  It is an old, old story that the destinies of man are governed by the sun, moon, and planets; but modern science rather scouted the ideas of the astrologers and Chaldeans; to suicide is due the honour of reintroducing the connection. Morselli says, with regard to the sun, “It is in fact well known that the number of these violent deaths varies according to the position of the earth and the sun. In the season of the year in which the earth is in aphelion there is a maximum, of suicide; when in perihelion the minimum is attained.” The result of a large collection of statistics shows, however, that the maximum suicide rate occurs in summer 88 times out of 100, as opposed to winter; in spring the maximum occurred 9 times in 100. As to the minimum, it occurs in winter 88 times out of 100, and only 12 times in autumn out of the same number of observations. As to the months, in a general way, suicide increases from January to July, and then decreases again, month The following Table of “Death Rates of each Season” may be compared with the foregoing remarks on the “Seasonal Suicide rate”:
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 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.
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 But from the statistics given by himself for 1869, it appears that 255·8 and 258·8 per 1,000 occurred respectively in the moon’s first quarter and last quarter, against 246·8 and 238·6 per 1,000 in the new moon and full moon quarters; no very marked difference. With regard to days, Brierre de Boismont finds in regard to Paris that the number of suicides in the first ten days of a month exceeds the number of the last twenty; and, stranger still, the two first days of the month also give the largest numbers: this does not occur in England, nor in London alone. As to week days, among men the beginning of the week is most fatal; Monday highest, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, and Saturday the fewest. Among women also peculiarities come out, but they are different; Saturday has still the fewest, the Thursday and Friday are very high, Monday and Tuesday low, but Sunday has the highest number of all. And now with regard to hours and times of the day, darkness seems to be preferred to daylight. But according to a rather complete set of tables, which I reproduce here, giving every hour, night and day, I find that from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., about noon, and from 2 to 3 p.m. have very much the highest numbers. The rate diminishes almost regularly from 3 p.m., through midnight to 3 a.m., when the lowest number is reached. Brierre de Boismont arranged this Table; it refers to 1,993 cases observed in Paris.
|
|
