Ml 



. KNOWLEDGE • 



[Dbc. 16, 1881 



Klieep fttU into a fJfi'lii"', tiiown to vctfrinarians as thv 

 " rot" A fliik.^ i« a littlo, llatt-nwl, oval Iwdy. aliout 

 1 in. or 'I ill. in Icn^'lli, uml ul)o\it h i". i» Iwadth. It 

 possoKses 11 nervous systeu), a set o£ wati-r ve-sscls, two 

 suokiT.«, a l)raiiL'liMi (li<,'<sti\e system, and an ogfj-prodiicing 

 nppnmtuR. It htm no or^juns of motion, but it i.s by no 

 nieana a very ileRnuled being after all. Its development is 

 very ciirious'. The e};gK, liberated from the animal " liost," 

 get scattered abroiwi. Many — as in the case of all para- 

 sites— must ppri.sli, but a proportion findint; their vay into 

 water, enter the body of the water-snail, where thoy develop 

 intocurious little tailed beincp called CfrcarKf ; aad tliore are 

 sundry other forms assumed by the fluke in the days of 

 its yoiith, b\it which neetl not be mentioned here. Sooner 

 or later, however, these C<^curi<e escape into the water or 

 into the meadows ; and it is I)cHevKl that from the damp 

 meadows, or from tlie water itself, the, sheep obUins thes(; 

 little beings. Once within the sheep's stomach, each C''r- 

 caiia seems to waken up to its ultimate destiny. It drops 

 its tail, and bores its way through the ti.ssues of tlie sheep 

 towards the liver, where it soon appears a.s the young fluke, 

 which will develope eggs that will repeat its own curious 

 history. The most notable fact, however, of this de- 

 velopment is that it a sheep swallowed tlic cyy of the. 

 fl«ke, no development would ensue. The egg requires to 

 pass through its water-snail stage, ere the sheep can obtain 

 the new fluke. 



STATISTICS OF SUICIDE.* 



IN these days, when the question is asked, as a not un- 

 reasonable comment on the phenomena of social life, 

 " Is life worth living," the statistics of self-slaughter 

 have an exceptional value. Suicide could not le regarded 

 as a subject of scientific investigation at all, until after 

 statistical researches had been made. As Professor Mor- 

 selli says, the character which classical paganism attributed 

 to suicide was simply individual. Tlie famous phrase of 

 the Stoics, " Mori licet cui vivere non placet " (he whom 

 life pleases not has a free riglit to die), was the product of 

 ancient philosophical individualism. Law and religion 

 alike declare suicide criminal. But as yet the crime has 

 not been considered .as u tendency — hurtful, unquestion- 

 ably, tx) society, but connect<"d witli society's natural 

 development It in this aspect of suicide which Professor 

 Morselli discusses in the book before us. "The old philo- 

 sophy of individualism," he remarks, "had given to suicide 

 the character of liberty and spontaneity, but now it has 

 become necassary to study it no . longer as the expression 

 of individual and independent faculties, but as a social 

 phenomenon allied with all other r.acial forces." 



.\t the outset, we may notice that if there is one thing 

 which would render the statistics of suicide pre-eminently 

 valuable, and if there is one thing which Dr. Morselli 

 seems to regard as little worthy of di.scu.ssion, it is the 

 re-rognition of the motives which lead to suicide (and 

 rather in their psycliical than their social aspect). Can we, 

 or can we not, from the statistics of suicide, determine the 

 motives most potent to drive men to self-slaughter ? By 

 studying the statistics of times and seasons we may dct<T- 

 minc the physical condition which best favours the influence 

 of such and such motives. When we find that the hot, 

 bright months of summer are those in which the suicidal 

 tendency .preyqils rnpst, we seem to recognise physical. 



• "Suicide: An Essay on Comparative MornI .Statistics." By 

 Henry Morselli, M.O., Professor of Psvcliolofjical Medicine, 4c. 

 (l.ondon : C. Kegan riinl A Co., 1881.) Price, 5s. 



ratlier than psychical influences; or, to speak pluinly.'we 

 seem to sec that the state of the body, ratlier than that of 

 the mind, in important, so far as this special peculiarity 

 is concerned. When we learn that suicide. i.s wore couunoii 

 in tlie daytime than at night, and that there are threc- 

 hnui-s of maximum suicidal tendency — viz., about 8 a.Di., 

 about noon, and alxiut .'! p.m. — we recognise the influence 

 of social i-elations ; as wo do again when we notice thf* 

 greater number of suicides on Monday, Tuesdaj-, Wednes- 

 day, Olid Thursday, as compared with those on Friday, 

 Saturday, and Sunday {e.\cept among women, with whom 

 Sunday is the favourite day for suicide). But in tJbese 

 statistics the influence of motive is not readily tp be 

 recognised. 



The case is somewhat different when we consider the in- 

 fluence of marriage on suicide. Here it comes out very 

 clearly, as we might naturally expect, that responsibiUty 

 has its influence even on those so weak that, but for some 

 such restraininf; influence, they would "shuffle off this 

 mortal coil." When in one and the same nation we find 

 that the number of suicides among married men is far. less 

 than among single men, we may be in doubt how far the 

 dirterence is due to difference of motive, or to the difierent 

 stull'of which (taking tlie average) tlie ranks of the married 

 and of the unmarried are made. It might be that the 

 men who are either less likely to be selected as desirable 

 mates, or who arc averse to marriage, are more likely an- 

 tecedently to lie life-weaiy. But we can have no such 

 doubts when we see that widowers without children are 

 nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as widowers with 

 children. It seems aJmost certain here that the restrainii.g 

 influence is tlie sense of responsibility. As Douglas 

 Jcrrold, when the doctois pronounced his death-wariTint, 

 looked round at wife and children, and said, " I will i:o<- 

 die " ; so we may well believe that even the weakest among 

 men, who, on his own account, sees nothing tiiat makes 

 " life wortli living,' will yet feel th.at he cannot die and 

 leave his little ones without a protector, or, it may be, in 

 w.ont. He feels that though his life may be worthless to 

 himself, it is worth something still for them, and haplj' he 

 may find later that in its worth to them it htis had a worth 

 to himself also. 



We take it, indeed, that ninety-nine self-slayers out of a 

 hundred show by their act that they feel their life to be 

 worthless not only to themselves but to everyone. 

 Suicide is, to all intents and purposes, an admission of 

 utter worthlessness. Even in cases where a sort of halo 

 of romance or heroism has surrounded the act, this has 

 been so (we except, of course, all cases in which suicide 

 has meant self-sacrifice — that is, no more self-mnrder than 

 homicide in self-defence or defence of others is murder or 

 even manslaughter). The lover who kills himself or herself 

 because rejected or slighted, admits inferiority, if not worth- 

 lessnoss, as certainly as the man who kills himself because 

 he has failed in the struggle of life. The Cato who kills 

 him.self rather than yield to his country's enemies, admits as 

 certainly th.it his best has proved a failure, as the man who 

 takes away his own life because he fears poverty or 

 misery. Thus viewing suicide, one might, at a venture, 

 predict tliat, other things Ixnng equal, suicide would be 

 most frequent amona that set of men who most feared 

 contempt. Other things are not equal ; but it does so 

 happen that the proportion of suicides is greater in Paris 

 (and the Ih de France generally) than anywhere else in 

 Europe, four times greater th.an in London and the south- 

 eastern parts of lingland, and nearly ten times greater 

 than among the self-contented people of Southern Holland. 

 When we take employments, we find a similar lesson, 

 tliough wc cannot lie quite so sure of our interpretation. 



