The Anatomy of Suicide

by Forbes Winslow

A watchmaker was for a long time harassed by the propensity to suicide. He once so far gave way to the horrid impulse, that he withdrew to his house in the country, where he expected to meet no obstacle to the execution of his project. Here he took a pistol, and retired to an adjoining wood, with the full intent of perpetrating the fatal deed; but missing his aim, the contents of the piece entered his cheek. Violent hæmorrhage ensued. He was discovered, and conveyed to his own house. During the healing of the wound, which was long protracted, an important change took place in the state of his mind. Whether from the agitation produced by the above tragic attempt, from the enormous loss of blood which it occasioned, or from any other cause, he never afterwards shewed the least inclination to put an end to his existence. This case, though by no means an example for imitation, is well calculated to shew that sudden terror, or any other lively or deep impression, may divert, and even destroy, the fatal propensity to suicide.

A few years ago, an officer went into Hyde Park with an intention of shooting himself. He applied a pistol to his forehead; the priming flashed, but no discharge followed. A man of poor appearance, whom the officer had not observed, or perhaps thought unworthy of his notice, instantly ran up, and wrested the pistol from his hands. The other drew his sword, and was about to stab his deliverer, who, with much spirit, replied, “Stab me, Sir, if you think proper; I fear death as little as you, but I have more courage. More than twenty years I have lived in affliction and penury, and I yet trust in God for comfort and support.” The officer was struck with these spirited words, continued speechless and motionless for a short time, and then, bursting into tears, gave his purse to the honest man. He then inquired into his story, and became his private friend and benefactor; but he made the poor man swear that he would never make inquiries concerning himself, or seem to know him, if chance should ever bring them in sight of each other.

A female patient, who had often threatened to destroy herself, one day assured M. Esquirol that she was about to do it. “Very well,” he answered; “it is nothing to me; and your husband will be delivered of a great torment.” She instantly ceased the preparations she was making to accomplish the act, and never spoke of committing it again.

How easily lunatics may be diverted from their purpose by presence of mind, an intimacy with their character, and the tact to employ the destructive feeling by which they are actuated as the means of protection, is well exemplified in an anecdote related by Dr. Fox. He had accompanied a suicidal and furious maniac, who was at the time calm, to the upper story of his asylum to enjoy the prospect beyond the walls. In returning, the spiral staircase struck the eye of the patient; the opportunity roused the half-slumbering propensity, and a fit of frenzy ensued. His eyes glared, his teeth ground against each other; he panted like a bloodhound for his prey, and seizing the Doctor by the collar, howled into his ears, “You jump down, and I will jump after you.” The Doctor for the moment was petrified with horror; he was alone with a powerful man, frenzied by insanity; to escape was out of the question; to attempt to overcome him by force was still more futile: in a moment he hit upon a stratagem. Turning to the infuriated madman, he exclaimed, with a look of coolness and collectedness, “Bah! my child could jump from this place; it requires no nouse to do that; the thing is to jump up—that is the difficulty.” The madman listened with attention to what the Doctor said, and then observed, “But you cannot do so, can you?” The Doctor replied, he could, and they both hurried down to put the boast to the proof, and the sanguinary threat was forgotten before they reached the lobby.

Physicians not practically acquainted with the treatment of insanity are too much inclined to believe that it is fruitless to attempt to reason a madman out of his morbid delusion, and that to have recourse to a trick in order to dispel the mental illusion is a species of practice unbecoming the dignity of a professional gentleman. Numerous cases are recorded in which patients have been cured of monomania by a well-contrived artifice; and in many cases of suicidal insanity, when other treatment fails, the medical man may have recourse to this mode of cure without any danger of sinking himself in public or professional estimation. The following cases are illustrations of the foregoing remark:—

A celebrated watchmaker, at Paris, was infatuated with the chimera of perpetual motion, and to effect this discovery he set to work with indefatigable ardour. From unremitting attention to the object of his enthusiasm coinciding with the influence of revolutionary disturbances, his imagination was greatly heated, his sleep was interrupted, and, at length, a complete derangement of the understanding took place. His case was marked by a most whimsical illusion of the imagination. He fancied that he had lost his head on the scaffold; that it had been thrown promiscuously among the heads of many other victims; that the judges, having repented of their cruel sentence, had ordered them to be restored to their owners, and placed upon their respective shoulders; but that, in consequence of an unfortunate mistake, the gentleman who had the management of the business had placed upon his shoulders the head of one of his unhappy companions. The idea of this whimsical exchange occupied his thoughts night and day, on account of which his relations sent him to the Hôtel Dieu; and from thence he was transferred to the Asylum de Bicêtre. Nothing could equal the extravagant overflowings of his heated brain. He sung, cried, or danced incessantly; and as there appeared no propensity in him to commit acts of violence or disturbance, he was allowed to go about the hospital without control, in order to expend, by evaporation, the effervescent excess of his spirits. “Look at these teeth,” he constantly cried; “mine were exceedingly handsome; these are rotten and decayed. My mouth was sound and healthy; this is foul and diseased. What a difference between this hair and that of my own head!” To this state of delirious gaiety, however, succeeded that of furious madness. He broke to pieces, or otherwise destroyed, whatever was within the reach or power of his mischievous propensity. Close confinement became indispensable. Towards the approach of winter, his violence abated; and, although he continued to be extravagant in his ideas, he was never afterwards dangerous. He was therefore permitted, whenever he felt disposed, to go to the inner court. The idea of perpetual motion frequently recurred to him in the midst of his wanderings; and he chalked on all the walls and doors as he passed the various designs by which his wondrous piece of mechanism was to be constructed. The method best calculated to cure so whimsical an illusion appeared to be that of encouraging his prosecution of it to satiety. His friends were accordingly requested to send him his tools, with materials to work upon, and other requisites, such as plates of copper and steel, watch-wheels, &c. The governor permitted him to fix up a work-bench in his apartment. His zeal was now redoubled; his whole attention was rivetted upon his favourite pursuit. He forgot his meals. After about a month’s labour, which he sustained with a constancy that deserved better success, our artist began to think that he had followed a false route. He broke into a thousand fragments the piece of machinery which he had fabricated at so much expense of time, thought, and labour; entered on the construction of another upon a new plan, and laboured with equal pertinacity for an additional fortnight. The various parts being completed, he brought them together, and fancied that he saw a perfect harmony amongst them. The whole was now finally adjusted; his anxiety was indescribable; motion succeeded; it continued for some time, and he supposed it capable of continuing for ever. He was elevated to the highest pitch of enjoyment and triumph, and ran as quick as lightning into the interior of the hospital, crying out, like another Archimedes, “At length I have solved this famous problem, which has puzzled so many men celebrated for their wisdom and talents.” But, grievous to say, he was disconcerted in the midst of his triumph. The wheels stopped; the perpetual motion ceased! His intoxication of joy was succeeded by disappointment and confusion. But to avoid a humiliating and mortifying confession, he declared that he could easily remove the impediment; but tired of that kind of employment, he was determined for the future to devote his whole time and attention to his business. There still remained another maniacal impression to be counteracted,—that of the imaginary exchange of his head, which unceasingly recurred to him. A keen and an unanswerable stroke of pleasantry seemed best adapted to correct this fantastic whim. Another convalescent, of a gay and facetious humour, instructed in the part he should play in this comedy, adroitly turned the conversation to the subject of the famous miracle of Saint Denis. Our mechanician strongly maintained the possibility of the fact, and sought to confirm it by an application of it to his own case. The other set up a loud laugh, and replied, with a tone of the keenest ridicule, “Madman as thou art, how could Saint Denis kiss his own head? Was it with his heels?” This equally unexpected and unanswerable retort forcibly struck the maniac. He retired confused, amidst the peals of laughter which were provoked at his expense, and never afterwards mentioned the exchange of his head. Close attention to his trade for some months completed the restoration of his intellect. He was sent to his family in perfect health, and has now for more than five years pursued his business without a return of his complaint.

Mr. Cox recollects a singular instance of a deranged idea in a maniac being corrected by a very simple stratagem. The patient asserted that he was the Holy Ghost; a gentleman present immediately exclaimed, “You the Holy Ghost! What proof have you to produce?” “I know that I am,” was his answer. The gentleman said, “How is this possible? There is but one Holy Ghost, is there? How then can you be the Holy Ghost, and I be so too?” He appeared surprised and puzzled, and, after a short pause, said, “But are you the Holy Ghost?” When the other observed, “Did you not know that I was?” his answer was, “I did not know it before. Why, then, I cannot be the Holy Ghost.”

A Portuguese nobleman became melancholy, and fancied that God would never forgive his sins. Various means were tried to subdue this morbid impression, but in vain, until the following artifice was adopted, which proved successful in restoring the lunatic to reason. During midnight, a person dressed as an angel was made to enter his bed-room, having a drawn sword in its right hand, and a lighted torch in the other. The imaginary angelic being addressed the monomaniac by name, who, rising from his bed, spoke to the supposed angel, beseeching it to tell him whether his sins would ever be forgiven; upon which the angel replied, “Be comforted, your sins are forgiven.” The poor man’s delight knew no bounds. He rose from his bed, summoned every one in the house to his presence, and explained to them all that had passed. From that moment the man rapidly recovered in bodily health, and his delusion has completely vanished.

A man fancied he was dead, refused to eat, and importuned his parents to bury him. By the advice of his physician, he was wrapped in a winding-sheet, laid upon a bier, and in this way he was carried on the shoulders of four men to the churchyard. On their way, two or three pleasant fellows (appointed for that purpose) meeting the hearse, demanded in a commanding tone of voice to know whose body they had in the coffin. They replied it was a young man’s, and mentioned his name. “Surely,” said one of them, “the world is well rid of him; for he was a man who led a bad and vicious life, and his friends have good reasons to rejoice that he has thus ended his days, otherwise he would have died an ignominious death on the scaffold.” The young man overheard this observation, at which he felt extremely indignant; but feeling that it was not consistent with propriety or the laws of nature for a dead man on his way to his last home to exhibit any indications of passion, he satisfied himself by coolly replying, “That they were wicked men to do him that wrong, and that if he had been alive he would teach them to speak better of the dead.” “It is well,” said one of the men in reply, “that you are no more; both for yourself and family. You were a mean, pitiful scoundrel, guilty of every abomination, and the world is rejoiced that you no longer live.” This was too much for the patience of the dead man to endure, and feeling that he could no longer suffer such unjust aspersions to be cast on his character, he leaped from the coffin, procured the first stick he could lay hands on, and commenced belabouring his vile accusers. As it may be supposed, they gave him plenty to do, and by the time he had gratified his indignation, and well chastised his calumniators, he had become completely exhausted. In this state he was taken home, and in a few days he was completely cured of the morbid idea which had taken possession of his imagination.

Menecrates, as we learn from Ælian,[55] become so mad, as seriously to believe himself the son of Jupiter, and to request of Philip of Macedon that he might be treated as a god. But it is not always that the man thus deranged falls into such good hands as those of the Macedonian monarch; for Philip humorously determining to make the madman’s disease work its own cure, gave orders immediately that his request should be complied with, and invited him to a grand entertainment, at which was a separate table for the new divinity, served with the most costly perfumes and incense, but with nothing else. Menecrates was at first highly delighted, and received the worship that was paid to him with the greatest complacency; but growing hungry by degrees over the empty viands that were offered him, while every other guest was indulged with substantial dainties, he at length keenly felt himself to be a man, and stole away from the court in his right senses.