Year: 1869

The fact that decided and dangerous sui
cidal propensity may exist, unaccompanled by
any marked mental alteration, and against
which those who are possessed by 1t are power
less, has received an interesting illustration.
A schoo-boy in Massachusetts town, being
reproved by his teacher, went home, and beng
directed by his father tosreturn and ask par
don of his master, proceeded instead to his own
chamber, where he shot himself. 1t is a point
to be observed that this unfortunate lad was
the possessor of two pistols, and OF the means
of charging them. 1t is extremely probable
that under morbid influences fox which nc was
to slight extent if at all morally responsible,
this boy had often reflected, with these
very Weapons in his hands, upon the fatal use
to which he finally put one of them. We are
accustomed to attribute suicide altogether to
accidental and temporary causes, to losses in
business, to modification, to disappointment,
and even to indigestion but while these may
occasion an active access of delusion in some
cases, we find that though equally pregnant
they have no such effect upon persons in whom
the predispOsition does not exist. The trouble
of the boy to whom we have referred was in
itself insignificant. He could, at his age, have
known nothing of "roOted s0rrOws" or OF
"written troubles of the brain.p He had ex-
perenced none Of those frightful vicisstudes
which sometimes make the life OF man
utterly insupportable. The inference is
that he must have been in
mental condition which paralyzed VOlition, and
left him at the mercy of a perverted instinct
We have known one other case in which sui
eide was committed by boy under almost
identical circumstances. The value of such in
stances is that they oblge us to abandon the
routine assignment of motives to which we are
accustomed, and to seek less patent causes for
a thoroughly unnatural act.


Perhaps it would not be paradoxical to say
that suicide in many cases may be attributed
to that instructive love of life which is born
with us. The suicidal mania is simply this
feeling reversed, and we notice often In
unhealthy minds similar tendency under
different forms. The love of mother
for her newborn child is one of the
most purely instructive emotions OF which
human nature is susceptible; yet all physicians
know that a strange desire to destroy the child
is not seldom manifested by the mother, who,
under different circumstances, would give her
own life to save it. There is no domestic re-
laton which may not be disturbed, sometimes
fatally, 10y like melancholy infrmity. 1t
shows tho tendency of tho mind subjected to
the oscillations Of disease to swing with
kind of mechanical accuracy to proportionate
distance from the point of sanity. Unquestion-
ably, a great proportion of those who commit
suicide consists Of those who in q normal
condition of tho brain would enjoy life most
keenly. ... ,.r. --. ,


The self-destructive propensity has been
noticed, though rarely, in animals. ease has
come within our own knowledge of a dog who
was found drowned after oyerhearing con-
versation in which it was proposed to kill him
on account of his great age and inlirmities.
This, however may have been one of those
condolences to which, in considering whatever
is out of the usual course, we never pay
sufficient attention. But in the human subject,
the suicidal mania il pretty well marked by
circumstances which should be observable by
surrounding friends, and should be at once
acted upon. At any rate, after any attempt ut
self-destructiOn The false delicacy or the falser
pity which saves the patients from mild restraint,
is worthy only Of rebuke. We do not mean to
say, of course, that one who has attempted sui
eide is never again 20 be trusted with freedom of
action but it seems TO us evident that such
patient should be placed at once under medi-
cal control, and should be discharged from it
only upon the best medical opinion. There is
no safety in any other cOurse-there is not in
deed perfect safety in this; but it is the best
which circumstances will permit us to pursue.


This is the fourth case Of suicide by child
which has come 10 our knowledge within a
few years. IL is painful TO think how much
of the morbidness thus disclosed must have
been cOngenital, and to calculate how many
sour grapes must have been eaten by the an
cestors of these children whose teeth were thus
set upon edge. Shall we always give to them
who succeed us this heritage of infirmity