I have made careful investigation into all the cases of suicide which I have observed, and all those cases upon which I have held inquests, as the Deputy for Dr. Danford Thomas, in Middlesex, and I have found that in 20 per cent. only had the deceased ever exhibited symptoms of insanity obvious to the friends and relations.
The suicide rates of the great German lunatic asylums are higher than those of our English ones. Dr. Löwenhardt, of the great asylum at Sachsenburg, states that the average number of suicidal deaths in that institution is 5 per cent., a large proportion; for in the asylum of Illenau 3 per cent. only killed themselves, and in the asylum of Halle, only 1·7 per cent.
The varying rates of suicidal death in asylums depend very much on the qualities of the nurses on the staff, and on the relative number of patients attached to each attendant, for nothing but a constant and lynx-eyed survey will prevent the self-destruction of a large proportion of lunatics, when they have a wave of suicidal tendency passing over their minds.
[CHAPTER XV.]
EPIDEMIC SUICIDE; SUICIDE FROM IMITATION, AND DESIRE FOR NOTORIETY.
In relation to lunacy and mental disturbance, I must now refer to the question of Epidemic and Imitational Suicide.
No crime seems to have so strong a tendency to spread by example and imitation as this one. Epidemics have occurred on many occasions, and I have already mentioned an epidemic of suicide taking place among the soldiers of Tarquinius Superbus.
At Alexandria, in the time of the Ptolemies, an epidemic was originated by Hegesias the philosopher, who discoursed so eloquently on the numerous trials of this life and the pleasures of death, that numbers of persons destroyed themselves; and the philosopher was banished.
When Xanthus, a city of Lycia, was conquered by Brutus, the citizens slew themselves by hundreds.
At Miletus the women committed suicide in large numbers, because their husbands and lovers were detained by the wars: they hanged themselves; the frenzy was checked by an edict that their bodies were to be dragged naked through the streets. Other examples of wholesale suicide are shown by the people of Sidon, who burned their city and themselves when besieged by Artaxerxes Ochus, by the Tyrians when conquered by Alexander, and by the Acheans when defeated by Metellus.