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CHAPTER XI. - IS THE ACT OF SUICIDE THE RESULT OF INSANITY?

The instinct of self-preservation -- The love of life -- Dr. Wolcott’s death-bed -- Anecdote of the Duke de Montebello -- Louis XI. of France -- Singular death of a celebrated lawyer -- Dr. Johnson’s horror of dying -- The organ of destruction universal -- Illustrations of its influence -- Sir W. Scott, on the motives that influence men in battle -- Have we any test of insanity? -- Mental derangement not a specific disease -- Importance of keeping this in view -- Insanity not always easily detected -- Is lowness of spirits an evidence of derangement? -- The cunning of lunatics -- Esquirol’s opinion that insanity is always present -- Moral insanity -- The remarkable case of Frederick of Prussia -- Suicide often the first symptom of insanity -- Cases in which persons have been restored to reason from loss of blood, after attempting suicide -- The cases of Cato, Sir Samuel Romilly, Lord Castlereagh, Colton, and Chatterton examined -- Concluding remarks.

Nature has ordained no law more universal in its influence than the desire which all animated beings display, and which is indeed the governing principle in the greater part of their actions, to preserve their existence, and to secure themselves from the influence of circumstances that bring it into danger. That “no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it,” is an axiom laid down in scripture, and one founded on reason and observation.63

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One of our poets, in alluding to this subject, after declaring life to be the dream of a shadow, “a weak-built isthmus between two eternities, so frail that it can neither sustain wind nor wave,” yet avers his preference of a few days’, nay, a few hours’ longer residence upon earth to all the fame that wealth and honour could bestow --

“Is there anything on earth I can do for you?” said Taylor to Wolcott, as he lay on his death-bed. The passion for life dictated the answer, “Give me back my youth?” These were the last words of the celebrated Peter Pindar.

Dr. Johnson had a superstitious fear of death. Boswell asked him whether we might not fortify the mind for the approach of death. Johnson answered in a passion, “No, Sir, let it alone! It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance; it lasts so short a time.” But when Boswell persisted in the conversation, Johnson was thrown into such a state of agitation that he thundered out, “Give us no more of this;” and turning to Boswell, he said, with great earnestness, “Don’t let us meet to-morrow!”

There is an anecdote recorded of one of the favourite marshals of Napoleon, the Duke de Montebello, which finely illustrates the strength of this instinctive principle. During a 223 battle in the south of Germany, the duke was struck by a cannon-ball, and so severely wounded that there was no hope of his surviving. Summoning the surgeon to his side, he ordered the wounds to be dressed; and when help was declared to be unavailing, the dying officer, excited into frenzy by the love of life, burned with vindictive anger against the medical attendant, threatening the heaviest penalties if his art should bring no relief. The dying marshal demanded that Napoleon should be sent for, as one who had power to save, whose words could stop the effusion of blood from the wounds, and awe nature itself into submission. Napoleon arrived in time to witness the last fearful struggle of expiring nature, and to hear his favourite marshal exclaim, as the lamp of life was just being extinguished, “Save me, Napoleon!”

The following case, which occurred in humble life, illustrates the same principle: -- A man on the point of death vowed he would not die, cursing his physician, who announced the near termination of his life, and insisted that he would live in defiance of the laws of nature.

It is recorded of Louis XI. of France, that so desperately did he cling to life when everything warned him to prepare for death, that he, in accordance with the barbarous physiology of that age, had the veins of children opened, and greedily drank their blood, hoping in that way to fan the dying embers of life into a flame!

A once celebrated member of the English bar, whose strong original powers of mind had been obscured and enfeebled by the gross sensuality of his habits, in the extremity of his last illness, when the shadows of death were fast coming over him, with a blasphemous audacity, swore by his Creator that he would not die. In this state of morbid and impious rage he struggled out of his bed, tottered down the stairs, and fell lifeless in the passage. From the exclamation of this unfortunate man, it would seem as if he fancied that he held the reins of life in his hands, and could arrest at will the rapidity of its descending career.

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Spence says, that “Salvini was an odd sort of man, subject to gross absences, and a very great sloven. His behaviour in his last hour was as odd as any of his behaviour in all his lifetime before could have been. Just as he was departing, he cried out in great passion, “Je ne veux pas mourir, absolument!”

It is not our intention to consider this subject phrenologically. That we have all certain good and evil propensities inherent in our nature, developed in various degrees in different individuals, is admitted by the anti-phrenologist, as well as by the most zealous advocate of that science. We need no phrenology to tell us, that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:” scripture makes us acquainted with this fact. It is useful to look at the dark as well as the bright side of human nature. Without, then, using terms which might be considered objectionable, there can be no doubt of the existence in the human mind of a propensity to destroy, varying in degree from the simple pleasure of viewing the destruction of human life, to the most impassioned desire to kill others or oneself. This is a natural propensity, and, when not subdued by the higher faculties of the mind, it exhibits itself in the form of unequivocal insanity. This feeling to destroy may exist in conjunction with a consciousness on the part of the individual that he is about to commit a crime opposed to the laws of God and man. Dr. Gall relates many particulars of cases in which this natural propensity became morbidly developed. A student shocked his fellow-pupils by the extreme pleasure he took in tormenting insects, birds, and brutes. It was to gratify this inclination, he confessed, that he studied surgery. A man had so strong an inclination to kill that he became an executioner; and a Dutchman paid his butcher, who furnished ships with extensive supplies of meat, for being allowed to slaughter the oxen.225 In these cases we see this natural feeling inordinately developed. Subject such persons to the operation of causes likely to excite this extra-developed propensity, and they will murder others or themselves.

Gall mentions the case of a person at Vienna who, after witnessing an execution, was seized with a propensity to kill; at the same time, he had a clear consciousness of his situation. He wept bitterly, struck his head, wrung his hands, and cried to his friends to take care and get out of his way. Pinel mentions the case of a man, exhibiting no apparent unsoundness of intellect, who confessed that he had a propensity to kill. He nearly murdered his wife, and then attempted several times to destroy himself.

In 1805, a man was tried at Norwich for wounding his wife and cutting his child’s throat. He had been known to tie himself with ropes for a week to prevent his doing mischief to others and to himself. A man exposed to a sudden reverse of fortune was heard to exclaim, “Do, for God’s sake, get me confined; for if I am at liberty I shall destroy myself and wife! I shall do it, unless all means of destruction are removed; and therefore do have me put under restraint. Something above tells me I shall do it; and I shall!”

Whenever the mind is exposed to the influence of excited feeling, and the operation of the reasoning powers are suspended, we see the faculty alluded to developed according to the constitution of the individual. On the field of battle, striking examples occur of the various energies of this inclination. One soldier at the appearance of blood experiences the intoxication of carnage; another will swoon at the same sight. Sir Walter Scott, in the poem in which he has referred to the battle of Bannockburn, alludes to the various feelings that influence the mind in the heat of an engagement; and it will be perceived that he directs particular attention to those who are influenced by no other motive than the pleasure they derive from sacrificing human life: --

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What conclusion are we justified in drawing from the facts just related? Certainly, that there is in us all a disposition to destroy, which is in some wisely and providentially restrained. If this view of the matter be correct, we do not think that we should be wrong in concluding that by far the great majority of cases of suicide result from a morbid development of this natural feeling, consequent upon a primary or secondary affection of the brain. This subject is of great interest in a medico-legal point of view, and is well deserving of serious consideration.

Is the act of suicide an evidence of mental derangement? Before this question can be satisfactorily answered, it would be necessary for us to consider that vexata questio -- what is insanity? Have we an unfailing standard to which to appeal; an infallible test by which we can ascertain, with anything like a proximity to truth, the sanity of any mind? Perhaps, if we were to assert that we considered it impossible to point out the line of demarcation which separates the confines of a sane and insane condition of the mind, we might lay ourselves open to an attack. Again, were we bold enough to proclaim our non-adherence to what is considered as the orthodox faith in this matter, and assert that we viewed every departure from a healthy tone of mind, whether in its intellectual or moral manifestations, as an evidence of insanity, we might still more expose ourselves to the merciless lash of the critic; yet these227 are the opinions to which we should feel most disposed to give our assent. We must make a marked distinction between insanity considered as a legal and as a medical question; and it is greatly owing to our not keeping this essential difference in mind that so much useless reasoning and vituperation has arisen. The man who is daily exposed to the kind and cheering influence of friendship, and who fancies himself alone in the world, without one human being to sympathize with him in his afflictions, is as essentially mad as he is who imagines himself to be made of glass, and is fearful of sitting down lest he should injure his brittle glutei muscles. A poet of antiquity wrote a book describing the miseries of the world, and destroyed himself at the conclusion of the task.

“No man who is oppressed with grief,” Crichton justly observes, “and who is constantly preyed on by mental and bodily pain, can be supposed capable of exercising his judgment at all times correctly; a fresh misfortune, imaginary or real, excites an irresistible desire of relief. Tired out, hopeless, dismayed by the threatening aspect of many a bursting cloud; discerning nothing, whichever way he looks, but a dreary and comfortless life, how can he be supposed capable of taking a clear, calm, and comprehensive view of the obligations he owes to his Creator or society, or of reflecting on the sudden vicissitudes which daily occur in human life, and on which every man may safely form some hope, even in the most distressed situation? The wretchedness of life is the only picture present to the mind of one in whom grief has terminated in such a state of deep melancholy; the only objects of comparison are the misery of existence on the one hand, and the relief he can obtain by withdrawing himself from it on the other.”

Insanity results from a disease of the brain. Although after death, in many cases, no appreciable structural lesion can be detected in the cerebral mass, it would be illogical for us to conclude that the sentient organ has not been physically228 affected. Derangement of mind is but the effect of physical disease, and, like all other diseases, it has an early as well as an advanced stage. Medical men have not paid sufficient attention to the premonitory indications of mental alienation. Having erected an arbitrary standard of derangement in their own minds, they have been disposed to consider no deviation from mental soundness as insanity, unless it exhibited the symptoms which their preconceived ideas had led them to suppose necessary, in order to constitute that disease. They have argued as if insanity were a specific disease invariably manifesting the same phenomena, and in this way definitions have been framed, by which the soundness of the intellect has been tested. It is hardly necessary to say how fallacious all such tests must be. The brain, like every other organ, is liable to a variety of diseases, in all of which the mental faculties are more or less affected. The danger of attempting to erect an arbitrary standard of insanity is this: it induces us to overlook the incipient symptoms of mental derangement, and to consider no deviation from soundness of intellect as insanity which does not come within the scope of our definition. The early symptoms of mental aberration are as much an evidence of the presence of insanity, as when the disease is more advanced, and the indications become so apparent that no one hesitates in pronouncing the individual mad. Medical men who have maintained that the act of suicide is not invariably the result of insanity have argued as if the mental ailment was always self-evident and easily detected; whereas, those who have had any experience in the matter know full well, that occasionally there are no diseases more difficult of detection than those which relate to a morbid condition of the mind. If an act of suicide has been committed, and the individual at the moment of perpetrating it did not manifest evident symptoms of insanity, the conclusion drawn is, that he was perfectly sane at the time. That the facts of the case do not warrant this inference must be apparent to those who consider the subject in an enlarged point of view. If we examine attentively the229 majority of cases of suicide, we shall find that the unfortunate persons have laboured, either for some time previously or at the very moment, under depression of spirits, anxiety of mind, and other symptoms of cerebral derangement. Very few cases of suicide take place in which you cannot trace the existence of previous mental depression, produced either by physical or moral agents. It may be said that lowness of spirits is not insanity; certainly not, according to the legal definition of the term; but we may always be assured, that if mental anxiety or perturbation be more than commensurate with the exciting cause, it may be presumed that the individual is labouring under the incipient indications of insanity.64 This view of the case is strengthened if an hereditary predisposition to the disease should also be present.

“It will be said,” says Esquirol, “that there are individuals who, in the midst of affluence, grandeur, and pleasures, and in the full enjoyment of reason, have suddenly put an end to their existence, immediately after parting with their friends in good spirits, or after having written letters on business with perfect correctness. Can these be said to be insane when they commit suicide? Yes; most undoubtedly. Do not monomaniacs appear perfectly sane on all other subjects, till the particular idea is started which forms the burden of their hallucination? Are they not capable of curbing the expression of their delirium, and dissembling their aberration of intellect? It is the same 230with sane individuals, over whom the suicidal idea tyrannizes. A physical pain, an unexpected impression, a moral affection, a recollection, an indiscreet proposition, the perusal of a passage in writing, will occasionally revive the thought and provoke the act of suicide, although the individual the instant before should be in perfect integrity of mind and body.”

In general, most persons actually insane wish not only to be esteemed free from the malady, but to be considered as possessing considerable intellectual endowments; hence, real lunatics seldom allow the existence of their lunacy; but are always endeavouring to conceal from observation those lapses of thought, memory, and expression, which are tending every moment to betray them, and of the presence of which they are much oftener conscious than is generally apprehended or believed. Alexander Cruden, when suffering under his second and last attack of mental aberration, upon being asked whether he ever was mad, replied: “I am as mad now as I was formerly, and as mad then as I am now, that is to say, not mad at any time.”

Again, medical men who have reasoned against this opinion have forgotten entirely one peculiar, and a very remarkable feature of insanity -- viz., the singular cunning of lunatics; how extremely difficult it is in many cases where we know the individual to be unquestionably mad, to make his delusion apparent. The case of the lunatic who indicted Dr. Monro for confining him in his asylum has often been cited. He brought an action against the Doctor at Westminster; and, although the man was subjected to a most severe examination and cross-examination, his insanity could not be detected. The trial was on the eve of being concluded, when Dr. Sims entered the court, and knowing the man’s peculiar delusion, he was requested to ask him a question. He did so, and his insanity instantly became apparent. He brought another action against Dr. Monro in the city of London, and, knowing that he had failed before by acknowledging his love for an imaginary princess, so remarkable a degree of cunning did he exhibit231 that one of the severest examinations to which a man was ever subjected in a court of justice could not induce the lunatic to disclose the delusion under which he was known to labour. This curious feature of insanity must be taken into consideration in forming an estimate of the presence of derangement in cases of suicide, and we must not hastily conclude, because insanity is not self-evident, that it does not exist.

A merchant, fifty-five years of age, of a strong constitution, although of a lymphatic temperament, mild and gentle in his disposition, the father of a numerous family, and who had acquired a considerable fortune in business, experienced some domestic troubles, not sufficiently serious, however, to affect any one of a resolute character. About a year ago, he formed a large establishment for one of his sons, and shortly afterwards became very active, and expressed, contrary to his usual habits, the delight which he felt at his increasing prosperity. He was also more frequently absent from his warehouse and business than usual. But notwithstanding these trifling changes, neither his family, nor any of his friends or neighbours, suspected any disorder of his reason. One day, whilst he was from home, a travelling merchant brought to his house two pictures, and asked fifty louis for them, which he said was the price agreed on by a very respectable gentleman who had given his name and address. His son sent away both the pictures and the seller. On his return, the father did not mention his purchase; but the children began the conversation, alluding to the roguery of the merchant, and their refusal to pay him. The father became very angry, asserting that the pictures were very beautiful, that they were not dear, and that he was determined to purchase them. In the evening, the dispute became warmer, the patient flew into a passion, uttered threats, and at last became delirious. On the next day, he was confided to Esquirol’s care. His children, frightened at their father’s illness, and alarmed at the purchase which he had made, looked through their accounts; and great was their astonishment at seeing the bad state of232 their books, the numerous blanks which they presented, and the immense deficiency of cash. This irregularity had existed for more than six months. Had this discussion not taken place, one of the most honourable mercantile houses would have been compromised in a few days; for a bill of exchange of a considerable amount had become due, and no means had been taken to provide for it.

A patient has been known to weep, and affect the deepest contrition for attempting suicide, when it has been proved that all the time he was meditating on the means of accomplishing his design. A workman was admitted into a French hospital, having a third time attempted his life. He appeared deeply mortified and broken-hearted that he should have suffered a relapse, and was much affected by the remonstrances of his physician. He promised faithfully, in tears, to abandon his rash resolve. Ten minutes afterwards, whilst on his road home, he perceived a piece of cord; he seized it, made a noose, put his head into it, and suspended himself from the branch of a tree, where he was found dead! Cases illustrative of the same fact are mentioned in another part of this work.

Again, we must bear in mind that insanity is often as much a disease of the moral as of the intellectual faculties, and that it is possible for the intellect to be perfectly sound, and yet for insanity to be present. Moral derangement has not met with that consideration from the profession which its importance demands. Insanity often consists in a vitiated condition of the moral principle, independently of any delusion of the intellect; and in many cases of suicide, if we investigate their history, we shall find that the alienation has been of this character. A man, whose disposition naturally disposed him to vice, fancied that he had been guilty of committing a nameless offence, and, whilst labouring under this idea, blew out his brains. In this case, the intellect was unaffected; the derangement consisted in a perversion of the moral powers. Senile insanity, which has been recognised in our courts of233 law, is a derangement of the moral constitution. In cases of this description, it is possible for the person to be conscious of his infirmity, and to confess, with great apparent regret, his inability to control his feelings. “I am impotent, and not fit to live,” said a man, and accordingly cut his throat. If we admit the existence of an insanity which consists solely in a perversion of the moral powers, then we should hesitate in pronouncing ex cathedrâ that insanity is not present because no derangement of the intellectual faculties can be perceived.

Dr. T. Mayo observes, that “no intellectual delusion need be present when self-destruction is coveted. But there must be an extinction of that moral sense which revolts from it on grounds independent of fear. Owing, however, to the systematic neglect of moral symptoms, the suicide is seldom recognised as possessing this destructive tendency until he has made an attempt upon his life; often, therefore, until all measures must be too late.”

A very common feature of moral mania is a deep perversion of the social affections, whereby the feelings of kindness and attachment that flow from the relations of father, husband, and child, are replaced by a perpetual inclination to tease, worry, and embitter the existence of others. The ordinary scene of its manifestations is the patient’s own domestic circle, the peace and happiness of which are effectually destroyed by the outbreakings of his ungovernable temper, and even by acts of brutal ferocity. Frederic William of Prussia, father of Frederic the Great, undoubtedly laboured under this form of moral mania; and it furnishes a satisfactory explanation of his brutal treatment of his son, and his utter disregard of the feelings or comfort of any other member of his family. About a dozen years before his death, his health gave way under his constant debauches in drunkenness; he became hypochondriacal, and redoubled his usual religious austerities. He forbade his family to talk of any subject but religion, read them daily sermons, and compelled them to sing, punishing234 with the utmost severity any inattention to these exercises. The prince and his elder sister soon began to attract a proportionate share of his hostility. He obliged them to eat and drink unwholesome or nauseous articles, and would even spit in their dishes, addressing them only in the language of invective, and at times endeavouring to strike them with his crutch. About this time he attempted to strangle himself, and would have accomplished his design had not the queen come to his rescue. His brutality towards the prince arrived to such a pitch that he one morning seized him by the collar as he entered his bed-chamber, and began to beat him with a cane in the most cruel manner, till obliged to desist from pure exhaustion. On another occasion, shortly after, he seized his son by the hair, and threw him on the ground, beating him till he was tired, when he dragged him to a window, apparently for the purpose of throwing him out. A servant hearing the cries of the prince, came to his assistance, and delivered him from his hands. Not satisfied with treating him in this barbarous manner, he connived at the prince’s attempts to escape from his tyranny, in order that he might procure from a court-martial a sentence of death; and this even he was anxious to anticipate by endeavouring to run him through the body with his sword. Not succeeding in procuring his death by judicial proceedings, he kept him in confinement, and turned all his thoughts towards converting him to Christianity. At this time, we first find mention of any delusion connected with his son, though it probably existed before. In his correspondence with the chaplain to whom he had entrusted the charge of converting the prince, he speaks of him as one who had committed many and heinous sins against God and the king, as having a hardened heart, and being in the fangs of Satan. Even after he became satisfied with the repentance of the prince, he shewed no disposition to relax the severities of his confinement. He was kept in a miserable room, deprived of all the comforts and many of the necessaries of life, denied the use of pens, ink, and235 paper, and allowed scarcely food enough to prevent starvation. His treatment of the princess was no less barbarous. She was also confined, and every effort used to make her situation thoroughly wretched, and though, after a few years, he relaxed his persecution of his children, the general tenour of his conduct towards his family and others evinced little improvement in his disorder, till the day of his death.65

In considering this point it is important to remember that the attempt at self-destruction is OFTEN the FIRST distinct overt act of insanity. A young lady of delicate constitution, but previously in apparent health, started up one day from the tea-table, rushed to the window, and endeavoured to throw herself out. It required several persons to restrain her until a strait-waistcoat could be procured. She remained insane from that time until the day of her death, with very partial glimmerings of reason. “Fortunately,” says Mr. Chevalier, who relates the case, “her life was not long protracted.”

It has been inferred, that when an unsuccessful act of suicide has been committed, and the person expresses his regret for what he has been guilty of, that we are justified in concluding that the mind was sane when the suicide was attempted. The effort which Sir Samuel Romilly is said to have made to stop the hemorrhage after having cut his throat, has been cited by a celebrated living authority as an evidence of his previous sanity.66 We must bear in mind that many cases of suicide result from derangement of mind dependent on cerebral congestion.

In such cases, we can imagine a person insane when the act of self-destruction is attempted, and sane immediately afterwards. The loss of blood which a person would sustain from an extensive wound of the throat, particularly when, as is often the case, some large vessel is wounded, would instantly relieve the brain of the superabundant blood which had been oppressing it, and deranging its manifestations, and thus 236producing a return of sanity. That this was the fact in Sir Samuel Romilly’s case is evident from its history. There cannot be a shadow of doubt that he was insane when he cut his throat; and his apparent desire to live after the act was committed, may be attributed to the relief which he had derived from the loss of blood.

Mr. T. Miller, of Spalding, in a fit of delirium, cut his throat so dreadfully that after languishing three days, he died. He manifested during this interval the utmost contrition for his offence, declaring he knew not what he had done until he found the blood streaming from his wound. He dictated his will, and talked rationally with his friends till his dissolution.67

A merchant in the city, not many months back, met with some losses in business. His mind became affected to a certain extent; he felt a strong desire to kill himself; but being a man of education and enlarged capacity, he fought most resolutely against this inclination. He had been exposed during one day to the influence of circumstances which caused great mental depression. He said to his head-clerk, previously to his leaving his counting-house, that his head felt heavy and oppressed, and he had a presentiment that something would happen before the morning. The clerk suggested the propriety of his having medical advice, but he did not think proper to do so. In this state he went to bed. In the middle of the night he awoke in a state of extreme agitation; no language could convey an adequate idea of his feelings, and suicide was the only act which held out the hope of relief. In this state he rose from his bed, called up the servants, and commanded them to run for the surgeon. A professional gentleman who lived close by was soon in attendance, and the moment he entered the room the patient exclaimed, “Bleed me, or I shall cut my throat!” The operation was instantly performed, and as the blood flowed from the vein the patient exclaimed, “Thank God! I have been 237saved from committing self-murder.” Every disposition to suicide was immediately removed.

The following is an extract of a letter found in the pocket of Captain Aitkins, of the Pembroke Fusileers, who committed suicide: -- “As some inquiry may be instituted as to the cause of my death, I think it necessary to state that it was inflicted by my own hand, partly from pecuniary embarrassment, and partly from the effect of strong nervous malady, which has fixed itself on my spirits so as to render life insupportable.” In this case we have no hesitation in asserting, that if the brain could have been relieved of the unnatural weight which oppressed it, this poor man would not have stained his hand with his own blood.

In many cases the delusion of the intellect is so self-evident that no one questions the existence of insanity. A respectable Scotch merchant, near Pimlico, committed suicide by cutting his throat. He fancied the devil was in him; he asserted he could feel him in his throat. On examining his room after his death, two wills were discovered, in one of which he desires his executors to employ a surgeon to open his body, that the devil might be found, secured, and destroyed; and in this way, he says, he will be prevented from injuring any one else.

Many other cases could be cited in which the act of suicide was clearly traceable to mental derangement, were it considered necessary further to illustrate this point. Much evil has resulted from the opinions which the profession have entertained relative to the absence of insanity in cases of those who have exhibited a disposition to destroy themselves. In this matter, the principle which the great Edmund Burke applied to politics is equally applicable to medicine -- “We had better be blamed for too anxious apprehension, than be ruined by too confident a security.”

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 cannot238 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, and239 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 that240 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 the241 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 states242 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.

It is now more than thirty-five years ago that the following singular circumstance occurred to the Marquis of Londonderry: He was on a visit to a gentleman in the north of Ireland. The mansion was such a one as spectres are fabled to inhabit. The apartment, also, which was appropriated to his lordship was calculated to foster such a tone of feeling from its antique character; from the dark and richly carved panels of its wainscot; from its yawning chimney, looking like the entrance to a tomb; from the portraits of grim men and women arrayed in orderly procession along the walls, and scowling a contemptuous enmity against the degenerate invader of their gloomy bowers and venerable halls; and from the vast, dusky, ponderous, and complicated draperies that concealed the windows, and hung with the gloomy grandeur of funeral trappings about the hearse-like piece of furniture that was destined for his bed. Lord Londonderry examined his chamber; he made himself acquainted with the forms and243 faces of the ancient possessors of the mansion as they sat upright in their ebony frames to receive his salutation; and then, after dismissing his valet, he retired to bed. His candle had not long been extinguished when he perceived a light gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopy over his head. Conscious that there was no fire in his grate; that the curtains were closed; that the chamber had been in perfect darkness but a few minutes previously, he supposed that some intruder must have entered into his apartment; and, turning round hastily to the side from whence the light proceeded, he, to his infinite astonishment, saw not the form of any human visitor, but the figure of a fair boy surrounded by a halo of glory. The spirit stood at some distance from his bed. Certain that his own faculties were not deceiving him, but suspecting he might be imposed on by the ingenuity of some of the numerous guests who were then inmates of the castle, Lord Londonderry advanced towards the figure; it retreated before him; as he advanced, the apparition retired, until it entered the gloomy arch of the capacious chimney, and then sunk into the earth. Lord Londonderry returned to his bed, but not to rest; his mind was harassed by the consideration of the extraordinary event which had occurred to him. Was it real, or the effect of an excited imagination? The mystery was not so easily solved.

He resolved in the morning to make no allusion to what had occurred the previous night, until he had watched carefully the faces of all the family, to discover whether any deception had been practised. When the guests assembled at breakfast, his lordship searched in vain for those latent smiles, those conscious looks, that silent communication between parties, by which the authors and abettors of such domestic conspiracies are generally betrayed. Everything apparently proceeded in its ordinary course; the conversation was animated and uninterrupted, and no indication was given that any one present had been engaged in the trick. At last, the hero of the tale found himself compelled to narrate the sin244gular event of the preceding night. He related every particular connected with the appearance of the spectre. It excited much interest among the auditors, and various were the explanations offered. At last, the gentleman who owned the castle interrupted the various surmises by observing that “the circumstance which had just been recounted must naturally appear very extraordinary to those who have not been inmates long at the castle, and are not conversant with the legends of his family;” then, turning to Lord Londonderry, he said, “You have seen the Radiant Boy. Be content; it is an omen of prosperous fortunes. I would rather that this subject should not again be mentioned.”68

The case of Chatterton --

has been adduced; but no one acquainted with the history of this unfortunate youth would doubt for one moment that he was insane. Chatterton possessed naturally acute sensibilities; he was unquestionably a man of genius. When the forgery of Rowley’s poems was detected, his mind received a severe shock; friend after friend forsook him. All his bright and cheering hopes were levelled to the earth; his character for integrity was gone; the world, which had been so eager to court his society and friendship, turned its back upon him; misfortunes followed in rapid succession, until he was frenzied by mental agony and physical suffering. At the time of his death he was in want of the common necessaries of life, realizing the affecting picture of the poet --

Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that poor 245Chatterton’s mind should have been overthrown, and that he should have been led to commit suicide. A few days before his death, he wrote to his mother in these terms: -- “I am about to quit for ever my ungrateful country. I shall exchange it for the deserts of Africa, where tigers are a thousand times more merciful than man.” A very important fact connected with Chatterton’s case ought to be borne in mind -- viz., that insanity was in his family.

We have entered at some length into the consideration of this question, because we felt it to be one of great importance. In forming an estimate of the condition of a person’s mind who has committed suicide, the coroner and jury should make particular inquiries into the following points: -- First, as to state of mind for some time prior to the act. In many, and in fact, in all cases, if proper evidence can be obtained, it will be discovered that the person has laboured under depression of spirits, either resulting from physical or mental causes. Inquiry should be instituted as to the presence of any disease of the stomach or liver which may have operated injuriously on the mind. In many cases it will be found that the suicide has received at some period of his life a blow on his head, giving rise to cerebral injury, which may remain latent for a great length of time, and suddenly manifest itself. Is insanity, particularly suicidal insanity, in the family? What was the person’s natural character? Was he liable to sudden bursts of passion? Had his mind been dwelling on the subject of suicide? Was he monomaniacal, or remarkable for any peculiar eccentricity? All these various but important questions should be carefully sifted, should the coroner entertain any doubts as to the presence of mental derangement in such cases. In another chapter we have considered the unjustifiableness of a jury ever returning a verdict of felo-de-se.