Accident or Negligence.
Ages,1-55-1515-2525-6565 and
above		Total
Males,11128...22
Females,152115...33
Totals,2631313...55
Suicide.
Ages, 5-1515-2525-6565 and
above		Total
Males, 1620128
Females, 63324164
Totals, 73944292

Phosphorus as a cause of death through accident or negligence occupies the eighth place among poisons, and as a cause of suicide the ninth.

A far greater number of cases of poisoning by phosphorus occur yearly in France and Germany than in England. Phosphorus may be considered as the favourite poison which the common people on the Continent employ for the purpose of self-destruction. It is an agent within the reach of anyone who has 2 sous in his pocket, wherewith to buy a box of matches, but to the educated and those who know the horrible and prolonged torture ensuing from a toxic dose of phosphorus, such a means of exit from life will never be favoured.

Otto Schraube[277] has collected 92 cases from Meischner’s work,[278] and added 16 which had come under his own observation, giving in all 108 cases. Seventy-one (or 65 per cent.) of these were suicidal—of the suicides 24 were males, 47 females (12 of the latter being prostitutes); 21 of the cases were those of murder, 11 were accidental, and in 3 the cause was not ascertained. The number of cases in successive years, and the kind of poison used, is given as follows:—

[277] Schmidt’s Jahrbuch der ger. Med., 1867, Bd. 186, S. 209-248.

[278] Die acute Phosphorose und einige Reflexionen über die acute gelbe Leberatrophie, &c., Inaug. Diss., Leipzig, 1864.

Number
of
Cases.		In the YearsPhosphorus in
Substance,
or as Paste.		Phosphorus
Matches.
151798-1850132
361850-18601521
411860-1864635
161864-1867511

Of the 108 cases, 18 persons recovered and 90 (or 83·3 per cent.) died.