SUICIDE FROM FASCINATION.
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
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 experienced _indescribable 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 to talk about this glorious, but bloody event. We
regretted that we had borne no share in the honours of such a day; and
_we 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 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
The _worst_ to 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 the _unknown_; 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.