INHERITANCE OP TEMPERAMENT. II7 



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

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

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

 eldest son cut his throat while in a warm bath, but was rescued ere life was 

 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 dead 

 in a bath-tub with her throat cut. Her son, at the age of 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 :i7) 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 i 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 : 59) 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, one 

 and the same person may, at different times, show an impulsion to 

 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 carboUc 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 case. As an illustration 

 of the second point we have family 11 (13:273), where the propositus 

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

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

 actually hung himseff; thus in the three generations four quite differ- 

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



