The following Table of “Death Rates of each Season” may be compared with the foregoing remarks on the “Seasonal Suicide rate”:
| ── | Spring. | Summer. | Autumn. | Winter. | Total. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 110 | 96 | 95 | 99 | 400 |
| France | 117 | 88 | 86 | 109 | 400 |
| Holland | 88 | 91 | 126 | 95 | 400 |
| Austria | 115 | 82 | 91 | 112 | 400 |
| Italy | 88 | 105 | 100 | 107 | 400 |
From these figures it will be apparent that the greatest mortality in England falls to spring, and next to winter; or exactly opposite to the tendency of suicide. In Italy only do the maxima of general mortality and suicide coincide in the hotter two quarters of the year.
It is not so much the actual hot weather which seems to increase the number of suicides and the amount of lunacy, nor the actual cold weather which seems to check the number, as it is that the onset of hot weather seriously affects the human system in such a way as to upset the equilibrium of mind function, and to suffer mental motives to derange the intellect.
In these considerations the spring is reckoned as consisting of March, April, and May, and the other seasons accordingly.
I do not find that these seasonal peculiarities are very marked in the suicide rates of this country taken alone, not in London at any rate; for example, I subjoin the figures obtained in Central Middlesex for two years.
| ─── | 1883. | 1884. | ─── | 1883. | 1884. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | 30 | 24 | Autumn | 20 | 15 |
| Summer | 23 | 37 | Winter | 22 | 26 |
The Annual Reports of the Registrar General do not throw any light on this question, nor, I may say, on several other somewhat fanciful investigations into which foreign observers have led the way.
Morselli states, “it is most probable that the moon exercises more or less influence on suicides as it does on madness and epilepsy, which are generally aggravated at the time of the waning moon (full moon and second quarter).”
“The influence of the moon would be more sharply felt by men than by women, particularly at new moon.” This last, it seems, is the conclusion drawn from the labours of the modern astrologers of Prussia.