INHERITANCE <>i- TEMPERAMENT. Ii; 



throat while in a warm bath. No cause could be assigned for the act. il« 

 had two sons and a daughter, all under age at the time of his death. Th< 

 family separated, the daughter marrying. On arriving at the age of 35 the 

 eldest son cut his throat while in a warm bath, but was rescind ere li 

 extinct. At about the same age the second son succeeded in killing himself 

 in the same way. The daughter, in her thirty-fourth year, was found d< 

 in a bath-tub with her throat cut. Her son, at the age <>i" 27, attempted to 

 kill himself by cutting his throat while in a bath at his hotel in Paris, but did 

 not succeed. Subsequently, at the age of 30, he made a similar unsuccessful 

 attempt, but was again saved. A year afterward he was found in his bath 

 by his servant, with his throat cut from ear to ear." 



Our own histories show, in some families, a tendency to self-destruc- 

 tion by one and the same method. Thus in No. 13 (41:17) the pro 

 positus, his brother, sister, two father's brother's sons, and a father's 

 brother attempted suicide by hanging and succeeded in all but 2 of the 

 6 instances. It may be added that, in the same family, are 1 case of 

 suicide by drowning, 3 unsuccessful attempts by other methods, and 

 2 suicides of which the method is not described, or 12 in all. 



In family 22 (6:328) brother and father cut their throats with razors 

 and a sister had impulsions to do the same. In family 23 (14:169) a 

 woman drank carbolic acid and her son did the same at the same age. 

 In family 60 (41 159) the propositus suicided by shooting, his brother 

 attempted suicide by shooting (but failed, was shut up in a hospital, 

 and there killed himself by drinking poison) ; the mother's father 

 committed suicide by shooting. In family 49 (12 : 228) the propositus 

 cut his throat, and so did a brother and the mother's brother. Among 

 the father's sibs death occurred by hanging and drowning. In family 

 71 (44:435) a brother had an impulse to go into the water and a 

 brother's son threatened to drown himself or to hang himself. Three 

 others in this family had suicidal tendencies not fully described 



The foregoing cases of a similar form of suicide in several members 

 of one family are striking; but it must not be forgotten that, first, <>ik- 

 and the same person may, at different times, show an impulsion i<> 

 different forms of suicide; and, second, that it is more common to 

 find different members of one family using different methods of suicide 

 than to find all employing the same method; and, third, in one case 

 we have a father's father's son and a father's mother's brother (thus, 

 unrelated) both committing suicide by jumping out of the window 

 As to the first, in a family of our records (40:730) the propositus at 

 different times took carbolic acid, set her clothes on fire, jumped out 

 of the window, and tried to choke herself with a breadcrust, clearly 

 showing the absence of a specific impulse in her i';im' As an illustration 

 of the second point we have family 1 1 1 13: 273). where the propositus 

 tried to drink carbolic acid, the father intended to kill himself with a 

 revolver, and the father's father attempted to drown himself and later 

 actually hung himself; thus in the three generations four quite differ 

 ent methods are employed. I think we musl admit that while in cer 



