In the year 1851, there were 3598 suicides recorded in France, to each of which the presumed motive was affixed. Out of these no less than 800 are set down to mental alienation; and to that number we should add 70 cases of monomania, 39 of cerebral fever, and 54 of idiocy—all ranking under the general head of uncontrollableness—which will make a total of 963, or more than a fourth of the whole cases. If we now examine the remaining cases, we find “domestic quarrels” next in amount, being no less than 385; while grief for the loss of children amounts to only 46, grief at their ingratitude or bad conduct, 16; sudden anger, only 1. Next in importance to domestic quarrels is the desire to escape from physical suffering: these amount to 313. Debt and embarrassment rank next—203. Want, and the fear of want, 179. Disgust at life—which may properly be called low spirits—stands high—166; shame and remorse, very low, only 7. Thwarted love shows only 91, and jealousy, 25. Losses at play, 6; loss of employment, 25.
Fallacious as all such figures must necessarily be, from the impossibility of always assigning the real motive to the act, they point with sufficient distinctness to certain general conclusions:—First, that insanity is the origin of by far the largest proportion of cases; secondly, that, except the dread of physical suffering, the other large proportions are all of cases which belong to the deliberative kind. In literature it is always passion, and passion of vehement sudden afflux, which determines suicide: the agonies of despair or jealousy, the arrowy pangs of remorse, or the dread apprehension of shame, are the only motives which the dramatist or novelist ever conceives.
Remedy for Poisoning.
Pouring cold water on the face and head appears to be a good remedy in case of poisoning by narcotics. A young woman accidentally swallowed six drachms of a mixture of laudanum and chloroform with some hydrocyanic acid in it. She immediately vomited a portion of the liquid, and then fell down in a state of coma. Professor Harley being called in, he administered hot coffee and nitric ether, and proceeded to effect artificial respiration. No great improvement was perceptible, but on the application of cold water to the forehead the effect was magical. The patient began to breathe more freely, and she lost some blood from the nose. As soon as the affusion of cold water ceased, the coma returned, and was again removed by renewing the affusion; the patient soon moved her arms and legs, and seemed anxious to avoid the stream of water, as if it caused her pain. This treatment was renewed at intervals until the following day, and after the lapse of sixty hours all distressing symptoms disappeared completely.
New Remedy for Wounds.
The Antwerp journal states that perchloride of iron combined with collodion is a good hæmostatic in the case of wounds, the bites of leeches, &c. To prepare it, one part of crystallized perchloride of iron is mixed with six parts of collodion. The perchloride of iron should be added gradually and with care, otherwise such a quantity of heat will be generated as to cause the collodion to boil. The composition, when well made, is of a yellowish red, perfectly limpid, and produces on the skin a yellow pellicle, which retains great elasticity.
Compensation for Wounds.
The Regulations under which pensions and allowances are granted to officers of the Army were revised by a Royal Warrant issued towards the close of 1860. The loss of an eye or limb from injury received in action will be compensated by a gratuity in money of one year’s full pay of his then rank or staff appointment. He may be recommended for a pension also, at a rate varying from 400l. for a lieutenant-general, to 50l. for a cornet; and if more than one eye or limb be lost, he may be recommended for a pension for each. For minor injuries, “not nearly equal to the loss of a limb,” he may receive a gratuity varying from three to twelve months of his then pay. If the injury shall be so diminished as to be “not nearly equal to the loss of a limb,” at the end of five years, during which the claimant must be twice examined by a medical board, the pension will then be permanent, otherwise it will cease. No pension or gratuity for these causes will be granted unless the actual loss shall have occurred within five years after the wound or injury was received. This scale of compensation is more liberal than by the previously existing custom.—Lancet, 1860.
The Best Physician.
What chiefly characterizes the most eminent physicians, and gives them their real superiority, is not so much the extent of their theoretical knowledge—though that, too, is often considerable—but it is that fine and delicate perception which they owe, partly to experience, and partly to a natural quickness in detecting analogies and differences which escape ordinary observers. The process which they follow, is one of rapid, and, in some degree, unconscious, induction. And this is the reason why the greatest physiologists and chemists, which the medical profession possesses, are not, as a matter of course, the best curers of disease. If medicine were a science, they would always be the best. But medicine being still essentially an art, depends mainly upon qualities which each practitioner has to acquire for himself, and which no scientific theory can teach. The time for a general theory has not yet come, and probably many generations will have to elapse before it does come. To suppose, therefore, that a theory of disease should, as a matter of education, precede the treatment of disease, is not only practically dangerous but logically false.—Buckle’s History of Civilization, vol. ii.