BY FORBES WINSLOW, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON; AUTHOR OF “PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.” London: HENRY RENSHAW, 356, STRAND. SOLD BY CARFRAE & SON, EDINBURGH; AND FANNIN & CO., DUBLIN. 1840. TO JAMES JOHNSON, ESQ., M.D. PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO THE LATE KING, ETC. ETC. This Work is dedicated, AS A TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR HIS HIGH PROFESSIONAL ATTAINMENTS, AND AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM A PERUSAL OF THE MANY ABLE WORKS WITH WHICH HE HAS EN

This treatise had its origin in the following circumstance:—A few months ago, the author had the honour of reading before the Westminster Medical Society , a paper on “Suicide Medically considered,” which giving rise to an animated discussion, and evolving an expression of the opinions of several eminent professional men, excited at the time much interest. It was the author’s object in his paper to establish a fact, he believes, of primary importance,—that the disposition to commit self-destruct

Page 46, for “mens conscia” &c. read mens sana in corpore sano , and for “Horace” read Juvenal . ANATOMY OF SUICIDE....

Examples of antiquity no defence of suicide—Causes of ancient suicides—The suicides of Asdrubal, Nicocles, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Hannibal, Mithridates, the inhabitants of the city of Xanthus, Cato, Charondas, Lycurgus, Codrus, Themistocles, Emperor Otho, Brutus and Cassius, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Petronius, Lucan, Lucius Vetus, Sardanapalus, M. Curtius, Empedocles, Theoxena—Noble resistance of Josephus—Scripture suicides: Samson, Saul, Ahitophel, Judas Iscariot, Eleazar, Razis—Doctrines of

Opinions of Hume—Effect of his writings—Case of suicide caused by—The doctrines of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Montaigne examined—Origin of Dr. Donne’s celebrated work—Madame de Staël’s recantation—Robert of Normandy, Gibbon, Sir T. More, and Robeck’s opinions considered. It will be foreign to my purpose to enter elaborately into an examination of the opinions of those who have thought proper to justify the commission of suicide. The arguments which have been advanced by Hume, Donne, Rousseau, Ma

The sin of suicide—The notions of Paley on the subject—Voltaire’s opinion—Is suicide self-murder?—Is it forbidden in Scripture?—Shakspeare’s views on the subject—The alliance between suicide and murder—Has a man a right to sacrifice his own life?—Everything held upon trust—Suicide a sin against ourselves and neighbour—It is not an act of courage—Opinion of Q. Curtius on the subject—Buonaparte’s denunciation of suicide—Dryden’s description of the suicide in another world. Among the black catalogu

Moral causes of disease—Neglect of psychological medicine—Mental philosophy a branch of medical study—Moral causes of suicide—Tables of Falret, &c.—Influence of remorse—Simon Brown, Charles IX. of France—Massacre of St. Bartholomew—Terrible death of Cardinal Beaufort, from remorse—The Chevalier de S——. Influence of disappointed love—Suicide from love—Two singular cases—Effects of jealousy—Othello—Suicide from this passion—The French opera dancer—Suicide from wounded vanity—False pride—Th

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? The most 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 s

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. How strange, extraordinary, and inexplicable are the motives which often lead to the commission of suicide! Many have been induced to rush i

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

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 suicid

Diseases of the brain not dissimilar to affections of other organs—Early symptoms of insanity—The good effects of having plenty to do—Occupation—Dr. Johnson’s opinion on the subject—The pleasure derived from cultivating a taste for the beauties of nature—Effect of volition on diseases of the mind—Silent grief injurious to mental health—Treatment of ennui —The time of danger, not the time of disease—The Walcheren expedition—The retreat of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon—Influence of music

On the dependence of irritability of temper on physical disease—Voltaire and an Englishman agree to commit suicide—The reasons that induced Voltaire to change his mind—The ferocity of Robespierre accounted for—The state of his body after death—The petulance of Pope dependent on physical causes—Suicide from cerebral congestion, treatment of—Advantages of bloodletting, with cases—Damien insane—Cold applied to the head, of benefit—Good effects of purgation—Suicide caused by a tape-worm—Early indica

The instinct of self-preservation—The love of life—Dr. Wolcott’s death-bed—Anecdote of the Duke de Montebello—Louis XI. of France—Singular death of a celebrated lawyer—Dr. Johnson’s horror of dying—The organ of destruction universal—Illustrations of its influence—Sir W. Scott, on the motives that influence men in battle—Have we any test of insanity?—Mental derangement not a specific disease—Importance of keeping this in view—Insanity not always easily detected—Is lowness of spirits an evidence o

The importance of medical evidence—The questions which medical men have to consider in these cases—Signs of death from strangulation—Singular positions in which the bodies of those who have committed suicide have been found—The particulars of the Prince de Condé’s case—On the possibility of voluntary strangulation—General Pichegru’s singular case—The melancholy history of Marc Antonie Calas—How to discover whether a person was dead before thrown into water—Singular cases—Admiral Caracciolo—Drown

Number of suicides in the chief capitals of Europe from 1813 to 1831—Statistics of death from violence in London from 1828 to 1832—Number of suicides in London for a century and a half—Suicides in Westminster from 1812 to 1836—Suicide more frequent among men than women—Mode of committing—Influence of age—Effect of the married state—Infantile suicides—M. Guerry on suicides in France—Cases—Suicide and murder—Suicide in Geneva. In Great Britain, owing to the neglect of statistical science, much dif

Thickness of cranium—State of membranes and vessels of brain—Osseous excrescences—Appearances discovered in one thousand three hundred and thirty-three cases—Lesions of the lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines—Effect of long-continued indigestion. As in cases of insanity, the morbid appearances discovered in the bodies of suicides are varied and contradictory. Nothing has yet been detected which can lead the pathologist to a correct conclusion as to the nature of the organic change which preced

Introduction—Contempt of death—Eustace Budgel—M. de Boissy and his wife—Mutual suicides from disappointed love—Suicide from mortification—Mutual suicide from poverty—A French lady while out shooting—A fisherman after praying—Determination to commit if not cured—Extraordinary case of suicide after seduction—Madame C. from remorse—M. de Pontalba after trying to murder his daughter-in-law—Young lady in a pet—Sir George Dunbar—James Sutherland while George III. was passing—Lancet given by a wife to

The legitimate object of punishment—The argument of Beccaria—A legal solecism—A suicide not amenable to human tribunals—Evidence at coroners’ courts, ex-parte —The old law of no advantage—No penal law will restrain a man from the commission of suicide—Verdict of felo-de-se punishes the innocent, and therefore unjust—Are suicides insane, and therefore not responsible agents?—The man who reasons himself into suicide not of sound mind—Rational mode of preventing suicide by promoting religious educa