SUICIDE “WAVES.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6451, 24 February 1908, Page 6

SUICIDE “WAVES.”

FACTS ABOUT A STRANGE PHENOMENON.

The scorning epidemic of suicides which has been spreading over the Gorman Empire has induced the Government to make searching investigations and compile statistics on tho question. The commission which has been appointed is making a study of what prompts suicides, why they are apparently epidemical, why metre people oom-

mit suicide in April than in any other month in the year, and of suicides from a pathological point of view. Not only among men and women, but even in the public schools of Germany the influence of the periodical epidemics of suicidal mania has been felt. In the twenty-one years, from I&SS to 1933, inclusive, accord ihg to a report published ro cently by Professor Albert Eulem burg, of the University of Berlin, the numoer of suicides by school children attending the primary and secondary schools of Germany reached the total of 1125. The annual average was almost fifty-four; for the age of fifteen and less it was almost forty-two in which the ratio between boys and girls was 4.16 to 1. Statistics further show that in the higher grades, and especially in the secondary schools, fully 10 per cent, of the suicides could he ascribed to mental disturbances. More than one-fourth, or 23 per cent., of the suicides 1 were the children or near relatives of epileptics, inebriates, or demented persons. TRIVIAL INFLUENCES. In a surprisingly large number of cases the reason for taking life was very trivial. In more than 43 per cent, it was the inability of the pupil to reconcile himself to the school discipline. In not a few instances dangerous literature, love affairs, and alcoholism led to suicide, while in a comparatively large number of cases the causes had nothing to do with the school at all, but originated in domestic troubles, especially punishments, criticisms, and strictures on the part of parents. Among adults, strange to say, the proportion is not quite so large. Dresden, with a record of 51 per 100,000, and Paris, with 42 per 100,000, are the only cities where the suicide rate is higher than in Berlin, where the av4rage is 36. In St Petersburg the number of suicides per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest available statistics, is 7, Moscow 11, Vienna 23, London 33, Rome. 8, Milan G, Madrid 3, Genoa 31, Brussels 15, Amsterdam 14, Lisbon 2, Christiana 25, Stockholm 37, •Constantinople 12, Genova 11. In the spring of 1906 there were 640 suicides in Italy, 610 in the summer, and 443 during the autumn. Statistics from other countries all showed the same curious regularity of suicidal waves. In the spring the rat© -is always higher than at any other time of the year. Suicidal mania seems to reach its height in April, when the

trees, the grass, the birds, and all nature aro prophesying the glories of summer. Perhax>s it is because tho man who comtomplates suicide —and tho contemplation is often very long—cannot help at this time of the year comparing his own miserable condition with tho gladness the springtime brings to others. It makes him feel more gloomy and out of harmony with things than ho would on wet, dull days, and ho does what many others have done under tho same imaginary provocation.

EFFECT OF THE SEASONS. Professor Morse!!i. after an exhaustive study of the causes of suicide‘amoug the people of European nations, summed up in the following manner:— “Suicide is not influenced so much by tlie extreme heat of tho advan cod summer season as by tho early spring and summer, which seize upon the organism not yet acclimatised and still under tho influence of tho cold season.” There is little doubt that tho end of winter brings with it a depleted condition of vitality, both nervous and physical. This, in the light of the fact that the most suicides occur that season of the year, when rejuvenating nature is in her brightest mood, is .worthy of consideration. That weather conditions have varying effects on mentality has long been recognised. Literature is full of allusions to the fact, and not a few of tho world’s great thinkers have loft on record their own emotional flights and depressions under different meteorological conditions. Put most of us need to take no other word for the fact than our own.

In all tho vigour of perfect health the influence of weather on tho mental state may hardly be recognised, but when the vital powers are depleted by the exhausting effects of a long nervous or physical strain, then this phase of the cosmical environment is sure to make itself felt.

Then eome the days when everything goes wrong. The groundwork of forgotten quarrels is remembered, uneasy questions arise with regard to tho future; one gets tired of life. And how much of all this can bo attributed to nil oast wind or a leaden sky—in other words, to weather effects!

POWER OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

Profesor Westmerman, who has also been making a scientific study of tho question, has come to tho conclusion mat .a satisfactory explanation of how this morbid feeling becomes, infectious may be obtained. This is what he says:—

That hypnotic suggestion has been successfully exercised to impel a person to almost starve himself to death is a fact beyond the peradventure of a doubt. I have no doubt, therefore, that suggestion can bo and is frequently employed to bring about suicide. And this, X believe accounts for the periodical suicide epidemics -which sweep over the earth The emotions, passions, and indeed, whatever may be classified under the general term .of feeling, have their origin and source in the will. Thus, the mind thinks, but does not feel; the will feels, but does not think. The will is really the metaphysical part of us, and, unlike the physical, brain-dependent mind, it is free from the trammels of time and space.

This being so, the will of each individual must be in immediate contact subliminally with every other will. And, therefore, when the mind of one person presents to the latter’s will motives, either in the form of phenomena or of thoughts, to which uhe will is bound to react powerfully, it is frequently observed that the wills of other persons who are on rapport are agitated in the same way. Hence, when one person, by brooding long over trouble or other motives, ha-s resolved to end life, hia[ will's condition forthwith impresses itself upon the similarly attuned wills of other's, and the result is an ever-increasing sphere of suicides.