“The grenadier Groblin has committed suicide, from a disappointment in love. He was, in other respects, a worthy man. This is the second event of the kind that has happened in this corps within a month. The First Consul directs that it shall be notified in the order of the day of the guard, that a soldier ought to know how to overcome the grief and melancholy of his passions; that there is as much true courage in bearing mental affliction manfully as in remaining unmoved under the fire of a battery. To abandon oneself to grief without resisting, and to kill oneself in order to escape from it, is like abandoning the field of battle before being conquered.
“Signed,xxxxxxxxxxx“Napoleon,
“Bessieres.”
The effect of this masterly appeal to the courage of the French soldiery was truly magical. The disposition was completely quelled, and no case of suicide occurred for a considerable time afterwards. The course which Napoleon adopted shewed his great knowledge of human nature, as well as the thorough insight he had obtained into the character of the people over whose minds he exercised so tremendous an influence.
An account of the punishment inflicted on the women of Miletus, a city of Ionia, who were seized with an epidemic suicide, is transmitted to us in the writings of Plutarch. He says, “The Milesian virgins were at one time possessed with an uncommon rage for suicide. All desire of life seemed suddenly to leave them, and they rushed on death (by the help of the halter) with an impetuous fury. The tears and entreaties of parents and friends were of no avail; and if they were prevented by force for awhile, they evaded all the attention and vigilance of their observers, and found means to perpetrate the horrid deed. Some ascribed this extraordinary species of desperation and frenzy to certain occult and maddening qualities of the air at that season, somehow or other peculiarly injurious to the female frame and texture, both of body and mind, (since the men were not visibly affected by it;) while the superstitious considered it as a calamity sent from the gods, and therefore beyond the power of human remedy. But whatever was the cause, the effect was visible and important, and could not be suffered to rage long without manifest injury to the state. While speculative men, therefore, were attempting to account for the phenomena, the active magistrate was endeavouring to arrest the progress of the contagion, for which purpose the following decree was issued;—“That the body of every young woman who hanged herself should be dragged naked through the streets by the same rope with which she committed the deed.” This wise edict had in a short time the desired effect. Plutarch adds—“The fear of shame and ignominy is an argument of a good and virtuous mind; and they who regarded not pain and death, which are usually esteemed the most dreadful of evils, could not, however, endure the thoughts of having their dead bodies exposed to indignity and shame.”
In the Magdalen Asylum, at Edinburgh, a girl was seized with typhus fever, at the time that it was raging in the city, and though she was instantly removed, as well as all her bed-clothes &c., two more were seized next day, and an alarm or panic was soon spread over the whole house. Next day, no fewer than sixteen were in the sick-room, and in the course of four days, out of a community of less than fifty individuals, twenty-two were apparently labouring under decided fever. It now struck Dr. Hamilton that there was mad delusion in all this, and that the disease arose as much from panic and irritation as from any other causes. Acting on this belief, he went to the sick-room, and told the girls that such a rapid spread of the disease was entirely unprecedented; that they were under the delusion of yielding to their fears, and of imitating others who were now undergoing all the tortures of bleeding, blistering, and purging, in Queensbury Hospital. He assured them that the fumigation and other precautions must have destroyed the contagion, and that if they would only keep a good heart and dismiss their fears, he would pledge himself the fever would soon disappear. The effect of the Doctor’s speech was magical. All apprehension was instantly banished from the mind, the cheering influence of hope was inspired, moral courage was developed, and the progress of the pestilence stopped. Not one case of fever occurred afterwards, and those who had the fever at the time perfectly recovered.[54]
It is only on the same principle that we can account for the success which Dr. A. T. Thompson met with in the treatment of the following case of whooping-cough, which had been kept up by habit. The patient, a young boy, was threatened with the application of a large blister; although it was not applied, but merely placed within his view, yet the dread of it completely removed the cough. Boerrhave cured epilepsy in a whole school, by marching into it at the moment of the expected attack with a red-hot poker, which he threatened to thrust down the throats of those who should have a fit.
A remarkable instance of epidemic suicide occurred as far back as the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, which as it required, so it received, an effectual check by the spirited introduction of an extraordinary mode of punishment. After this king had employed the Roman people in successful wars abroad, he filled up their leisure at home in works of less apparent honour, though of greater utility. These were to cut drains and common sewers of immense size and durability. When the soldiers disdained these servile offices, and saw no end to their labours, many of them committed suicide by throwing themselves off the Capitoline Hill. Others followed their example, until the contagion spread through the whole of the men. The king, in order to strike terror into the minds of those who might contemplate self-destruction, issued an order commanding the bodies of those who should commit suicide to be nailed on crosses, and then exposed as spectacles to the rest of the citizens, and left a prey to the fowls of the air. The feeling of shame and horror had the effect of checking the disposition to sacrifice life, and thus the king’s purpose was effected.
Whether any measures of a similar character could be adopted in cases where the disposition to suicide has a tendency to assume an epidemic form is a matter of considerable doubt.
Experience has established the effect of some simple remedies in preventing the return of paroxysms of melancholia with a propensity to suicide. But it has likewise, and not unfrequently, evinced their insufficiency, and at the same time the influence of a strong and deeply impressed emotion in producing a solid and durable change. A man who worked at a sedentary trade consulted Pinel, about the end of October, 1783, for dyspepsia and great depression of spirits. He knew of no cause to which he could ascribe his indisposition. His unhappiness at length increased to such a pitch that he felt an invincible propensity to throw himself into the Seine. Unequivocal symptoms of a disordered stomach induced Pinel to prescribe some opening medicines, and for some days occasional draughts of whey. His bowels were effectually opened, and he suffered but little from his propensity to self-destruction during the remainder of the winter. Fine weather appeared to restore him completely, and his cure was considered as perfect. Towards the decline of autumn, however, his melancholia returned. Nature assumed to him a dark and dismal aspect, and his propensity to throw himself into the Seine returned with redoubled force. The only circumstance that in any degree restrained the horrid impulse was, the idea of leaving unprotected a wife and child, whom he tenderly loved. This struggle between the feelings of nature and his delirious frenzy was not permitted to continue long; for the most unequivocal proofs soon after appeared of his having executed his fatal project.
A literary gentleman, devoted to the pleasures of the table, and who had lately recovered from a fever, experienced in the autumnal season all the horrors of the propensity to suicide. He weighed with shocking calmness the choice of various methods to accomplish the deed of death. A visit which he paid to London appears to have developed, with a new degree of energy, his profound melancholy, and his immovable resolution to abridge his term of life. He chose an advanced hour of the night, and went towards one of the bridges of that capital for the purpose of precipitating himself into the Thames; but at the moment of his arrival at the destined spot, he was attacked by some robbers. Though he had little or no money about him, he felt extremely indignant at this treatment, and used every effort to make his escape, which, however, he did not accomplish before he had been exceedingly terrified. Left by his assailants, he returned to his lodgings, having forgot the original object of his sally. This rencontre seems to have caused a thorough revolution in the state of his mind. His cure was complete.