THE MEANS OF SUICIDE.
It is a somewhat curious fact, considering the immense number of
feasible means of terminating one’s existence, that there should be
such a small number of methods in constant use. To enumerate the
possible means which should fulfil the necessities of the case,
viz., to be certain and be speedy, would take too long, and would
be unnecessary. The means that are used daily are practically very
few; the following eight methods include almost every case: Hanging,
drowning, shooting, cut throat and other wounds, falls from a height,
placing the body in the path of railway trains and other vehicles,
poison, and suffocation by want of air, or poisonous gases. Voluntary
starvation, which was common in ancient Rome, is now almost unknown.
The relative frequency of these means is found to vary in each country,
and in each country varies with age, sex, occupation, and opportunity,
but these several numbers are very constant year after year.
Whenever we find the use of an exceptional means, which causes
prolonged or more exquisite torture, we constantly find evident
traces of insanity─(Morselli). The sane man may kill himself, but he
endeavours to do it as easily as may be.
The means I have said is governed by opportunity; for example,
Russians, on account of their climate, live mostly indoors, and are
forbidden by law to carry arms, so we find hanging most common. In
Italy we have an out-door life, and arms are frequently carried, and
there we find shooting and drowning the most common. And now of late
years, in proportion to the spread of railways, we find the number of
persons casting themselves under trains to increase.
HANGING is the most prominent means of suicide almost throughout
Europe; the Germans are the most conspicuous for choosing this mode of
death, and next the Russians; the Italians, on the contrary avoid it.
It is by far the most common means used in England, and has of late
years been gaining in frequency in many European countries, notably in
France and Denmark. It is never so common among women as among men in
any country.
DROWNING is the next most frequent means. Italy and France supply
the largest proportions; its amount bears a definite relation to the
average temperature; the cooler the climate the less frequent is
suicidal drowning; it is rare in Russia. The annual reports show that
it is decreasing in France.
The female sex is the especial patroness of death by drowning in every
country; twice as many women as men drown themselves in Europe every
year.
FIRE ARMS are used chiefly in Italy and Switzerland; they form the
fifth means in order of frequency in England. In the neighbourhood of
the military frontiers of Austria and Germany they are a frequent means
of death.
CUT THROAT occupies about the same position as drowning in England and
Ireland; but in no other country is it anything like so common. It is
beyond all other wounds the most common. Opening of the veins is an
almost forgotten practice.
FALLS from a height are a specially favoured means of destruction with
the Italians; it is neglected by all other nationalities.
POISON is another mode of killing very popular among the Anglo-Saxons,
especially in England and the United States. Some poisons are very
easily procured by anyone, because they are used in the arts, whilst
others are difficult to be obtained, and are seldom used for suicidal
purposes, except by medical men and chemists.
The poisons most frequently used are: Opium, morphia, and their
preparations; prussic acid, cyanide of potassium (used in photography),
and essential oil of bitter almonds (used in cookery); carbolic acid
and its preparations, the disinfectant liquids; oxalic acid (used
in the arts, to clean metals); strychnia and its preparations, the
vermin-killing powders.
Less frequently used are lunar caustic; the mercurial salts; the
vegetable narcotics; the mineral acids; preparations of arsenic,
phosphorus, and its preparations, chiefly vermin killers; and salts of
copper.
SUFFOCATION by carbonic acid gas was first used in Paris. Closed
charcoal stoves are common in France, and it is easy to destroy life by
means of them in a small room. The practice is spreading in France, and
has taken root in Germany also.
I now subjoin tables of the means employed in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, and in London, and in Europe generally.
ENGLISH SUICIDES tabulated according to Means.
───────────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────
│ 1881. │ 1882.
MEANS, ├─────┬───────┼─────┬───────
│Male.│Female.│Male.│Female.
───────────────────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
Railways and other vehicles│ 44 │ 6 │ 51 │ 5
Fire-arms │ 118 │ 4 │ 121 │ 2
Cut throat │ 279 │ 60 │ 264 │ 56
Cuts and stabs │ 16 │ 2 │ 23 │ 3
Falls from a height │ 27 │ 13 │ 20 │ 21
Burns, scalds, explosions │ 2 │ 1 │ 5 │ 0
Drowning │ 271 │ 172 │ 240 │ 179
Hanging │ 474 │ 111 │ 528 │ 120
Strangling │ 37 │ 12 │ 30 │ 9
Suffocation by vapours │ 2 │ 0 │ 0 │ 0
Poison │ 147 │ 81 │ 117 │ 111
Other causes │ 59 │ 17 │ 47 │ 13
├─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
TOTAL │1,476│ 479 │1,446│ 519
└─────┴───────┴─────┴───────
SUICIDES in ENGLAND: Relative use of various POISONS.
──────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────
│ 1881. │ 1882.
POISONS. ├─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
│Male.│Female.│Male.│Female.
──────────────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
Arsenic │ 6 │ 2 │ 4 │ 2
Mercury │ 0 │ 0 │ 4 │ 3
Ammonia │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 │ 1
Phosphorus │ 3 │ 5 │ 1 │ 5
Sulphuric acid │ 1 │ 1 │ 2 │ 1
Nitric acid │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 3
Hydrochloric acid │ 6 │ 1 │ 8 │ 2
Oxalic acid │ 7 │ 8 │ 13 │ 11
Carbolic acid │ 15 │ 18 │ 6 │ 13
Opium and morphia │ 33 │ 6 │ 20 │ 12
Alcohol │ 0 │ 1 │ 1 │ 1
Belladonna and aconite│ 1 │ 1 │ 1 │ 3
Chloroform │ 1 │ 1 │ 1 │ 0
Chloral │ 4 │ 1 │ 1 │ 0
Prussic acid │ 19 │ 1 │ 8 │ 3
Cyanide of potassium │ 15 │ 1 │ 10 │ 4
Strychnia │ 7 │ 9 │ 8 │ 11
Benzoline │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0
Vermin killers │ 0 │ 0 │ 7 │ 17
Disinfectant fluid │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 1
Other poisons │ 19 │ 24 │ 19 │ 18
├─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
TOTAL │ 147 │ 81 │ 117 │ 111
└─────┴───────┴─────┴───────
As a comparison between England, as a whole, and London, I subjoin
these figures, relating to cases in Central Middlesex during 1883 and
1884, investigated by Dr. Danford Thomas or myself:─
─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────
│ 1883 │ 1884
MEANS. ├─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
│Male.│Female.│Male.│Female.
─────────────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
Hanging │ 16 │ 1 │ 18 │ 4
Drowning │ 15 │ 10 │ 7 │ 4
Poison │ 13 │ 5 │ 21 │ 10
Fire-arms │ 12 │ 0 │ 8 │ 0
Cut throat │ 13 │ 4 │ 12 │ 3
Falls │ 5 │ 3 │ 1 │ 3
Stabs │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0
Railways │ 1 │ 1 │ 0 │ 0
Burns │ 0 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0
Suffocation │ 1 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0
Strangulation│ 1 │ 0 │ 1 │ 0
Other means │ 1 │ 0 │ 0 │ 0
├─────┼───────┼─────┼───────
TOTAL │ 78 │ 24 │ 70 │ 25
└─────┴───────┴─────┴───────
REPORT of Registrar General for Scotland, 1881.
Population 3,745,485
Total Deaths 72,325
General Death-rate 19·31
Suicide Rate 48·5
Total Suicides 182
Of whom were Males 131
„ „ Females 51
TABLE of MEANS.
──────────────┬─────┬───────
MEANS. │Male.│Female.
──────────────┼─────┼───────
Railways │ 2 │ 1
Fire-arms │ 10 │ 0
Cut throat │ 26 │ 4
Cuts and stabs│ 2 │ 0
Hanging │ 44 │ 8
Drowning │ 27 │ 26
Poison │ 11 │ 9
Unstated means│ 9 │ 3
──────────────┴─────┴───────
_N.B._─These are the latest statistics issued, 1885.
REGISTRAR GENERAL’S REPORT for IRELAND for 1882 and 1883.
General Death Rate, 1882, was 17·4; 1883 was 19·2.
Suicide Rate, 1882, was 20·7; 1883 was 24·7.
──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────
1882. │ 1883.
──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────
There were─ │There were─
│
141 Homicides. │ 107 Homicides.
│
105 Suicides { Male, 81.│ 124 Suicides { Male, 89.
{ Female, 24.│ { Female, 35.
──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────
The MEANS were:
─────────────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────────
│ 1882. │ 1883.
MEANS. ├─────────┬───────────┼──────────┬──────────
│ Male. │ Female. │ Male. │ Female.
─────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────
Hanging │ 24 │ 4 │ 19 │ 8
Drowning │ 14 │ 6 │ 17 │ 14
Shooting │ 21 │ 2 │ 20 │ 0
Cutting │ 13 │ 6 │ 25 │ 8
Poison │ 2 │ 4 │ 7 │ 2
Other means │ 7 │ 2 │ 1 │ 3
─────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴──────────┴───────────
In a Report on the Health of the British Navy for 1883, there are
six suicides described, which occurred during the year; 2 were by
fire-arms, 1 by hanging, 2 by drowning, and 1 from poison.
I add here a table, supplied by the “Lancet,” of the relative
proportional use of various means in the countries of Europe.
Per 1,000 Suicides.
───────────┬────────┬────────┬──────┬────────┬────────────┬───────
Means. │England.│Prussia.│Italy.│Belgium.│Switzerland.│France.
───────────┼────────┼────────┼──────┼────────┼────────────┼───────
Hanging │ 368 │ 608 │ 167 │ 545 │ 430 │ 450
Drowning │ 208 │ 182 │ 300 │ 228 │ 267 │ 290
Fire-arms │ 46 │ 109 │ 244 │ 118 │ 170 │ 110
Cutting │ 206 │ 54 │ 55 │ 39 │ 67 │ 40
Poison │ 94 │ 30 │ 61 │ 23 │ 33 │ 20
Falling │ 20 │ 9 │ 113 │ 15 │ 11 │ 30
Suffocation│ 30 │ 3 │ 22 │ 4 │ 13 │ 70
───────────┴────────┴────────┴──────┴────────┴────────────┴───────
Legoyt has calculated the relative proportions of these causes in the
two sexes, in Europe as a whole, thus:
──────┬────────┬─────────┬──────────┬───────┬──────┬───────
── │Hanging.│Drowning.│Fire-arms.│Wounds.│Falls.│Poison.
──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┼───────┼──────┼───────
Male │ 521 │ 150 │ 134 │ 89 │ 26 │ 48
Female│ 395 │ 346 │ 8 │ 59 │ 27 │ 117
──────┴────────┴─────────┴──────────┴───────┴──────┴───────
Of 151 suicides in New York, in 1883, 56 were from fire-arms, 19
hanging, 15 stabbing and cutting, 12 drowning, 11 falls from a height,
18 poisoning with Paris green, and 7 with opium.
These cases have been also tabulated in a manner showing the relative
amounts of each means according to nationalities, and disclose the
very remarkable fact, that English, French, Germans and Irish, when
they have emigrated and are living in a foreign country, still retain
their racial predilections for means of suicide; but they also shew
that there is a tendency to follow the custom of a place, inasmuch as
poison, the favourite means of the native of New York, becomes more
frequent among the French and Germans there, than it is among French
and Germans at home.
Of means rarely observed, I may mention, death by starvation; it is
more rare now-a-days than it was in classical times; it requires
extreme resolution to persevere in this means of self-destruction, and
it is extremely painful.
One case of attempted crucifixion is on record, that of Matthew Lovat,
in 1802, at Venice; he indeed made two attempts, but failed in both.
In Middlesex, last year, a man deliberately inhaled coal gas from the
supply pipe in his room, and so died of suffocation and blood poisoning.
During 1881, there were five unusual cases in England; two persons blew
themselves up with gunpowder, one person burned himself to death, one
died of voluntary starvation, and one died from eating horsehair.
During 1880, one suicide was caused by drinking paraffin spirit, and
another by swallowing pennies and pebbles.