The Anatomy of Suicide

by Forbes Winslow

It is a safe doctrine always to presume the presence of insanity in those who have exhibited a desire to commit suicide. A person who has once attempted to take away his life cannot be trusted, notwithstanding he manifest the usual evidences of a sane intellect. It is astonishing to consider the ingenious tricks and stratagems to which a person whose mind is bent on self-destruction will have recourse in order to effect his purpose. We find recorded the case of a woman who was tried for her life, and who, in order that she might escape from the hands of the executioner, applied a hundred leeches to her body, hoping to bleed to death. Another female exposed herself to a swarm of bees; and we read of an apothecary who endeavoured to beat out his brains with his own pestle.

A builder, who had been found fault with by his employer, became melancholy, and finally determined upon self-destruction. He hurried to a steep part of the high road, where vehicles of all descriptions were compelled to put on the drag in the descent. Here he waited until a heavily loaded wagon reached the spot, when he seized hold of one of the wheels that was not locked, and applying his body to the circumference, was instantly crushed.

A woman cut her throat severely, but not fatally. Her friends could not be prevailed on to believe that she was insane. She recovered, but shewed such evidences of that unhappy condition, through the whole progress of her cure, as were sufficiently unambiguous to every competent judge. She had speculated unsuccessfully in the lottery, and it was insisted that the rash act was solely to be ascribed to her disappointment in this venture. Soon after her recovery, and when her affairs had assumed a more comfortable train, she went up one day into her bed-room, and being thought to stay longer than was necessary, a person went to see after her, and found her sitting before a dressing-glass, with a basin under her chin, and a knife in her hand, cutting her throat again, as deliberately as a surgeon would have performed an operation. She recovered this time also, and afterwards made a third and successful attempt.

A maniac who was extremely turbulent, and had evinced a strong propensity to destroy himself, was confined, and everything taken from him which could be imagined in any way capable of being instrumental for such a purpose. He was remarked on one occasion to be unusually quiet, and on his keeper looking through an aperture in his apartment, he discovered him scooping out his eyes with a bit of broken china found by him in the mattress, which he had torn to pieces; and with his face full in the glare of the sun, he had completely accomplished this horrid act before the door could be opened to secure him.

A gentleman of some political consequence in France had an attack of apoplexy, from which he recovered by copious bloodletting. Some years afterwards, he had a fall from his horse, and was wounded severely in his head, the injury occasioning fever and delirium of some weeks’ duration. After this accident, he evinced some marks of mental aberration. He threw up his post under government, and retired to his chateau in the country, for the purpose of concocting, as he said, a scheme for uniting the people of all nations. To prepare a suitable edifice for this philanthropic union, he began to pull down his chateau; but being interrupted by his friends, he came to Paris, and one day jumped off the Pont-Neuf into the middle of the Seine. He swam manfully, and reached the shore in safety. He was so proud of this exploit that he considered himself invulnerable, and began next day to run in the way of carriages or fiacres he met in the street, calling to the drivers that they need not mind him, as he could not be injured! He was seized and carried home, but in a day or two jumped out of the chamber window into the street. He was then placed in M. Esquirol’s establishment, and considered as an incurable maniac.

During the French revolution, a case of mania without delirium gave rise to an extraordinary scene at the Asylum de Bicêtre. The mob, after the massacre of the prisons, broke like madmen into the above hospital, under pretence of emancipating certain victims of the old tyranny, whom it had endeavoured to confound with the maniacal residents of that house. They proceeded in arms from cell to cell, interrogating the prisoners, and passing such of them as were manifestly insane. A maniac, bound in chains, arrested their attention by the most bitter complaints which he preferred, with apparent justice and rationality. “Is it not shameful,” said he, “that I should be bound in chains, and confounded with madmen.” He defied them to accuse him of any act of impropriety or extravagance. “It is an instance of the most flagrant injustice!” He conjured the strangers to put an end to such oppression, and to become his liberators. His complaints excited amongst the armed mob loud murmurs and imprecations against the governor of the hospital. They immediately sent for that gentleman, and, with their sabres at his breast, demanded an explanation of his conduct. When he attempted to justify himself, they imposed silence upon him. To no purpose did he adduce, from his own experience, similar instances of maniacs who were free from delirium, but at the same time extremely dangerous from their outrageous passions. They answered him only with abuse; and had it not been for the courage of his wife, who protected him with her own person, he would have been sacrificed to their fury. They commanded him to release the maniac, whom they led in triumph with reiterated shouts of “Vive la République!” The sight of so many armed men, their loud and confused shouts, and their faces flushed with wine, roused the madman’s fury. He seized with a vigorous grasp the sabre of his next neighbour, brandished it about with great violence, and wounded several of his liberators. Had he not been promptly mastered, he would soon have made them repent their ill-timed humanity. The savage mob then thought proper to lead him back to his cell, and, with shame and reluctance, yielded to the voice of justice and experience.

Many modern and ancient cases of suicide have been referred to in support of the opinion that insanity is not necessarily present under such circumstances. The conclusions drawn from the history of ancient cases, such as Cato, Cleopatra, Cassius, &c., cannot fairly be made use of in the present inquiry; and yet if we examine these instances, which have been so triumphantly brought forward as incontrovertible proofs that it is possible for a person with a mind perfectly unclouded and free from even the semblance of aberration to commit suicide, we shall discover that they are not such good illustrations in support of the doctrines which they who cite them are anxious to uphold.

The suicide of Cato has often been referred to, and is considered a most apt and conclusive instance in point. We admit this case is one of great importance, inasmuch as it has been held up as an example to others of a man who sacrificed his own life to promote the interests of his country. How many have been induced to plunge recklessly into another world in imitation of the conduct of the Roman hero!

Was Cato perfectly sane when he sacrificed his life? We are disposed to think not. His whole conduct immediately preceding the last fatal act of his life evinces the extreme mental agitation under which he laboured; despair had taken possession of his faculties; the ambition and the hopes of years were prostrated in a moment to the dust, and to escape from a long life of tyranny, he perished on his own sword.

Many modern cases have been cited as evidence of the coolness and collectedness which many have exhibited in the act of suicide. The Rev. Mr. Colton, the accomplished author of “Lacon,” is said to have been sane when he committed self-destruction. He shot himself with a pistol after having written the following apophthegm: “When life is unbearable, death is desirable, and suicide justifiable.” The last few weeks of Colton’s life were embittered by acute mental and physical suffering. He was involved in great pecuniary difficulties, and was dependent for the necessaries of life on the charity of his friends. Independently of this, he laboured under a very painful disease, and it was when exposed to this combination of misery that he committed suicide. His biographer states that there was no doubt of Colton’s insanity at the time of his death; it was evident to all who were about him. The evidence in Sir Samuel Romilly’s case is as strongly corroborative of his derangement as in that of poor Colton’s. At the time, he was suffering from the loss of a wife to whom he was most dotingly attached, and the cerebral derangement was so apparent that his physician ordered him to be cupped in the nape of the neck a short period previously to his killing himself. Lord Castlereagh’s insanity was also clearly manifested. His whole conduct on the day he cut his throat led irresistibly to the conclusion that he was not in his right senses. His strange manner was noticed some time previously in the House of Commons. The Duke of Wellington saw the necessity of medical advice, and had a physician sent to him; in fact, the evidence was as strong as evidence could be, and no one at the time questioned the correctness of the verdict. There were many peculiar circumstances connected with his lordship’s early history which ought to be borne in mind before we conclude that he was of sane mind at the moment of his suicide.