A clergyman, master of a very large and popular school, the locality of which, for obvious reasons, it would not do to specify, recently informed one of his friends that he had discovered a new pupil in the act of practising a disgraceful vice. “Send him home to his parents, and say nothing about it,” was the friend’s judicious recommendation. The schoolmaster, however, placed great confidence in his own eloquence and the corrective powers of the birch. He assembled his boys, made an excellent harangue on the guilt of the delinquent, and gave him a sound flogging. The example of crime proved more influential than the example of punishment, and the vice spread so rapidly that the whole school was broken up in consequence.[39]
The particulars of the following case are recorded in the “American Journal of the Medical Sciences,” by Dr. Parrish. He says, “I was called to visit a child in the family of J. S., a respectable gentleman residing in my neighbourhood. On my arrival, at 3 P. M., I found, on going into the chamber of my patient, that death had occurred. The patient was a girl in her fifteenth year, who had been carefully brought up by a family with whom she had lived between seven and eight years. She had generally enjoyed good health, with the exception of occasional attacks of sickness of the stomach, and headache. She had just passed the age of puberty, and possessed a docile disposition. Her situation in life, as far as could be ascertained, was in every respect agreeable, and congenial to her wishes.
“On the morning of the day of her death, she was engaged as usual in the domestic concerns of the family until eight o’clock, when she was observed in the yard vomiting. Upon inquiring into the history of the case, I found that early in the morning on which the patient died, she had held a conversation with a little girl residing in the next house, in which she mentioned having lately read in a newspaper of a man who had been unfortunate in his business, and had taken arsenic to destroy himself; she also spoke of an apothecary’s shop near by, and said she frequently went there.
“The narration of this conversation afforded strong suspicion to my mind that she had committed suicide; a suspicion which was strengthened by the fact, that a few months previous I had been called upon to visit a person residing in the same house, who had suffered for some years under mental derangement, and had recently been discharged from the insane hospital near Frankford; he had taken laudanum, with the intent of destroying himself.
“This circumstance would naturally produce a strong impression upon the mind of the child, which was increased, no doubt, by the reading of the case detailed in the newspaper. In this way the desire to commit a similar act was kindled up in the mind of the deluded girl, and thus, by that inexplicable connexion which, in some instances at least, appears to exist between the knowledge of such a horrible act and the desire to perform it, she was almost irresistibly impelled to the deed.
“This case is stated as affording strong testimony in favour of a principle which is now beginning to attract the attention of medical men—viz., that the publicity which is given to cases of suicide, in the newspapers and by other means, forms one of the strongest incentives to the commission of the act, in those who have a secret disposition to destroy themselves.
“If this be the fact, a high responsibility rests upon physicians, so to influence public opinion, and more especially editors, as to prevent the narration of the circumstances connected with the death of this unfortunate class. No good can certainly arise (to the public) from the exposure of facts which ought to remain concealed in the bosom of distressed families; while there is reason to believe the list of victims to suicide is annually very much swelled from the course which is now so generally pursued.”[40]
It has been noticed that certain atmospherical phenomena have attended or preceded the suicidal epidemics that have prevailed at various periods. Whether these electrical conditions of the air are in any way connected with this peculiar form of contagious malady is a point not easily to be decided. A certain degree of atmospherical moisture appears to favour the spread of the suicidal disposition; but this may result from the well known influence of moist air on the disposition of the mind, and may operate by causing a degree of mental despondency and lassitude, very favourable to the development of the suicidal mania, particularly after the occurrence of any very remarkable case of self-destruction. It is notorious that nothing is so likely to unsettle the mind, especially if an hereditary disposition be present, than constantly associating with lunatics, and allowing the mind to dwell for any length of time on the subject of insanity. If actual mental derangement does not result from an exposure to the causes referred to, a certain degree of eccentricity bordering on the confines of aberration is generally perceptible. With our present amount of knowledge of the subtle principle of contagion, it is difficult to say whether an effluvium may not be generated in such cases which, under certain conditions of the system, may communicate disease. We cannot possibly say that this is not the case. If we are justified, which we by no means are willing to admit, in the opinion that the disposition to suicide and insanity may be propagated by contagion, using this term in its usual acceptation, it is a great consolation to the mind to think that only occasionally does the disease exhibit the slightest approach to virulence, and that, unlike many of the admitted contagious maladies, we may approach the patient without much fear or apprehension.