San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-08-13
In washing black cloth beef's gall in the
water helps to set and renovste the color.
HISTORY OF SUICIDE.
OCCURS MOST IN HOT WEATHER
AND AMONG THE CULTURED.
Three Times as Many Men as Women
Take Their Own Lives-Dsy the Favored
Time, and Middle Age the Period.
Statistics.
oh. there Is no doubt about thatm

Statistics.
ooh, there Is no doubt about that"
The speaker was Dr. Allan McLane Hamil-
ton, New Yorks famous alienist. The re-
porter had just asked the doctor whether the
weather had any influence upon the tendency
of people to commit suicide.
There is no doubt about it at all, )" re-
peated DR.. Hamilton. Any weather, which
lowers the vitality of a person, strengthens
the disposition to commit suicide. There is
nothing very strange about that, odd as it
seems, to say that the weather influences sui
eide We all know how common it is to feel
blue and low spirited on dark, muggy days.
The depression of spirits at such times in the
case of an emotional person-and emo
tional people are the ones who COM
init suicide-may give the decisive and
concluding impulse to take his own life. OF
course the dark, muggy day alone is not
sufficient and does not alone give the suicidal
impulse; it merely forms the last strain on
the camel's back. We must suppose that the
disposition toward suicide from some of the
great causes is present in force.
"There have been some very queer notions
held on this point 1t was an old SANDER
against Englshmen, which Montesquieu
l.
prone to suicide than other people on account
of the dark, foggy days of their couHry's
climate 1t was a plausible statement, and
was generally regarded as true until an in
dustrious gatherer of statistics proved that
in Holland, where there is much more fog
and darkness than in England, there is much
less suicide. SO November, on account of its
gloomy weather, has always borne a bad
A. 80, L..
gathered from all parts of the world show
that there are more suicides in May than in
November, and that, generally, there are
more suicides in the summer than in the
winter days.
WHAT THE FIGURES SAY.
at was proven by data collected for nine
years in this country, from 1917 to 1926, that
there averaged 374 suicides in May to 131 in
November, while the greatest number of
suicides was found in the months of June and
July. l believe that data gathered since
then still bear these figures out So you see
that the warm weather has more to do with
it than cloudy weather. The November days
cloudy as they are, are cold and stimulating,
and the vitality of ones system is not low
cred great deal in them. Loss of vitality
comes with increase of temperature.
''To make general statement, it is upon
day when the dark sky and the high temper
allure are joined when the friends of the
would be suicide want to look out for him.
The warm humid, cloudy atmosphere-this
is what influences suicide in very appreci-
able degree Villaneuve observed tie fact
at Paris, and he declared that as long as the
barometer indicated stormy weather this
state of things continued. In June, 1906, at
Rouen, France, over sixty voluntary deaths
took place., the air at the time being remark
ably humid and warm and the days dark;
and in July and August of the same year,
during the prevalence of the same weather,
there were more than 800 suicides in Copen-
hagen, Denmark. These facts are well known
in medical history. In Italy the effect upon
the rate of suicide of sustained high temper
allure, accompanied by a moisture, has long
been noticed.
'Some years ago,n continued DR.. Hamil-
ton, Il gave considerable attention to the
subject of suicide here i'll New York. both as
regards the point upon which we were talk
ing and other particulars. l found that the
people who committed suicide, so far as ma
tionality was concerned, were mostly Ger
mans. This is but natural, considering the
intensely emotional character of the German
people. CIdSStu OCCuDdIlOuS, CIeThs tIe
the most suicidal set of people, and the rea-
son for this fact is not very far off, either
The young men are struggling for situation
and support, and they are exposed as are
hardly any other class of people to the pit
falls of the great city. The temptations of
vice come to them with great force, and
when they have once yielded and become en-
tangled, suicide is often the next thing
thought of.
IN TENEMENT HOUSES.
"In this great city the crowding of poor
people into narrow tenement houses lowers
their vitality and nervous tone, and makes
suicide easy to happen among them. The
labor wars, the unsuccessful strikes, the wor-
riment and disasters which trades unions
bring-these are causes Of suicide among the
poor as patent, just now, as any that know.
In the upper ranks it is the continual spe-
culative scheming, the hurry and worry and
strain of trying to get rich quickly. that