Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-09-05
HISTORY OF SUICIDE.
It Occurs Most in Summer, and
 Among tho Cultured.
Three Times Many Men Women Taks Their Own Lives-Day the Fa- vored Time, and Middle Age the
 Popular Period.

Popular Period.
 "Any weather" said Dr. Hamilton to New York Sun reporter, (which lowers the vitality of a person strengthens the dis position to commit suicide. There is noth- inS very strange about that, odd as it seems, to say that the weather influences suicide. We all know how common it is to feel blue and loWspirited on dark, muggy days. The depression of spirits at such times in the case of an emotional person. and emotional people are the ones who com mt suicide-may give the decisive and con Cluding impulse to take his own life. Of course the dark, muggy day alone is not sui hclent 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.
 "Thcre haVC been some very queer no- tions held on this point. It was an old slan- der against Englishmen, which MontcsQuieu quoted, 1 think, that EnghshmCn were moro prone to suicide than other people on ac- count of the dark, foggy days of their coun- trys climate. It was plausible statement, and was generally regarded as true until an industrious gatherer of statistics proved that in Holland, where there is much more fog and darkness than in England, | there is much less suicide. So No vember, on account of it's gloomy weather has always borne a bad name as a month of suicides; but statistics gathered from all parts of the world show that there arc more suicides in May than in November, and that, generally, there arc more sui cides in summer than in tho winter days. It was proven by data collected for nine years in this country, from 1877 to 1926, that thero were averaged 314 suicides in May to 1&t in November, while the greatest number ol | suicides was found in the months of June and July. I believe that data gathered since then still bears these figures out. So, you sec that the warm weather has moro to 1 do with it than cloudy weather. The No ! vember days, cloudy as tbey are, are cold | and stimulating, and the vitality of ones ! system Is not lowered a great deal in them.
 "To make general statement, it Is upon a day when the dark sky and the high tenn peraturo are joined when the friends of the would-be suicide want to look out for him. l The warm, humid cloudy atmosphere-this is what influences suicide in very appre- ciable degree. Villaneuve observed this 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 be- ing remarkably humid and warm and the days dark; and in July and August of tho same year, during the prevalence of the same weather, there were more than three hundred suicides in Copenhagen, Denmark These facts are well known in medical his tory. In Italy the effect upon the rate of suicide of sustained high temperature, accompanied by . moisture, has long been noticed.n
 " Some years ago." continued Dr. Hamil- ton, II gave considerable attention to the subject of suicide here in New York, both as regards the point upon which we were talking and other particulars. I found that the people who committed suicide, so far as nationality was concerned, were mostly Germans. This is but natural, considerin 2 the intensely emotional character of the
 German people. Chased by occupations, clerks are the most suicidal set of people, and the reason for this fact is not very far
 of, either. The young men are struggling for situation and support, and they are eX- posed, as are hardly any other class of peo- , pie, to the pitfalls of the great city. The l temptations of vice come to them with great
 force, and when they have once yielded and l become entangled suicide is often the next
 thing thought of.
 "Of modes of suicide, poisoning is by far
 the favorite. I looked up the subject be-
 tween 1866 and 1872, and found that of over
 600 suicides here in these years 213 were
 suicides by poisoning. The preference in ' polsons was for arsenic, and thissi in its commonest form, Paris green. Women al most always poison themselves, uneducated
 women using Paris green, and educated women chloral or morphine. The frequency = with which Paris green is used is due sim l ply to the easiness with which it can be ob o tained The laws governing the sale of the
 different kinds of poison are not stringent o enough.
 :, "1n London hanging is the popular form e ot suicide, though voluntary starvation
 used to be- In France people drown them
 selves or die from suffocation by inhalinE
 charcoal fumes. It is 0 singular fact tha !. of the people who shoot themselves seventy a five per cent shoot themselves in the mouth
 At least this was the case at the time
 gathered facts about the matter Suicidin! l. by jumping from a great height is a horri l. ble way of killing ones self, but it is oftel
 done And I am inclined to think that man, cases of this character which are set dow e as such are not intentional suicides, but in h~ stances In which the morbid tendency whic ", nearly every one feels when at a grea , height to throw one's self down, has over l. powered the will and the brain. I mysel r. once had a terrible experience of this char ,,. acter when ascending the mountain Coroc
 vado, in tho harbor of Rio Janeiro It wa 's with difficulty that I overcame a fearfu st restlessness and impulse to throw mysel e down into the blue sea, t9o thousand fee
 below me. A fellow physician once tol
 me that he mad a patient who never dare le to sleep on the third and fourth fipor of e house because of his fear of yielding to a ie irresistible impulse to throw himself out (
 the window. = EssssA4AAsH-s-.Aa~. s-.s N