The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-06-17
SUICIDES in THE SUMMER.
Causes That Lead to an Increase OF Cases
In Hot Westher-Opinions of Two New
York DOctors.

|
in Hot Westher-Opinions of Two New
York Doctors.
1t is observable that every year, as
soon as the he ITS of summer commence,
there is large increase in the number
OF suicides among men, but not q COR
responding accession in the voluntary
mortality of women. Why men should,
or rather why they do, kill themselves
more then than in any other season,
and why the cause, whatever it may be,
does not operate equally upon both
sexes, were questions propounded few
days ago to Edouard Seguin, Sr., one OF
the most distinguished authorities on
mental alienation and neurology in this
country. He replied:
1t must be due, in a great degree, to
what is burned in the vast furnace
called the sun. The quantity of heat
we receive is certainly very important
factor in human actions. In the fif-
teenth century that fact was glimmer-
ingly perceived, ana the scientists of
that day were on the right track. They
attributed to the celestial bodies the
greatest influence upon the lives of men !;
and while they went astray in their de.
ductions for lack of scientific guidance
to appreciate the bearings and causes of
so far right in their observations that
they demonstrated that the great reyolu-
tions, battles, riots and other buildings
of humanity took place in the hottest
season. The heat fevers and excites
men, and temporarily aggravates their
conceptions OF the vital importance of
| influences affecting their interests.
| Women, remaining more at home and
under conditions of shelter, clothing
and habits of life that render them less
exposed to the depressing and exciting
influences of the heat than men, are less
seriously affected mentally by the tenn
perature. L say depressing and excit-
ing" because excitation and depression
go together, the latter inevitably fol.
lowing the former by law of nature.
Well, in the spring, under the awaken
ing and vivifying influence of the sea-
| son, men have great expectations of
| love, of business, of social and political
successes, etc. When the time comes
that the sun no longer shines upon
them, but darts his merry beams, then
the season of depression comes; they
have experienced failure, or success is
at least delayed, or they foresee failure
| and their consciousness of either un-
happy condition is increased, their re-
J dictionary power is weakened by the de-
preston consequent upon their former
excitation, and they collapse into sui
eide. If suicide was absolutely due TO
necessity-the want of the necessities of
life-there would be more in winter
than in summer, for now the one who
cannot eat steak can fill himself with
radlshes, and he who cannot buy coal
tor a fire may warm himself in the sun.
| We do not hear that in Ireland, when
to linn nf ,Hr s,l,A Al.
many suicides; but you have a good
many in Paris, and even here in New
York, where food is not scarce, and
among those who have no difficulty in
obtaining it. We cannot, therefore,
deem want, and the desperation conse-
quent upon physical want, it's chief
causes.
No. Its causes are mental. A man
forms calculations, and they do not
come to the point of realization. Then
he wants to end the struggle and be
happier-to go to rest" as they say.
think, too, that suicide is rather in pro-
portion to other forms of insanity,
though l do not think that all suicides
are insane. But it is form of collapse,
like insanity. Now, there are two
forms of collapse due to q cause ex-
tremely prevalent to-day. That cause
is the enormous influence ofthe element
of chance in the business of to-day-in
Other words, to gambling in all its
forms. The intense attention upon
mental combinations, inseparable from
gambling in business, is liable to pro.
duce insanity. The tension in forming
combinations and plans in which one
knows that chance is a great factor, and
consequently a source of deep anxiety,
strikes directly at the brain, and the
shock produced by sudden announce
ments of the failure OF those plans and
combinations produces affections of the
spine. Diseases of the mind are the re-
suits of the first; locomotorataXy and
other affections the direct consequences
of the second. Suicide is but one of the
conclusions of the miscarriages of the
| figures of the laboriously- formed plan
or combination upon which the gam
bier OF business has erected his hopes of
the future.
This form of suicidal impulse which
we have now had its homologue in the
| Roman empire. 1t is know that the
Romans destroyed themselves simply
because they did not succeed in the real
ization OF projects they had formed, and
| Que OF the greatest examples of that was
| the philosopher Seneca. Having failed
| in educating a good emperor and pro-
duced only n scamp by his process, and
| having become very rich and mixed in
all the gambling ofthe day-which was
much like what we have now-he was
first overtaken by paralysis, of which
there is the incontestable mark in the
drawing of the mouth seen in all his
busts; and then, pursued by nervous
fear that the emperor would take away
his life, lie did away with himself.
And now a great many men to-day are
in that plight, their brains aud spines
racked by the alternate excitatjons and
depressions of gambling, their nervous
systems subjected to the strain of fear
OF the future. and they give way, as is
very natural. That women are COM
paratively very little subject to such
influences is the great cause why the
suicides among them are, at all times,
but especially in the hot weather, fewer
in proportion to the whole number
thansthose of men.
DIR. Jared Linsly, one of New York's
oldest and most highly respected general
practitioners, who was formerly for
many years connected with Bellevue
hospital, says that he does not remem-
ber ever to have known a case of an at
tempted suicide in which if death was
sufficiently delayed after the perpetra-
tion of the fatal act to permit an ex-
preston of a wish by the victim, there