SEASONS AND TIMES.
It is an old, old story that the destinies of man are _governed_ by
the sun, moon, and planets; but modern science rather scouted the
ideas of the astrologers and Chaldeans; to suicide is due the honour
of reintroducing the connection. Morselli says, with regard to the
sun, “It is in fact well known that the number of these violent
deaths varies according to the position of the earth and the sun. In
the season of the year in which the earth is in aphelion there is a
_maximum_, of suicide; when in perihelion the _minimum_ is attained.”
The result of a large collection of statistics shows, however, that the
maximum suicide rate occurs in summer 88 times out of 100, as opposed
to winter; in spring the maximum occurred 9 times in 100. As to the
minimum, it occurs in winter 88 times out of 100, and only 12 times in
autumn out of the same number of observations.
As to the months, in a general way, suicide increases from January to
July, and then decreases again, month by month, to the end of the
year. Reckoning by cities only, instead of by states, the results are a
little upset, but in 11 cases of large numbers, 9 maxima fell in May,
June, and July. The number of cases of mental disease has been observed
to vary in similar months, reaching their maximum in the heat of summer.
The following Table of “Death Rates of each Season” may be compared
with the foregoing remarks on the “Seasonal Suicide rate”:
────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬───────
── │ Spring. │ Summer. │ Autumn. │ Winter. │ TOTAL.
────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────
England │ 110 │ 96 │ 95 │ 99 │ 400
France │ 117 │ 88 │ 86 │ 109 │ 400
Holland │ 88 │ 91 │ 126 │ 95 │ 400
Austria │ 115 │ 82 │ 91 │ 112 │ 400
Italy │ 88 │ 105 │ 100 │ 107 │ 400
────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────
From these figures it will be apparent that the greatest mortality in
England falls to spring, and next to winter; or exactly opposite to the
tendency of suicide. In Italy only do the maxima of general mortality
and suicide coincide in the hotter two quarters of the year.
It is not so much the actual hot weather which seems to increase the
number of suicides and the amount of lunacy, nor the actual cold
weather which seems to check the number, as it is that the _onset_ of
hot weather seriously affects the human system in such a way as to
upset the equilibrium of mind function, and to suffer mental motives to
derange the intellect.
In these considerations the spring is reckoned as consisting of March,
April, and May, and the other seasons accordingly.
I do not find that these seasonal peculiarities are very marked in the
suicide rates of this country taken alone, not in London at any rate;
for example, I subjoin the figures obtained in Central Middlesex for
two years.
───────┬───────┬───────┬┬────────┬───────┬──────
── │ 1883. │ 1884. ││ ── │ 1883. │ 1884.
───────┼───────┼───────┼┼────────┼───────┼──────
Spring │ 30 │ 24 ││ Autumn │ 20 │ 15
Summer │ 23 │ 37 ││ Winter │ 22 │ 26
───────┴───────┴───────┴┴────────┴───────┴──────
The Annual Reports of the Registrar General do not throw any light
on this question, nor, I may say, on several other somewhat fanciful
investigations into which foreign observers have led the way.
Morselli states, “it is most probable that the moon exercises more or
less influence on suicides as it does on madness and epilepsy, which
are generally aggravated at the time of the waning moon (full moon and
second quarter).”
“The influence of the moon would be more sharply felt by men than
by women, particularly at new moon.” This last, it seems, is the
conclusion drawn from the labours of the modern astrologers of Prussia.
But from the statistics given by himself for 1869, it appears that
255·8 and 258·8 per 1,000 occurred respectively in the moon’s first
quarter and last quarter, against 246·8 and 238·6 per 1,000 in the new
moon and full moon quarters; no very marked difference.
With regard to days, Brierre de Boismont finds in regard to Paris that
the number of suicides in the first ten days of a month exceeds the
number of the last twenty; and, stranger still, the two first days
of the month also give the largest numbers: this does not occur in
England, nor in London alone.
As to week days, among men the beginning of the week is most fatal;
Monday highest, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, and Saturday the fewest.
Among women also peculiarities come out, but they are different;
Saturday has still the fewest, the Thursday and Friday are very high,
Monday and Tuesday low, but Sunday has the highest number of all.
And now with regard to hours and times of the day, darkness seems to
be preferred to daylight. But according to a rather complete set of
tables, which I reproduce here, giving every hour, night and day, I
find that from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., about noon, and from 2 to 3 p.m. have
very much the highest numbers. The rate diminishes almost regularly
from 3 p.m., through midnight to 3 a.m., when the lowest number is
reached.
Brierre de Boismont arranged this Table; it refers to 1,993 cases
observed in Paris.
──────────────┬───────────────
1 a.m. 51 │ 1 p.m. 79
2 a.m. 49 │ 2 p.m. 117
3 a.m. 45 │ 3 p.m. 144
4 a.m. 50 │ 4 p.m. 89
5 a.m. 70 │ 5 p.m. 86
6 a.m. 102 │ 6 p.m. 67
7 a.m. 102 │ 7 p.m. 89
8 a.m. 126 │ 8 p.m. 69
9 a.m. 104 │ 9 p.m. 69
10 a.m. 110 │ 10 p.m. 62
11 a.m. 81 │ 11 p.m. 44
12 Noon 123 │ 12 p.m. 65
──────────────┴───────────────