Suicide

Suicide (a word coined in England on a French model, but of Latin elements), according to English law, is a Felony (q.v.). A person found felo de se (guilty of self-murder) by a coroner's jury was formerly buried at a cross-road with a stake driven through his body, but this barbarous practice (a survival probably of the vampire superstition) was abolished in 1823. A person is felo de se if he commits any felonious act which results in his own death; a person who shoots at another with a gun which bursts and kills himself, a woman who dies of poison taken to procure miscarriage are both guilty of self-murder. If two agree to assist one another in committing suicide, and one survives, he is guilty of murder. Policies of life insurance are usually so framed as to be void if the insured dies by his own act, whether he is of sound mind or not. In Scotland suicide involves 'single escheat'—i.e. forfeiture of the movable estate of the deceased to the crown; but this rule does not apply in cases of insanity. In the United States the constitutions of eleven states provide that the property of suicides is not to be forfeited.

The question as to the moral justification of suicide has exercised the minds of ethical philosophers from the days of Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca down to the present time. Some schools of thought, notably Stoics and their adversaries the Epicureans, defended suicide under proper conditions; Christianity has always refused to admit any justification for self-destruction, and the Roman and Anglican churches deprive of ecclesiastical burial those who have without doubt wilfully committed self-murder.

From the medical point of view suicide is in the majority of cases a symptom of disease of the brain. It is not now denied, however, by any competent medical authority that sane men may and do commit suicide; and then the attempt is unquestionably a crime deserving of punishment. The brain constitution of some persons is such that when they are under the immediate influence of alcohol they always become suicidal. The next kind of case in which suicide is attempted is one on the borderland of disease. It is the man intellectually sound and not emotionally depressed who simply loses for the time his primary instinct of the normal love of life, ceases to have any fear of death, and suffers from the tedium vite of the ancients, and who in this state, for trivial causes or for no outward cause at all, attempts his life. Some such men are in Hamlet's frame of mind: 'To be or not to be? That is the question.' A man in this state, which is often a hereditary one, cannot always be reckoned insane, and yet he is in an abnormal state of brain and mind. The mass of suicides, however, are committed or attempted by persons who are either insane or on the verge of insanity, though as yet we cannot tell the percentage of sane and insane suicides. The two forms of insanity in which suicidal impulses are most frequent are melancholia and alcoholic insanity. Four-fifths of all patients suffering from melancholia have suicidal feelings, and two-fifths of them make actual attempts on their lives. It is a risk that should be considered and provided against in every case of melancholia and in every case beginning to suffer from alcoholism or alcoholic insanity. The love of life, with efforts to preserve it, is the primary and strongest instinct not only in man, but in all the animal kingdom, without which all animated creation would soon come to an end. The loss of this is the most striking change that can possibly take place in the higher faculties or functions of the brain. The tendency to suicide is very hereditary. Suicide may be carefully contrived and planned for months, or it may be done through a momentary morbid impulse. It may be done, and commonly is done, from insane delusions, such as that the patient is going to be killed and tortured, that he is going to be tried, that his food is poisoned, that he is too great a sinner to live and must make expiation, that he is the cause of evil to all around him, that he cannot recover, &c. Physicians especially guard against suicide with patients who are very much afraid they are to be put to death, and who therefore might be supposed to be too much afraid of dying to do any harm to themselves. Prolonged sleeplessness will sometimes lead to suicidal feelings through brain exhaustion. Suicidal feelings are sometimes the very first symptom of insanity, before anything mentally wrong is suspected and before any watching or precautions are therefore taken. Attempts at suicide are sometimes made while the patient is quite unconscious or in a state of altered consciousness, so that there is no recollection of it afterwards. Sometimes it is suggested by the sight of a weapon or water or any such means of destroying life. When the suicidal desire is strongly present it is a mistake to suppose that the patient's former religious sentiments, or his sense of duty, or his obligations to those dependent on him, or any other rational motive can be depended upon to prevent his committing the act.

The modes of committing suicide vary in different countries, in the two sexes, and in different professions. Hanging is the favourite method in most European countries, except Italy, where drowning and shooting are most common. Suicide is much more common among men than among women, being in the proportion of 3 or 4 to 1; and this applies to all countries and races. As to age, 'suicide augments in the two sexes in direct ratio with age,' at least up to the seventieth year; there are instances of suicide at five years of age, and also over ninety. The critical periods of life, adolescence, the climacteric, pregnancy, parturition, nursing, and senility all increase the tendency to suicide, just as they increase the tendency to insanity. Suicide in all civilised countries is becoming more common year by year. The solitary system in prisons is found to increase the number of suicides as compared with the older system of associating prisoners together. Physical diseases, notably those that are very painful and those that are slow and chronic, increase the number of suicides. The increased consumption of alcohol, especially spirits, increases the suicides of any country, they having doubled from this cause in France from 1849 to 1876. The religion of a people seems to exercise a marked influence on the number of suicides. In states where the Roman Catholic form of religion prevails there are 58 suicides per million of the population; in Protestant states there are 190 per million, and in countries where the Greek Church is dominant only 40 per million. But the social circumstances of each country need to be taken into consideration to correct in some degree the conclusions derived from such religious statistics, the Protestant states being on the whole the most advancing and the most modern in spirit, and a higher standard of general culture being always accompanied by a larger number of suicides. No doubt it takes a highly developed brain that has been cultured to feel keenly, and keen feeling is the basis of painful emotion. Suicide is most common among the widowed and least frequent among the married. The military profession furnishes much the largest proportion of suicides in all countries, being usually twice or thrice that of any other calling, and in Italy fourteen times larger than the average; next comes domestic service; next come the liberal professions. 'The proportion of suicides in all Europe is greater among the condensed population of urban centres than amongst the more scattered inhabitants of the country' (Morselli). But the proportion is not precisely according to the density of population. Denmark stands highest in Europe (285 per million of population), Germany, north and south, next (from 150 to 165), Norway and Sweden next (128), Great Britain, her colonies, and the United States at 70 per million.

Amongst notable suicides (omitting cases referred to in Scripture) may be mentioned:

See Forbes Winslow, The Anatomy of Suicide (1840); French works by De Boismont, Bertrand, Mme. de Stael, Legoyt (1881), Gavisson (1885); Italian works by Mor- selli (1880; Eng. trans. 1881), Carrieri (1883), Ferri (1884); O'Dea, Suicide: Studies on its Philosophy, its Causes, and its Prevention (New York, 1882); Westcott, Suicide: its History, Literature, and Jurisprudence (with bibliography, 1885); and some thirty other works cited in Notes and Queries, June 1890, p. 489. Also the articles INSANITY, EUTHANASIA, HARI-KARI, and SUTTEE. The suicide of Scorpions (q.v.) and snakes, often asserted, has been proved to be impossible.