequence.39
The particulars of the following case are recorded in the “American Journal of the Medical Sciences,” by Dr. Parrish. He says, “I was called to visit a child in the family of J. S., a respectable gentleman residing in my neighbourhood. On my arrival, at 3P. M., I found, on going into the chamber of my patient, that death had occurred. The patient was a girl in her fifteenth year, who had been carefullybrought up by a family with whom she had lived between seven and eight years. She had generally enjoyed good health, with the exception of occasional attacks of sickness of the stomach, and headache. She had just passed the age of puberty, and possessed a docile disposition. Her situation in life, as far as could be ascertained, was in every respect agreeable, and congenial to her wishes.
“On the morning of the day of her death, she was engaged as usual in the domestic concerns of the family until eight o’clock, when she was observed in the yard vomiting. Upon inquiring into the history of the case, I found that early in the morning on which the patient died, she had held a conversation with a little girl residing in the next house, in which she mentioned having lately read in a newspaper of a man who had been unfortunate in his business, and had taken arsenic to destroy himself; she also spoke of an apothecary’s shop near by, and said she frequently went there.
“The narration of this conversation afforded strong suspicion to my mind that she had committed suicide; a suspicion which was strengthened by the fact, that a few months previous I had been called upon to visit a person residing in the same house, who had suffered for some years under mental derangement, and had recently been discharged from the insane hospital near Frankford; he had taken laudanum, with the intent of destroying himself.
“This circumstance would naturally produce a strong impression upon the mind of the child, which was increased, no doubt, by the reading of the case detailed in the newspaper. In this way the desire to commit a similar act was kindled up in the mind of the deluded girl, and thus, by that inexplicable connexion which, in some instances at least, appears to exist between the knowledge of such a horrible act and the desire to perform it, she was almost irresistibly impelled to the deed.
“This case is stated as affording strong testimony in favour of a principle which is now beginning to attract the attention of medical men—viz., that the publicity which is given tocases of suicide, in the newspapers and by other means, forms one of the strongest incentives to the commission of the act, in those who have a secret disposition to destroy themselves.
“If this be the fact, a high responsibility rests upon physicians, so to influence public opinion, and more especially editors, as to prevent the narration of the circumstances connected with the death of this unfortunate class. No good can certainly arise (to the public) from the exposure of facts which ought to remain concealed in the bosom of distressed families; while there is reason to believe the list of victims to suicide is annually very much swelled from the course which is now so generally pursued.”40
It has been noticed that certain atmospherical phenomena have attended or preceded the suicidal epidemics that have prevailed at various periods. Whether these electrical conditions of the air are in any way connected with this peculiar form of contagious malady is a point not easily to be decided. A certain degree of atmospherical moisture appears to favour the spread of the suicidal disposition; but this may result from the well known influence of moist air on the disposition of the mind, and may operate by causing a degree of mental despondency and lassitude, very favourable to the development of the suicidal mania, particularly after the occurrence of any very remarkable case of self-destruction. It is notorious that nothing is so likely to unsettle the mind, especially if an hereditary disposition be present, than constantly associating with lunatics, and allowing the mind to dwell for any length of time on the subject of insanity. If actual mental derangement does not result from an exposure to the causes referred to, a certain degree of eccentricity bordering on the confines of aberration is generally perceptible. With our present amount of knowledge of the subtle principle of contagion, it is difficult to say whether an effluvium may not be generated in such cases which, under certainconditions of the system, may communicate disease. We cannot possibly say that this is not the case. If we are justified, which we by no means are willing to admit, in the opinion that the disposition to suicide and insanity may be propagated by contagion, using this term in its usual acceptation, it is a great consolation to the mind to think that only occasionally does the disease exhibit the slightest approach to virulence, and that, unlike many of the admitted contagious maladies, we may approach the patient without much fear or apprehension.
Singular motives for committing suicide—A man who delighted in torturing himself—A dangerous experiment—Pleasures of carnage—Disposition to leap from precipices—Lord Byron’s allusion to the influence of fascination—Miss Moyes and the Monument—A man who could not trust himself with a razor—Esquirol’s opinion of such cases—Danger of ascending elevated places.
Howstrange, extraordinary, and inexplicable are the motives which often lead to the commission of suicide! Many have been induced to rush into the arms of death in order to avoid the pain which they fancy accompanies dissolution. “Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare mori?” Others have been apparently led to the perpetration of the crime by a desire to ascertain what sensations attended the act of dying; whilst some have been influenced by a feeling of fascination, and have stated that they experienced ecstatic delight at the idea of self-immolation.
The case of a man is recorded who felt the most exquisite delight in torturing himself. He had often expressed a wish to be hanged, from the notion that this Newgate mode of terminating life must give rise to sensations of great pleasure. The idea occurred to him one day of trying the experiment. He procured a piece of cord, attached it to the ceiling, and suspended himself from it; fortunately for the poor infatuated man, the servant entered the room a few minutes afterwards,and cut him down. Life was not extinct. The man expressed that he felt, during the few moments that he was hanging, a thrilling delight, which no language that he could use could convey anything like an adequate expression of. There was no doubt that this man laboured under an abnormal condition of the mind, which, if not amounting to insanity, certainly approached very nearly the confines of that disease.41
A woman was admitted some years back into one of our metropolitan hospitals who had a propensity to cut her person with every sharp instrument that she could procure. It was not her intention to kill herself; and when reasoned with on the folly of her actions, she observed that she was impelled by no other motive than the fascinating pleasure she experienced whenever she succeeded in drawing blood.
A lady, a passenger on board of a ship bound for the East Indies, was frequently heard to express a wish to know what feeling a person experienced in the act of being drowned.She fancied the sensations must be of a pleasurable character. Her fellow-passengers laughed at her whenever she alluded to the matter. Having introduced the subject again during dinner, she observed, “Well, I intend to try the experiment to-morrow morning.” The threat only excited the merriment of those who heard it. In the morning, whilst the passengers were on deck, the lady plunged into the sea, to the astonishment of everybody. Luckily for her, the ship was becalmed, and her life was saved.
An extraordinary young man, who lived at Paris, and who was passionately fond of mechanics, shut himself up one evening in his apartment, and bound not only his chest and stomach, but also his arms, legs, and thighs, with ropes full of knots, the ends of which he fastened to hooks in the wall. After having passed a considerable part of the night in this situation, he wished to disengage himself, but attempted it in vain. Some neighbouring females, who were up, heard his cries, and, calling for assistance, they forced open the door of his room, when they found him swinging in the air, with only one arm extricated. He was immediately carried to the lieutenant-general of the police for examination, when he declared that he had often put similar trials into execution, as he experiencedindescribable pleasure in them. He confessed that at first he felt pain, but that after the cords became tight to a certain degree, he was soon rewarded by the most exquisite sensations of pleasure.42
“As the chill dews of evening were surrounding our bivouac,” says the author of the “Recollections of the Peninsula,” “a staff officer, with a courier, came galloping into it, and alighted at the quarters of our general. It was soon known amongst us that a severe and sanguinary action had been fought by our brother soldiers at Talavera. Disjointed rumours spoke of a dear-bought field, a heavy loss, and a subsequent retreat. I well remember how we all gathered round our fires to listen, to conjecture, and totalk about this glorious, but bloody event. We regretted that we had borne no share in the honours of such a day; andwe talked with an undefined pleasure about the carnage. Yes! strange as it may appear, soldiers, and not they alone, talk of the danger of battle fields with a sensation which partakes of pleasure.”
A watchmaker of Aberdeen, who had been looking over the precipices of Loch-na-Gair, suddenly felt a desire to precipitate himself from the height, and having first taken a step or two back for the purpose, he flung himself off.
A gentleman travelling through Switzerland, with his wife, came to an eminence commanding an extensive and beautiful view of the surrounding country. He went, accompanied by his wife, to the edge of a mountainous cliff, and, turning round to his lady, he observed—“I have lived long enough!” and in a moment threw himself down the precipice.
It was a notion of this kind which induced Lord Byron to observe that he believed no man ever took a razor into his hand who did not at the same time think how easily he might sever the silver cord of life. The noble poet evidently alludes, in the following stanzas, to the strange and unaccountable influence of fascination in exciting the mind to commit suicide:—
“A sleep without dreams, after a rough dayOf toil, is what we covet most, and yetHow clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!The very suicide that pays his debtsAt once, without instalments, (an old wayOf paying debts, which creditors regret,)Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,Less from disgust of life than dread of death.’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dareTheworstto know it:—when the mountains rearTheir peaks beneath your human foot, and thereYou look down o’er the precipice, and drearThe gulf of rock yawns,—you can’t gaze a minuteWithout an awful wish to plunge within it!’Tis true, you don’t—but, pale and struck with terror,Retire: but look into your past impression!And you will find, though shuddering at the mirrorOf your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,The lurking bias, be it truth or error,To theunknown; a secret prepossession,To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,And that’s the reason why you do—or do not.”
“A sleep without dreams, after a rough dayOf toil, is what we covet most, and yetHow clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!The very suicide that pays his debtsAt once, without instalments, (an old wayOf paying debts, which creditors regret,)Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,Less from disgust of life than dread of death.’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dareTheworstto know it:—when the mountains rearTheir peaks beneath your human foot, and thereYou look down o’er the precipice, and drearThe gulf of rock yawns,—you can’t gaze a minuteWithout an awful wish to plunge within it!’Tis true, you don’t—but, pale and struck with terror,Retire: but look into your past impression!And you will find, though shuddering at the mirrorOf your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,The lurking bias, be it truth or error,To theunknown; a secret prepossession,To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,And that’s the reason why you do—or do not.”
“A sleep without dreams, after a rough dayOf toil, is what we covet most, and yetHow clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!The very suicide that pays his debtsAt once, without instalments, (an old wayOf paying debts, which creditors regret,)Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,Less from disgust of life than dread of death.’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dareTheworstto know it:—when the mountains rearTheir peaks beneath your human foot, and thereYou look down o’er the precipice, and drearThe gulf of rock yawns,—you can’t gaze a minuteWithout an awful wish to plunge within it!’Tis true, you don’t—but, pale and struck with terror,Retire: but look into your past impression!And you will find, though shuddering at the mirrorOf your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,The lurking bias, be it truth or error,To theunknown; a secret prepossession,To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,And that’s the reason why you do—or do not.”
“A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most, and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very suicide that pays his debts
At once, without instalments, (an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret,)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.
’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;
And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
Theworstto know it:—when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o’er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawns,—you can’t gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it!
’Tis true, you don’t—but, pale and struck with terror,
Retire: but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,
The lurking bias, be it truth or error,
To theunknown; a secret prepossession,
To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,
And that’s the reason why you do—or do not.”
A gentleman with whom we are acquainted, informed us that, a few days after Miss Moyes had thrown herself from the Monument, a friend of his had the curiosity to visit the spot, and on looking down the awful height from which this poor unfortunate girl had precipitated herself, he felt suddenly an attack of giddiness, which was succeeded in a moment by one of the most pleasurable sensations he had ever experienced, accompanied with a desire to jump off. He was not influenced, apparently, by any other motive than that of a wish to gratify a feeling of ecstasy which for a minute suspended all the operations of the mind. A gentleman who was by him asked him a question with reference to the height of the Monument, and this circumstance recalling him to the exercise of his reasoning faculties, he immediately left the spot, shuddering at the recollection of the idea which had momentarily flashed across his mind.
The case is related of a man who had this feeling so strongly manifested that he never dared trust himself with a razor. He was not devoid of religious feeling, and was most happy in his domestic relations. On occasions which required the exercise of moral resolution, he was never found wanting. He declared his life would not be safe for a day if he were permitted to shave himself. Such instances are by no means uncommon, and require much ingenuity to account satisfactorily for them, unless they be referred to the effect of fascination.
Andral observes, “that there are many men perfectly rational, and completely undisturbed by care or pain, who,singular to state, have been suddenly seized by a headlong, groundless inclination to destroy themselves. There are hundreds who cannot approach the brink of a cliff, or ascend a lofty tower, without experiencing an almost invincible desire to precipitate themselves to the bottom, from which fate they only save themselves by an instantaneous effort to retire from the temptation. I knew a gentleman who, while shaving himself one day, alone, was three times so vehemently urged to plunge the razor into his throat, that he was at length compelled to throw the instrument from him, in absolute horror and dismay. In rational men, however, these trying and dangerous moments are but of very short duration.”
A sailor informed us that he had often, when at the top of the mast, felt disposed to precipitate himself from the giddy eminence, influenced by no other motive than that of pleasure.
In such cases, what course is the medical man to pursue? It is difficult to give any instructions for the treatment of such cases of mental idiosyncrasy. Persons who are subject to feelings of this character should be advised to avoid ascending elevated places.
Connexion between genius and insanity—Authors of fiction often feel what they write—Metastasio in tears—The enthusiasm of Pope, Alfieri, Dryden—Effects of the first reading of Telemachus and Tasso on Madame Roland’s mind—Raffaelle and his celebrated picture of the Transfiguration—The convulsions of Malbranche—Beattie’s Essay on Truth—Influence of intense study on Boerrhave’s mind—The demon of Spinello and Luther—Bourdaloue and his violin—Byron’s sensitiveness—Men do not always practise what they preach—Cases of Smollett, La Fontaine, Sir Thomas More, Zimmerman—Tasso’s spectre—Johnson’s superstition—Concluding remarks.
Ithas been observed that the act of suicide may often originate in a feeling analogous to the enthusiasm exhibited by men of great genius and sensibility. This mental idiosyncrasy, which borders so closely on the confines of insanity, has been compared to the narrow bridge of Al Sirat, which leads the followers of Mahomet from earth to heaven, but by so narrow a path that the passenger is in momentary danger of falling into the dismal gulf which yawns beneath him. This abnormal condition of the nervous system is, to a certain extent, dependent on natural organic structure, aided materially by an unhealthy exercise of the imaginative faculty. Fielding spoke but the history of his own sensations when he declared that he “had no doubt but the most pathetic scenes had been writ with tears.” Metastasio was found weepingover his Olympiad. He says: “When I apply with attention, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violent tumult; I grow as red as a drunkard, and am obliged to quit my work.” Pope could not proceed with certain passages of his translation of Homer without shedding tears. Alfieri declares that he frequently penned the most tender passages in his plays “under a paroxysm of enthusiasm, and whilst shedding tears.” Dryden was seized with violent tremors during the composition of his celebrated ode. Rousseau, in conceiving the first idea of his Essay on the Arts, became almost delirious with enthusiasm.
Madame Roland has thus powerfully described the ideal presence in her first readings of Telemachus and Tasso:—“My respiration rose, I felt a rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice changing had betrayed my agitation. I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Emenia for Tancred. Having my reason during this perfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was anything for any one: the whole had no connexion with myself. I sought for nothing around me; I was they; I saw only the objects which existed for them; it was a dream without being awakened.”
Raffaelle says, alluding to his celebrated picture, the Transfiguration—“When I have stood looking at that picture, from figure to figure, the eagerness, the spirit, the close unaffected attention of each figure to the principal action, my thoughts have carried me away, that I have forgot myself, and for that time might be looked upon as an enthusiastic madman; for I could really fancy the whole action was passing before my eyes.”
Malbranche was seized with violent palpitations of the heart when reading Descartes’s Treatise on Man:—
“With curious art, the brain too finely wroughtPreys on itself, and is destroyed by thought;Constant attention wears the active mind,Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.”
“With curious art, the brain too finely wroughtPreys on itself, and is destroyed by thought;Constant attention wears the active mind,Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.”
“With curious art, the brain too finely wroughtPreys on itself, and is destroyed by thought;Constant attention wears the active mind,Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.”
“With curious art, the brain too finely wrought
Preys on itself, and is destroyed by thought;
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.”
Intense occupation of mind to any particular branch ofstudy, often brings the mind on the verge of madness. “Since the ‘Essay on Truth’ was printed in quarto,” says Dr. Beattie, “I have neverdaredto read it over. I durst not even read the sheets to see whether there were any errors in the print, and was obliged to get a friend to do that office for me. These studies came, in time, to have dreadful effects upon my nervous system; and I cannot read what I then wrote without some degree of horror, because it recalls to my mind the horrors that I have sometimes felt after passing a long evening in these severe studies.”
Boerrhave has related of himself that, having imprudently indulged in intense thought on a particular subject, he did not close his eyes for six weeks afterwards.
Spinello, having painted the fall of the rebellious angels, had so strongly imagined the illusion, and more particularly the terrible features of Lucifer, that he was himself struck with such horror as to have been long afflicted with the presence of the demon to which his genius had given birth. Swedenburg saw a terrestrial heaven in the glittering streets of his New Jerusalem.
Malbranche declared he heard the voice of God distinctly within him. Pascal often was seen to rush suddenly from his chair at the appearance of a fiery gulf by his side. Luther maintained that during his confinement the devil used to visit him.
Hudibras says—
“Did not the devil appear to MartinLuther, in Germany, for certain?”
“Did not the devil appear to MartinLuther, in Germany, for certain?”
“Did not the devil appear to MartinLuther, in Germany, for certain?”
“Did not the devil appear to Martin
Luther, in Germany, for certain?”
He declares that he had many a contest with his satanic majesty, and that he had always the best of the argument. At one time, the devil so enraged Luther that he threw the ink-stand at him, an action which the German commentators greatly applaud, from a conviction that there is nothing which the devil abhors more than ink.
Descartes, after long confinement, was followed by an invisible person, calling upon him to pursue the search of truth.
Mozart’s sensibility to music was connected with so susceptible a nervous system that, in his childhood, the sound of a trumpet would turn him pale, and almost induce convulsions. Dr. Conolly relates an amusing anecdote of the celebrated Bourdaloue. It is said that the composition of his eloquent sermons so excited his mind that he was unable to deliver them until he discovered some mode of allaying his excitement. “His attendants one day were both scandalized and alarmed, on proceeding to his apartment, for the purpose of accompanying him to the cathedral, by hearing the sound of a fiddle, on which was played a very lively tune. After their first consternation, they ventured to look through the keyhole, and were still more shocked to behold the great divine dancing about, without his gown and canonicals, to his own inspiring music. Of course, they concluded him to be mad. But, when they knocked, the music ceased; and after a short and anxious interval, he met them with a composed dress and manner; and, observing some signs of astonishment in the party, explained to them that without his music and his exercise he should have been unable to undertake the duties of the day.”
In the character of Lord Byron we have an apt illustration of the kind of mental irritability and morbid sensitiveness of feeling that so often incites to acts of desperation. It has been said that the noble poet was the child of passion, born in bitterness and “nurtured in convulsion.” The true state of his mind can best be divined from the delineation of his own sensations as given in Childe Harold:—
“I have thoughtToo long and darkly, till my brain becameIn its own eddy boiling, and orwroughtA whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame,My springs of life were poisoned.”
“I have thoughtToo long and darkly, till my brain becameIn its own eddy boiling, and orwroughtA whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame,My springs of life were poisoned.”
“I have thoughtToo long and darkly, till my brain becameIn its own eddy boiling, and orwroughtA whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame,My springs of life were poisoned.”
“I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became
In its own eddy boiling, and orwrought
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poisoned.”
Byron was subject to attacks of epilepsy; and perhaps this fact may account for much of the spleen and irritability which he manifested through life, and which made him so manyenemies. It also teaches us an important lesson. We are too apt to form our estimate of character without taking into consideration all those circumstances which are known materially to influence human thought and actions. The state of the organization and the health ought to be maturely weighed before we pronounce authoritatively as to the motives of individuals, or denounce them for not acting or thinking according to what our preconceived opinions have taught us to consider as orthodox. Byron’s mind was morbidly alive to impressions. The most trifling circumstance would cause him to swoon. At Bologna, in 1819, he describes one of his convulsive attacks:—“Last night I went to the representation of Alfieri’s Myrrha, the last two acts of which threw me into convulsions; I don’t mean by that word lady’s hysterics, but an agony of reluctant tears, and the choking shudder which I do not often undergo for fiction.” He was seized in a similar manner at seeing Kean in Sir Giles Overreach; he was carried out of the theatre in convulsions. From early life, Byron exhibited this abnormal excitability. There can be no doubt that it was but the natural effect of a peculiar condition of nervous function; but, instead of endeavouring to subdue the feeling, he did his best to encourage it, and to fan the fire into a flame. He appears to have been tortured by horrid dreams. He says in his Journal—“I awoke from a dream: well, have not others dreamed? Such a dream! But she did not overtake me! I wish the dead would rest for ever. Ugh! how my blood is chilled! I do not like this dream; I hate its foregone conclusion.”
The “Bride of Abydos” was written to distract the poet’s mind from his dreams. He was in such a nervous state at this period, that he says if he had not done something, he must have gone mad, or have eat his own heart.
Stendhal, alluding to Byron’s apparent remorse, asks, “Is it not possible that Byron might have had some guilty stain on his conscience, similar to that which wrecked Othello’s fame? Can it be, have we sometimes exclaimed, that, in a frenzy ofpride or jealousy, he had shortened the days of some fair Grecian slave, faithless to her vows?”43
It is not just to form our opinions of the character of men by their writings or actions. In the mass, we are ready to admit that we have no other criteria by which to be guided; but we may charitably consider that Byron was not himself the “dark original he drew.”
“O memory! torture me no more:The present’s all o’ercast—My hopes of future bliss are o’er;In mercy, veil the past.”
“O memory! torture me no more:The present’s all o’ercast—My hopes of future bliss are o’er;In mercy, veil the past.”
“O memory! torture me no more:The present’s all o’ercast—My hopes of future bliss are o’er;In mercy, veil the past.”
“O memory! torture me no more:
The present’s all o’ercast—
My hopes of future bliss are o’er;
In mercy, veil the past.”
Such were his feelings at the age of seventeen.
La Fontaine penned tales fertile in intrigues, and yet he was never known, says D’Israeli, to have been engaged in a single amour. Smollett was anything but what his writings would lead us to expect. Cowley boasted of his mistresses, and wanted the courage to address one. Burton declaimed against melancholy, and yet he was the most miserable of men. Sir Thomas More preached in favour of toleration, yet in practice was a fierce persecutor. Zimmerman, whilst he was inculcating beautiful lessons of benevolence, was by his tyranny driving his son into madness, and leaving his daughter an outcast from home. Goëthe says, “Zimmerman’s harshness towards his children was the effect of hypochondria, a sort of madness or moral assassination, to which he himself fell a victim after sacrificing his offspring.”
Byron occasionally fancied he was visited by a spectre, which he confesses was but the effect of an overstimulated brain.
Tasso, whose fine imagination the passions of hopeless love, and of grief occasioned by ill treatment, disordered, was in daily communication with a spirit. This circumstance is alluded to in the following anecdote of him, prefixed to Hoole’s translation of his “La Gierusalemme Liberata.”
“In this place (at Bisaccio, near Naples) Manso had an opportunity of examining the singular effects of Tasso’s melancholy, and often disputed with him concerning a familiar spirit, with which he pretended to converse. Manso endeavoured in vain to persuade his friend that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed imagination; but the latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of what he asserted; and to convince Manso, desired him to be present at one of these mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to meet him next day; and while they were engaged in discourse, on a sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and remained in a manner immovable. He called him by his name several times, but received no answer. At last Tasso cried out, ‘There is the friendly spirit, who is come to converse with me. Look, and you will be convinced of the truth of all that I have said.’ Manso heard him with surprise; he looked, but saw nothing except the sunbeams darting through the window: he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes putting questions to the spirit, and sometimes giving answers, delivering the whole in such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated expressions, that he listened with admiration, and had not the least inclination to interrupt him. At last the uncommon conversation ended with the departure of the spirit, as appeared by Tasso’s words, who, turning to Manso, asked him if his doubts were removed? Manso was more amazed than ever; he scarce knew what to think of his friend’s situation, and waved any further conversation on the subject.”
Boswell says, Dr. Johnson mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which he (Boswell) had never heard before,—being called, that is, hearing one’s name pronounced, by the voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound, uttered by human organs. An acquaintance, on whose veracity Boswellsays he could place every dependence, told him that, walking home one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother who had gone to America, and the next packet brought the account of that brother’s death. Macbean asserted that this inexplicablecallingwas a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chambers, he heard distinctly his mother callSam!She was then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued.
Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an amusing instance of Dr. Johnson’s eccentricity. He says, “When he and I took a journey into the west, we visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire. The conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right still further on. The old gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very courteous manner assured him that, though it was not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The Doctor started from his reverie, like a person waked out of a sleep, but spoke not a word.”
Dr. Johnson had one peculiarity, says Boswell, of which none of his friends dared to ask an explanation. This was an anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage by a certain number of steps from a certain point, so that either his right or left foot should constantly make the first actual movement. Thus, upon innumerable occasions, Boswell has seen him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with deep earnestness; and when he had neglected, or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, he has been noticed to go back again, put himself in a proper posture to recommence the ceremony, and having gone through it, break from his abstraction, briskly walk on, and join his companions.
An inordinate cultivation of any one faculty of the mind, but more particularly the imagination, will tend to produce the peculiarities which have been illustrated in this chapter.A person who accustoms himself to live in a world created by his own fancy—who surrounds himself with flimsy idealities—will, in the course of time, cease to sympathize with the gross realities of life. The imaginary intelligences which his own morbid mind has called into existence will exercise a terrific influence over him. A German poet commenced writing a poem on the Deity. He allowed his mind to dwell so intensely on the subject, that he fancied he was commanded to “flee from a world of sin and iniquity;” to effect which, he cut his throat, and was found dead in bed, with the razor in one hand and a portion of his poem in the other. The apparitions which the monomaniac fancies to haunt him are as real and sensible existences to him, as objects are to persons who have a healthy use of the media through which ideas obtain access to the mind. Mr. Calcraft, the late member of parliament, committed suicide. He imagined that a strange unearthly-looking being sat night and day perched at the top of his bed, watching with earnestness his every movement. This, which to all around him was an hallucination, to himwasa reality. It is possible for a person of vivid imagination to conjure into apparent existence the most grotesque images of the fancy, by allowing the mind to dwell with intenseness on a particular train of thought, and by perfectly abstracting the attention from all materiality.
Influence of climate—The foggy climate of England does not increase the number of suicides—Average number of suicides in each month, from 1817 to 1826—Influence of seasons—Suicides at Rouen—The English not a suicidal people—Philip Mordaunt’s singular reasons for self-destruction—Causes of French suicides—Influence of physical pain—Unnatural vices—Suicide the effect of intoxication—Influence of hepatic disease on the mind—Melancholy and hypochondriasis, Burton’s account of—Cowper’s case of suicide—Particulars of his extreme depression of spirits—Byron and Burns’s melancholy from stomach and liver derangement—Influence of bodily disease on the mind—Importance of paying attention to it—A case of insanity from gastric irritation—Dr. Johnson’s hypochondria—Hereditary suicide, illustrated by cases—Suicide from blows on the head, and from moral shocks communicated to the brain—Dr. G. Mantell’s valuable observations and cases demonstrative of the point—Concluding remarks.
Thefollowing are the physical causes which are commonly found to operate in producing the suicidal disposition—viz., climate, seasons, hereditary predisposition, cerebral injuries, physical suffering, disease of the stomach and liver complicated with melancholia and hypochondriasis, insanity, suppressed secretions, intoxication, unnatural vices, and derangement of theprimæ viæ. These causes can only act by influencing sympathetically the brain and nervous system, and in that way interfering with the healthy operations of the mind. Much will, of course, depend upon the physicalconformation of the individual exposed to such agents. Should he labour under an hereditary predisposition to insanity, or to suicidal delirium, a very trifling corporeal derangement may call into existence the self-destructive propensity, andvice versa. It will be our object to considerseriatimall the physical agents just enumerated.
Among the causes of suicide, the foggy climate of England has been brought prominently forward. The specious and inaccurate conclusions of Montesquieu on this point have misled the public mind. The climate of Holland is much more gloomy than that of England, and yet in that country suicide is by no means common. The reader will perceive from the following tabular statement that the popular notion of the month of November being the “suicide’s month” is founded on erroneousdata.
The average number of suicides in each month, from 1817 to 1826, was as follows:—
It has been clearly established that in all the European capitals, when anything approaching to correct statistical evidence can be procured, themaximumof suicide is in themonths of June and July; theminimumin October and November. Temperature appears to exercise a much more decided influence than the circumstances of moisture and dryness, storms or serenity. M. Villeneuve has observed a warm, humid, and cloudy atmosphere to produce a marked bad effect at Paris; and that so long as the barometer indicated stormy weather, this effect continued.44Contrary, however, to the opinion of Villeneuve, it appears that by far the fewer number of suicides occur in the autumn and winter at Paris, than in the spring and summer.
Number of suicides for seven years.
When the thermometer of Fahrenheit ranges from 80° to 90° suicide is most prevalent.
The English have been accused by foreigners of being thebeau-idealof a suicidal people. The charge is almost too ridiculous to merit serious refutation. It has clearly been established that where there is one suicide in London, there are five in Paris. In the year 1810, the number of suicides committed in London amounted to 188; the population of Paris being near 400,000 less than that of London. From the year 1827 to 1830, no less than 6900 suicides occurred; that is, an average of nearly 1800 per annum. Out of 120,000 persons who ensured their lives in the London Equitable Insurance Company, the number of suicides in twenty yearswas only fifteen; so much for the English beingpar excellencedisposed to suicide.
The causes which frequently lead to self-destruction in France are, defective religious education,ennui, and loss at dice or cards. In considering the circumstances which produce this disparity in the number of voluntary deaths in the two countries, we must bear in mind the moral and religious habits of the people. When Christianity is not acknowledged as a matter of vital importance in the affairs of man; when morality is considered only as a conventional term, conveying no definite idea to the mind, it is natural that there should exist, co-relative with this tone of feeling, a marked recklessness of human life. Some notion may be formed of the state of religious feeling in Paris, when our readers are informed of the existence in the French metropolis of a “society for the mutual encouragement of suicide,” all the members of which, on joining it, swear to terminate their existence by their own hands, when life becomes insupportable.
Dr. Schlegel dwells at much length on the abandoned state of Paris, and after giving us some important statistical evidence, he alludes to the gross immorality of the people, and denounces the French capital as “a suffocating boiling cauldron, in which, as in the stew of Macbeth’s witches, there simmer, with a modicum of virtue, all kinds of passions, vices, and crimes.”
Alluding to the peculiarities of the French people, particularly their indifference to human life, an eminent writer observes, speaking of their notions of suicide, that a Frenchman asks you to see him “go off,” as if death were a place in themalle poste. “Will you dine with me to-day?” said a Frenchman to a friend. “With the greatest pleasure;—yet, now I think of it, I am particularly engaged to shoot myself; one cannot get offsuchan engagement.” This is not the suicideà la modewith us. We ape at no such extra civilization and refinement. We can be romantic without blowing out our brains. English lovers do not, when “the course of true love” does not run smooth, retire to some sequestered spot, and rush into the next world by a brace of pistols tied with cherry-coloured ribbons. When we do shoot ourselves, it is done with true English gravity. It is no joke with us. We have no inherent predilection for the act; no “hereditary imperfection of the nervous juices,” as Montesquieu, with all the impudence and gravity of a philosopher, asserts, forcing us to commit suicide. “Life,” said a man who had exhausted all his external sources of enjoyment, and had no internal ones to fly to, “has given me a headache; and I want a good sleep in the churchyard to set me to rights,” to procure which, he deliberately shot himself.45
A late French writer thus attempts to account for the prevalence of suicide in France:—“The external circumstances which tend to suggest the idea of suicide are very numerous, at the present day, in France; but more particularly so in the capital. The high development of civilization and refinement which prevails here—the clash of interests—the repeated political changes—all contribute to keep the moral feelings in a perpetual state of tension. Life does not roll on among us in a peaceful and steady current; it rushes forward with the force and precipitation of a torrent. In the terriblemêlée, it often happens that the little minority, which has obtained a footing high above the multitude for a time, falls down as suddenly as they have risen. The struggles of life are full of miscalculations, disappointments, despair, and disgust. Hence the general source of our frequent suicides. But there areother causes in operation; and not the least, the strange turn that plays and spectacles have lately taken. The public taste has undergone a complete revolution in this respect. Nothing is more patronized now at the theatre than the display of crime unpunished, human misery unconsoled, and a low literature, impregnated by a spurious philosophy, declaiming against society, against domestic life, against virtue itself; applauding the vengeance of the assassin, and recognising genius only as it is seen in company with spleen, poison, and pistols. We appeal to all who read the novels of the present day, and who visit the theatres, whether what we say is not the fact.”
It has been questioned whether physical suffering often originates the desire for suicide. Too many lamentable cases are on record to prevent us from coming to an opposite conclusion. Esquirol has justly observed, that “He who has no intervals of ease from corporeal pain; who sees no prospects of relief from his cruel malady, fails at length in resignation, and destroys his life in order to put a period to his sufferings. He calculates that the pain of dying is but momentary, and commits the act in a cool and meditated despair. It is the same in respect tomoralcondition, that drives the hypochondriac to suicide, who is firmly persuaded that his sufferings are beyond imagining; that they are irremediable, either from some fatal peculiarity in his own constitution, or the ignorance of his physicians. It is a remarkable feature in hypochondriasis, and in no other disease, that there is such a fear of death and a desire to die combined. Both fears proceed from the same pusillanimity. Finally, it may be remarked that the hypochondriac talks most of death; often wishes his attendants to perform the friendly office; even makes attempts on his own life, but rarely accomplishes the act. The most trifling motive, the most frivolous pretext, is a sufficient excuse for procrastinating, from day to day, the threatened catastrophe.”
The following case occurred in a provincial mad-house, inFrance. An apothecary who was confined there was haunted withennui, and was always begging his companions to put him to death. At length, an insane patient was admitted, who instantly complied with the apothecary’s request. They both watched an opportunity, got out of a window in the back yard, and from thence into the kitchen. They pitched upon the cook’s chopper, and the apothecary laying his head on a block, his companion deliberately and effectually severed it from his body. He was seized, and examined before a tribunal, where he candidly confessed the whole transaction, and observed that he would again perform the same friendly office for any unhappy wretch who was tired of his existence!46
Lucinius Cæcinius, the prætor, subdued by the pain andennuiof a tedious disease, swallowed opium. Dr. Haslam relates the case of a gentleman who destroyed himself to avoid the tortures of the gout. It is recorded that the pain of the same disease drove Servius the grammarian to take poison. Pliny informs us that one of his friends, Corellius Rufus, having in vain sought relief from the pangs of a disease under which he was labouring, starved himself to death at the age of sixty-seven. It is related of Pomponius Atticus and the philosopher Cleanthes, that they both starved themselves to death in order to get rid of physical pain. In the course of these attempts, the corporeal sufferings were removed—probably in consequence of the great exhaustion and attenuation; but both individuals persevered till death took place, observing that as this final ordeal must one day be undergone, they would not now retrace their steps or give up the undertaking.
Few, perhaps, are aware how frequently suicide results from the habit of indulging, in early youth, in a certain secret vice which, we are afraid, is practised to an enormous extent in our public schools. A feeling of false delicacy has operated with medical men in inducing them to refrain from dwellingupon the destructive consequences of this habit, both to the moral and physical constitution, as openly and honestly as the importance of the subject imperatively demands.
Medical men are, in the most enlarged acceptation of the term, guardians of the public health; and no fastidious desire to avoid saying what might possibly offend the taste of some, ought to keep them from discharging what may be termed a sacred duty. The physical disease, particularly that connected with the nervous system, engendered by the pernicious practice alluded to, frequently leads to the act of self-destruction. We have before us the cases of many suicides in whom the disposition may clearly be traced to this cause. This habit most seriously affects the brain and nervous system; and insanity, hypochondriasis, and melancholia, in their worst forms, are frequently the baneful consequences.
If disease, structural or functional, of the abdominal viscera gives rise to the disposition to commit suicide, it will not require much ingenuity to establish the fact that the habitual indulgence in intoxicating liquors may originate a similar feeling.
It has been already established by statistical evidence, that, in a very large proportion of the cases of insanity admitted into the asylums and hospitals devoted to the reception of this unhappy class of patients, the mental impairment can clearly be traced to habits of intemperance.
The brain and nervous system become materially affected in those who indulge frequently in “potations pottle deep.” Delirium tremens, softening of the cerebral substance, palsy, epilepsy, extreme hypochondriasis, are daily witnessed as the melancholy effects of intoxication.
M. Falret knew the case of a man who always felt disposed to cut his throat when under the influence of spirits. No reasoning could induce him to abstain from his favourite draught. The inevitable consequences were pointed out to him; he was reasoned with, and threatened with confinement in a mad-house; but nothing had the desired effect. OneSunday evening, after having drunk several glasses of spirits, although not sufficient to produce complete inebriation, he stabbed himself to the heart, and died in a few minutes.
Incurable indigestion and organic disease of the liver are very commonly met with in habitual drunkards. In such persons, the constitution of the mind appears to undergo a complete change. At first it may not be perceptible, and the patient may not be conscious of it himself, but the mental disease will, sooner or later, unequivocally evince itself.
In such cases, the medical man has fearful odds to contend against.
A young man, who had become insane in consequence of long continued intoxication, made violent efforts to maim himself, and especially to pull out his right eye, which appeared to give him great offence. Rest, temperance, seclusion, the application of half a dozen leeches to the temple, and a few doses of opening medicine, restored him, in about a fortnight, to the full possession of his faculties.
Many cases of suicide, in those who have a natural predisposition to it, arise from the brain sympathizing with the liver; nor can this be a matter of surprise to any one who has felt the depression of spirits incident to disease of that organ. So many cases have occurred from this cause, that some writers, from not finding, on subsequent dissection, any organic lesion of the brain, have referred it to diseased viscera only. But as we find that the insanity ceases when the liver is restored to health, there is no reason for supposing that the mental alienation is, in these instances, any other than the effect of disease of the brain.
J. C., about fifty years of age, was insane for two years. He was formerly in respectable circumstances, and employed in the situation of writer in an office. He made several attempts on his life. He had been in the habit of drinking spirits very freely, and had a disease of the liver which appeared of some standing. At the time of his admission into Hanwell asylum, under the care of Sir W. Ellis, he was in amost emaciated state; his legs scarcely able to support him. His face and body also were covered with an eruption; tongue furred; his stools very dark: he was much depressed, and always moaning most piteously; complained of heat and numbness in his head, and pain in all his limbs. Leeches and cold lotions were applied to his head, his bowels opened by calomel and colocynth, and he went into the warm bath every other day. He was much relieved by these means. He still continued, however, to moan as before. His tongue remained furred, and stools unhealthy. He took five grains of blue pill every alternate night for some time. These were then left off awhile; no improvement taking place, he began the pills again, and continued them for two months, with evident advantage. His tongue was clean; he was less depressed; became strong, and gained flesh; the biliary secretions were much improved. He is now occupied in the office; and every day, as the action of the liver seems to improve, his mind makes a corresponding advance.
There is no more frequent cause of suicide than visceral derangement, leading to melancholia and hypochondriasis. It has been a matter of dispute with medical men whether hypochondriacal affections have their origin in the mental or physical portion of the economy. Many maintain that the mind is the seat of the disease; others, that the liver and stomach are primarily affected, and the brain only secondarily. In this disputed point, as in most others, truth will generally be found to lie between the two extremities. That cases of hypochondria and melancholia can clearly be traced to purely mental irritation cannot for one moment be disputed; and that there are many instances in which the derangement appears to have commenced in one of the gastric organs, is as equally self-evident. Whatever may be the origin of these affections, there can be no doubt of their producing most disastrous consequences. Burton’s account of the horrors of hypochondria is truly graphic. “As the rain,” says Austin, “penetrates the stone, so does this passion of melancholy penetratethe mind. It commonly accompanies men to their graves. Physicians may ease, but they cannot cure it; it may lie hid for a time, but it will return again, as violent as ever, on slight occasions, as well as on casual excesses. Its humour is like Mercury’s weather-beaten statue, which had once been gilt; the surface was clean and uniform, but in the chinks there was still a remnant of gold: and in the purest bodies, if once tainted by hypochondria, there will be some relics of melancholy still left, not so easily to be rooted out. Seldom does this disease produce death, except (which is the most grievous calamity of all) when these patients make away with themselves—a thing familiar enough amongst them, when they are driven to do violence to themselves to escape from present insufferable pain. They can take no rest in the night, or, if they slumber, fearful dreams astonish them. Their soul abhorreth all meat, and they are brought to death’s door, being bound in misery and in iron. Like Job, they curse their stars, for Job was melancholy to despair, and almost to madness. They are weary of the sun, and yet afraid to die,vivere nolunt et mori nesciunt. And then, like Æsop’s fishes, they leap from the frying pan into the fire, when they hope to be cured by means of physic—a miserable end to the disease; when ultimately left to their fate by a jury of physicians, are furiously disposed; and there remains no more to such persons, if that heavenly physician, by his grace and mercy, (whose aid alone avails,) do not heal and help them. One day of such grief as theirs is as a hundred years: it is a plague of the sense, a convulsion of the soul, an epitome of hell; and if there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man’s heart. No bodily torture is like unto it; all other griefs are swallowed up in this great Euripus. I say the melancholy man then is the cream and quintessence of human adversity. All other diseases are trifles to hypochondria; it is the pith and marrow of them all! A melancholy man is the true Prometheus, bound to Caucasus; the true Tityrus, whose bowels are still devoured by a vulture.”