INHERITANCE OF TEMPERAMENT. I | e 



we have a girl who tried to drink carbolic acid ; her father was suicidal 

 and homicidal; her father's father is less well known, he was unsuc- 

 cessful in business, and his father committed suicide. 



In family C (7:376) a young man who is hyperkinetic kills himself 

 by inhaling gas; his mother was queer, absent-minded, and, at 60, 

 wanted to starve herself to death ; of the mother's father we know only 

 that he was "insane." In family D (40:734) a woman, who, indeed, 

 has short spells of depression at the monthly period but who is markedly 

 hysterical, gets restless, and has swallowed carbolic acid, set fire to her 

 clothing, jumped overboard, etc., always unsuccessfully and obviously 

 in a shallow fashion. Her mother was also emotional and at the age of 

 71 was so excitable she had to be locked up. The mother's father, in 

 turn, at 51 attempted suicide by drowning. 



Out of the 40 families, in 18 cases one of the parents of a suicide 

 actually committed suicide. There is no clear case where neither 

 parent was not excitable, with the possible exception of family 19 

 (11:130), where the mother of the hysterical and suicidal daughter is 

 said to be "now suffering rheumatism and peevish and melancholy." 

 In this case the mother's fraternity is full of hyperkinesis and suicide ; 

 and the mother's father committed suicide by hanging. 



Thus we see that in suicides that occur in the hyperkinetic state the 

 state can be traced back through two or more generations without a 

 break and very frequently also the tendency to suicide (probably, 

 although naturally rarely demonstrably) in the same state. 



This fact was remarked upon three-quarters of a century ago by 

 Cazauvieilh (1840, p. 16), as quoted by Lucas (1850, p. 780). The 

 reference is as follows : "la transmission seminale du suicide est d'autant 

 plus a craindre, que les ascendants sont devenus alienes, ou ont ete 

 partes a la mort voluntaire, sans motif appreciable, ou pour une cause 

 legere ou imaginaire;" i. c, suicide is the more apt to be hereditary as 

 the suicide of the ancestors (ascendants) is of the hysterical or hyper- 

 kinetic type. Naturally, dominant inheritance is more easily recog- 

 nized as inheritance than the recessive type. Moreau de Tours (1906) 

 states that evidence of direct heredity (i. c., without skipping of genera- 

 tions) of the suicidal impulse is too clear to be doubted for an instant. 

 and he cites the case of a young girl of 15 years who is a prey to dark 

 ideas and whose father and grandfather both committed suicide. 



Inheritance of Tendency to Commit Siicidi: while in the HYFOILIMHTIC State. 



The inheritance of the tendency to commit suicide is less clear in the 

 hypokinetic class of cases, because, from the nature of the cases, less 

 easy to trace. But the suicidal tendency certainly recurs in the hypo- 

 kinetics, as well as the hyper-hypokinetics and in the manic-depressives. 

 Suicide following aterosclerotic depression probably tends to run in 

 families, as the arteriosclerotic basis is well known to do. 



