CHAPTER 3 SUICIDE AND COSMIC FACTORS

BUT if individual predispositions are not by themselves the determining causes of suicide, perhaps they are more active in combination with certain cosmic factors. Just as the material environment at times causes the appearance of diseases which, without it, would remain dormant, it might be capable of activating the general and merely potential natural apitudes of certain persons for suicide. In that case, the suicide-rate need not be regarded ,as a social phenomenon; due to the cooperation between certain physical causes and an organic-psychic state, it would spring wholly or chiefly from abnormal psychology. It might, to be sure, be hard to explain how, in such cases, suicide can be so intimately typical in each social group; for the cosmic environment does not greatly differ from country to country. One important fact, however, would have been seized: that at least some of the variations connected with this phenomenon might be accounted for without reference to social causes.

Among such factors an influence on suicide has been attributed to only two: climate and seasonal temperature.

I

Suicides are distributed as follows on the map of Europe, according to the varying degrees of latitude:

36th-43rd degree of latitude    21.1 suicides per million inhabitants

43rd-50th degree of latitude    93.3 suicides per million inhabitants

50th-55th degree of latitude    172.5 suicides per million inhabitants

Beyond 55th degree of latitude    88.1 suicides per million inhabitants

Suicide is therefore at a minimum in the South and North of Europe; it is most developed in the Center. More exactly, Morselli has stated that the space between the 47th and 57th degrees of latitude, on the one hand, and the 20th and 40th of longitude on the other, was the area most favorable to suicide. This zone coincides approximately with the most temperate region of Europe. Is this coincidence to be regarded as an effect of climatic influences?

Morselli advanced this thesis, though somewhat hesitantly. Indeed, the relation is not readily discernible between temperate climate and the tendency to suicide; to require such an hypothesis the facts must be in unusual agreement. Now, far from there being a relation between suicide and a given climate, we know suicide to have flourished in all climates. Italy is today relatively exempt; but it was very frequent there at the time of the Empire when Rome was the capital of civilized Europe. It has also been highly developed at certain epochs under the burning sun of India.

The very shape of this zone shows that climate is not the cause of the numerous suicides committed there. The area formed by it on the map is not a single, fairly equal and homogeneous strip, including all the countries having the same climate, but two distinct areas: one having Ile-de-France and neighboring departments as a center, the other Saxony and Prussia. They therefore coincide with the two principal centers of European civilization, not with a clearly defined climatic region. We must therefore seek the cause of the unequal inclination of peoples for suicide, not in the mysterious effects of climate but in the nature of this civilization, in the manner of its distribution among the different countries.

Another fact, already mentioned by Guerry, and confirmed through new observations by Morselli, which is fairly general though not without exceptions, may be similarly explained. In the countries outside the central zone, their regions closest to it, whether North or South, are those most stricken with suicide. Thus, it is most developed in Italy in the North, while in England and Belgium it is more so in the South. But there is no reason to ascribe these facts to the proximity to the temperate climate. Is it not more probable that the ideas and sentiments, in short, the social currents so strongly influencing the inhabitants of Northern France and of Northern Germany to suicide, reappear in the neighboring countries of a somewhat similar way of life, but with less intensity? Another fact shows the great influence of social causes upon this distribution of suicide. Until 1870 the northern provinces of Italy showed most suicides, then the center and thirdly the south. But the difference between North and Center has gradually diminished and their respective ranks have been finally reversed (See Table X). Yet the climate of the different regions has remained the same. The change consists in the movement of the Italian capital to the center of the country as a result of the conquest of Rome in 1870. Scientific, artistic and economic activity shifted in the same manner. Suicides followed along.

One need dwell no further on an hypothesis proved by nothing and disproved by so many facts.

TABLE X—Regional Distribution of Suicide in Italy

II

The influence of seasonal temperature seems better demonstrated. The facts are invariable though they may be variously interpreted.

If without reference to them one were to try to foretell logically what season should be most favorable to suicide, one might easily assume the season when the sky is darkest, and the temperature lowest or most humid. Does not the desolate appearance of nature at such times tend to incline men to revery, awaken unhappy passions, provoke melancholy? Moreover, this is the time when life is most difficult, because a more abundant sustenance is necessary to replace the lack of natural warmth, and because this is harder to obtain. For this very reason Montesquieu considered cold, foggy countries most favorable to the development of suicide, and this opinion was long held. Applying it to the seasons, one would expect the height of suicide to occur in autumn. Although Esquirol had already expressed doubts as to the exactness of this theory, Falret still accepted it in principle. Today statistics have definitely refuted it. Neither in winter nor in autumn does suicide reach its maximum, but during the fine season when nature is most smiling and the temperature mildest. Man prefers to abandon life when it is least difficult. If the year is divided into two halves representing respectively the six warmest months (from March to August inclusive) and the six coldest, the former always include more suicides. Not one country is an exception to this law. The proportion is everywhere almost exactly the same. Of 1,000 annual suicides from 590 to 600 are committed during the fine season and only 400 during the remainder of the year.

The relation of suicide to the variations of temperature may be determined even more precisely.

If it is agreed to call winter the three months from December to February inclusive, spring the three months from March to May, summer, from June to August and autumn the three following months, and if these four seasons are classified according to the importance of their suicide-mortality, summer is found to have the first place almost everywhere. Morselli was able from this point of view to compare 34 different periods among 18 European states, and has established that in 30 cases, or 88 per cent, the maximum of suicides occurs during the summer season, in only three cases in spring, and in only one case in autumn. This last irregularity, observed only in the Grand-Duchy of Baden and at a single moment of its history, is valueless, for it results from a calculation bearing on too brief a period; besides, it never recurred. The other three exceptions are scarcely more significant. They occur in Holland, Ireland and Sweden. For the first two countries the available figures which were the base for the seasonal averages are too uncertain for anything positive to be concluded; there are only 387 cases for Holland and 755 for Ireland. In general, the statistics for these two peoples are not wholly authoritative. For Sweden, finally, the fact has been noted only for the period 1835-51. If we consider only the states concerning which there are authentic figures, the law may be held to be absolute and universal.

The period of the minimum is no less regular: 30 times out of 34, or 88 per cent it occurs in winter; the other four times in autumn. The four countries departing from the rule are Ireland and Holland (as in the case above), the canton of Berne, and Norway. We know the import of the first two anomalies; the third has still less value, having been observed only from among 97 suicides in all. In short, 26 out of 34 times, or 76 per cent, the seasons come in the following order: summer, spring, autumn, winter. This relation is true without exception for Denmark, Belgium, France, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.

Not only are the seasons identically ranked, but the proportional share of each barely differs from country to country. To emphasize this uniformity, we have shown in Table XI the share of each season in the principal European states in relation to the annual total considered as 1,000. The same series of numbers is seen to recur almost identically in each column.

From these incontestable facts, Ferri and Morselli have concluded that temperature had a direct influence on the tendency to suicide; that heat by its mechanical action on the cerebral functions stimulated a person to suicide. Ferri even tried to explain how it produced this effect. On the one hand, he says, heat increases the excitability of the nervous system; on the other, since in the warm season the organism does not need to consume as much material to maintain its own temperature at the desired degree, there results an accumulation of available energy naturally tending to seek employment. During summer, for this twofold reason, there is a surplus of activity, an abundance of life demanding expenditure and able to find manifestation only in violent action. Suicide is one of these manifestations, homicide another, and thus voluntary deaths increase during this season simultaneously with sanguinary crime. Moreover, insanity in all its forms is supposed to develop at this period; thus, he says, suicide naturally develops in the same way, as a result of its relation to insanity.

TABLE XI—Proportional Share of Each Season in the Annual Total of the Suicides of Each Country

This theory, of tempting simplicity, at first seems in agreement with the facts. It even seems that it is merely their direct expression. Actually, it is a long way from accounting for them.

III

First, this theory implies a most debatable conception of suicide. It assumes that its constant psychological antecedent is a state of over-excitement, that it consists in a violent act and is only possible by a great exertion of energy. On the contrary, it very often results from extreme depression. Granted that excited or exasperated suicide occurs, suicide from unhappiness is as frequent; we shall have occasion to prove this. But heat cannot possibly act in the same way on both; if it stimulates the former, it must make the latter less frequent. Its possibly aggravating influence on certain persons would be offset and discounted by its moderating influence on others; hence it could not appear through the data of statistics, especially in any perceptible fashion. The seasonal variations shown by the statistics must therefore have another cause. To accept the explanation that sees in them a mere consequence of similar, simultaneous variations of insanity, a more direct and closer connection between suicide and insanity would have to be conceded than exists. Besides, it is not even proved that the seasons affect the two phenomena identically, and even if this parallelism were certain, the question would still remain whether it is the seasonal changes of temperature which cause the curve of insanity to rise and fall. Causes of a very different sort may possibly produce or contribute to this result.

But, however this influence attributed to heat is explained, let us examine its reality.

Certain observations do seem to show that too great heat excites man to kill himself. During the Egyptian campaign, the number of suicides in the French army seems to have increased and this growth was attributed to the rise in temperature. In the tropics men are often seen to throw themselves abruptly into the ocean under the direct rays of the sun. Dr. Dietrich relates that in a trip around the world from 1844-47 by Count Charles de Gortz he noticed an irresistible impulse among the sailors, called by him the horrors, which he describes as follows: “The affliction usually appears in Winter when the sailors, landing after a long voyage, group themselves incautiously about a hot stove and, as is customary, indulge in all sorts of excesses. On returning on board the symptoms of the terrible horrors appear. Those stricken by it are irresistibly impelled to throw themselves into the water, whether overcome by dizziness in the midst of work at the mast-tops, or during sleep, from which they start up violently with frightful cries.” The sirocco, likewise, which produces a stifling heat, has been observed to have a similar effect on suicide.

But this effect is not peculiar to heat; violent cold has the same result. Thus, during the retreat from Moscow our armies are said to have been stricken by numerous suicides. Such facts therefore cannot be used to explain the usually greater number of voluntary deaths in Summer than in Autumn and in Autumn than in Winter; for all that can be drawn from them is that extreme temperatures of whatever sort favor the development of suicide. Clearly, moreover, all sorts of excesses, abrupt and violent changes in physical environment, disturb the organism, derange the normal play of functions and thus cause species of deliria during which the idea of suicide may arise and be put into effect, if not checked. But these unusual, abnormal disturbances bear no likeness to the gradual changes of temperature in the course of every year. The question then is unsolved. Its solution must be sought by the analysis of statistical data.

If temperature were the basic cause of the variations noted, suicide would vary regularly with it. This is not true. Far more suicides occur in Spring than in Autumn, although it is a little colder in Spring:

Thus, while the thermometer is rising 1.62 F. degrees in France and .36 F. degrees in Italy, the number of suicides decreases by 21 per cent in the former country and 35 per cent in the latter. Likewise, in Italy the winter temperature is much lower than that of Autumn (36.14 F. degrees instead of 55.58 F.) and yet suicide-mortality is about the same in both seasons (196 cases as against 194). Everywhere the difference between Spring and Summer is very slight for suicides but very high for temperature. In France the difference is 78 per cent for the one and only 8 per cent for the other; in Prussia it is 121 per cent and 4 per cent.

This independence as regards temperature is still more noticeable if the monthly, not seasonal, variations of suicide are observed. In fact, these monthly variations obey the following law, found in all European countries: Beginning with January inclusive, the incidence of suicide increases regularly from month to month until about June and regularly decreases from that time to the end of the year. Usually, in 62 per cent of the cases, the maximum occurs in June, 25 per cent in May and 12 per cent in July. The minimum has occurred in 60 per cent of the cases in December, 22 per cent in January, 15 per cent in November and 3 per cent in October. The greatest irregularities, moreover, usually appear in series too small to be very significant. Wherever, as in France, the development of suicide can be followed over a long extent of time, it is seen to increase till June, then decrease until January, and the distance between the extremes averages not less than from 90 to 100 per cent. Suicide therefore does not reach its height in the hottest months which are August or July; on the contrary, beginning with August it starts to diminish perceptibly. In most cases, likewise, it reaches its lowest point not in January, the coldest month, but in December. Table XII (see p. 112) shows for each month that the agreement between variations of the thermometer and of suicide are quite irregular and intermittent.

In one and the same country, months with an essentially similar temperature produce a very different proportion of suicides (for instance, May and September, April and October in France, June and September in Italy, etc.). The reverse is no less common; January and October, February and August in France have a like number of suicides in spite of great differences in temperature, and the same holds true for April and July in Italy and Prussia. Moreover, the proportional figures are almost exactly the same for each month in these different countries, although the temperature of the respective months varies greatly from one to another country. Thus May, whose temperature is 50.84 F. degrees in Prussia, 57.56 F. in France and 64.4 F. in Italy, has 104 suicides in the first, 105 in the second and 103 in the third. The same holds true for almost all the other months. The case of December is especially significant. Its share in the annual total of suicides is exactly the same for the three societies compared (61 per thousand); and yet at this time of year the thermometer registers on the average 46.22 F. degrees at Rome, 49.10 F. at Naples, while in Prussia it never rises above 33.20 F. Not only are the monthly temperatures not the same but they vary according to different laws in the different countries; thus, in France, the thermometer rises more from January to April than from April to June, while the reverse holds true for Italy. The thermometric variations and those of suicide are without any relation to one another.

TABLE XII*

Moreover, if the temperature had the supposed influence, it should be felt equally in the geographic distribution of suicides. The hottest countries should be those most stricken. The deduction is so evident that the Italian school itself refers to it when undertaking to show that the homicidal tendency also increases with the heat. Lombroso and Ferri have tried to show that, as murders are more frequent in Summer than in Winter, they are also more numerous in the South than in the North. Unfortunately, in the case of suicide the evidence refutes the Italian criminologists: for it is least developed in the southern countries of Europe. Italy has only one fifth as much as France; Spain and Portugal are almost immune. On the French suicide map, the only white area of any extent consists of the departments south of the Loire. Of course, we do not mean that this situation is really an effect of temperature; but whatever its cause, it is a fact inconsistent with the theory that heat is a stimulant to suicide.

The perception of these difficulties and contradictions made Lombroso and Ferri slightly modify the school’s doctrine, without relinquishing it in principle. According to Lombroso, whose opinion Morselli follows, it is not so much the intensity of heat which provokes suicide as the incidence of the first warm weather, the contrast between the departing cold and the beginning of the hot season. The latter is supposed to shock the organism as yet unaccustomed to this new temperature. But a glance at Table XII is enough to show that this explanation is devoid of all foundation. If it were correct, the curve representing the monthly variations of suicide should remain horizontal during Autumn and Winter, then rise abruptly precisely at the appearance of the first warm weather, the cause of all the trouble, and fall as suddenly, as soon as the organism has had time to acclimatize itself. On the contrary, its course is perfectly regular; while the rise lasts it is practically the same from one month to another. It rises from December to January, from January to February, from February to March, that is, throughout the months when the first hot weather is yet distant, and descends steadily from September to December, when the warm weather has so long since disappeared that this decrease cannot be attributed to its disappearance. Besides, when does the warm weather occur? It is generally assumed to begin in April. Actually, the thermometer rises from March to April from 33.52 F. degrees to 50.18 F.; the increase is thus 57 per cent, while it is only 40 per cent from April to May, 21 per cent from May to June. An unusual increase of suicides should therefore be observed in April. Actually, the increase at that time is no higher than that found from January to February (18 per cent). In short, as this increase not only persists but rises, though more slowly, until June and even July, it seems very difficult to ascribe it to the action of Spring, unless this season is prolonged to the end of Summer, exclusive only of the month of August.

Besides, if the first hot weather were so deleterious, the first cold weather should have the same effect. It also suddenly attacks the unprepared organism and disturbs vital functions until readaptation is accomplished. But no rise occurs in Autumn even faintly resembling that observed in Spring. It is thus not clear how Morselli could add, after recognizing that according to his theory the change from hot to cold should have the same effect as the reverse change: “This action of the first cold weather is verifiable in our statistical tables, or even better in the second rise of all our curves in Autumn, in the months of October and November, that is, when the change from the hot to the cold season is most sharply felt by the human organism and especially by the nervous system.” A mere reference to Table XII will show that this assertion is wholly contrary to the facts. From Morselli’s own figures the number of suicides in almost every country is shown not to increase from October to November, but rather to diminish. Exceptions exist only for Denmark, Ireland and for one period in Austria (1851-54), and the increase is negligible in all three cases. In Denmark the numbers rise from 68 per thousand to 71, in Ireland from 62 to 66, in Austria from 65 to 68. There are likewise in October increases in only eight of thirty-one cases observed, namely during one period in Norway, one in Sweden, one in Saxony, one in Bavavia, Austria, the Duchy of Baden, and two in Wurttemberg. In all others there is a decrease or no change. To summarize, in twenty-one cases out of thirty-one, or 67 per cent, there is a regular diminution from September to December.

The perfect continuity of the curve, both in its progressive and its regressive phases, thus proves that the monthly variations of suicide cannot result from a brief organic crisis, occurring once or twice annually as a sudden, temporary interruption of equilibrium. They can depend only on causes themselves varying with the same continuity.

IV

It is now possible to perceive the nature of these causes.

If the proportional share of each month in the total of annual suicides is compared with the average length of the day at the same time of the year, the two numerical series thus obtained vary in exactly the same way. (See Table XIII).

TABLE XIII—Comparison of the Monthly Variations of Suicides with the Average Length of Day in France

The parallelism is perfect. The maximum occurs at the same moment in each case and the minimum likewise; during the interval, the two orders of facts progress pari passu. When the days grow longer quickly, suicides increase greatly (January to April); when the increase of the former slows down, so does that of the latter (April to June). The same correspondence reappears during the time of decrease. Even the different months when days are of approximately the same length have approximately the same number of suicides (July and May, August and April).

So regular and precise a correspondence cannot be accidental. There must be some relation between the progress of the day and that of suicide. This hypothesis not only follows directly from Table XIII, it explains a fact which we have previously noted. We have seen that in the chief European societies suicides are distributed in a manner rigorously similar among the various portions of the year, seasons or months. The theories of Ferri and Lombroso could afford no explanation of this curious uniformity, for the temperature varies greatly in the different European countries and evolves differently. On the contrary, the length of the day is appreciably the same for all European countries we have compared.

But what definitely proves the reality of this relation is the fact that in every season the majority of suicides occurs during the daytime. Brierre de Boismont was able to examine the records of 4,595 suicides committed in Paris from 1834 to 1843. Out of the 3,518 cases the moment of which could be determined, 2,094 had been committed by day, 766 during the evening and 658 at night. Those of the daytime and evening therefore are four-fifths of the sum total, and the former alone, three-fifths.

Prussian statistics have assembled more voluminous data on this subject. They refer to 11,822 cases occurring in the years 1869-72. They only confirm the conclusions of Brierre de Boismont. As the relations are appreciably the same each year, we will give, for brevity’s sake, only those of 1871 and 1872:

The preponderance of suicides by day is obvious. Therefore, if daytime is richer in suicides than night, the suicides naturally grow more numerous as the day lengthens.

But what causes this diurnal influence?

To explain it one could certainly not refer to the action of the sun and the temperature. Actually, suicides committed in the middle of the day, that is, at the moment of greatest heat, are far fewer than those of the afternoon or later morning. It will even appear below that a considerable decrease occurs at full noon. This explanation being discarded, we have but one other possible, namely, that day favors suicide because this is the time of most active existence, when human relations cross and recross, when social life is most intense.

Whatever information is available as to how suicide is distributed among the different hours of the day or the different days of the week confirms this view. On the basis of 1,993 cases observed by Brierre de Boismont for Paris and 548 covering all of France assembled by Guerry, the following are the chief oscillations of suicide during the twenty-four hours:

There are clearly two climactic periods of suicide; those when existence is most active, morning and afternoon. Between the two periods is one of rest when general activity is briefly interrupted; suicide pauses momentarily. This calm occurs in Paris at about eleven and at about noon in the other departments of France. It is longer and more definite in the departments than in the capital through the simple fact that non-Parisians take their chief meal then; the pause of suicide is accordingly longer and more definite there. The data of Prussian statistics given above would confirm this view.

Moreover, Guerry, having determined for 6,587 cases the day of week on which they happened, constructed the scale reproduced in Table XV. This shows that suicide diminishes toward the end of the week beginning with Friday. Prejudices concerning Friday are known to retard public activity. On this day railroad travel is much less than on others. On this day of ill omen people hesitate to make contacts and undertake business. An initial slackness commences on Saturday afternoon; in certain, districts idleness is widespread; the prospect of the next day also perhaps has a calming effect on the mind. Finally, on Sunday economic activity stops completely. If activities of another sort did not replace those that have ceased, and recreation areas fill as studios, offices and shops empty, the decrease of suicide might conceivably be yet more noticeable on Sunday. This, it will be noted, is the day when woman’s relative share is greatest; then also she most frequently departs from indoors, her shelter during the rest of the week, and mingles somewhat with the life of others.

TABLE XV

Thus everything proves that if daytime is the part of the twenty-four hours most favorable to suicide, it is because it is also the time when social life is at its height. Then we have a reason why the number of suicides increases, the longer the sun remains above the horizon. The mere lengthening of the days seems to offer wider latitude to collective life. Its time of rest begins later and is sooner over. It has more space to operate in. Thus its accompanying effects must develop simultaneously and, since suicide is one of them, it must increase.

But this is the first, not the only cause. If public activity is greater in Summer than in Spring and in Spring than in Autumn and Winter, this is not merely because its setting enlarges as the year progresses, but because this activity is directly aroused for other reasons.

For the countryside, Winter is a time of rest approaching stagnation. All life seems to stop; human relations are fewer both because of atmospheric conditions and because they lose their incentive with the general slackening of activity. People seem really asleep. In Spring, however, everything begins to awake; activity is resumed, relations spring up, interchanges increase, whole popular migrations take place to meet the needs of agricultural labor. Now these special conditions of rural life must have a great influence on the monthly distribution of suicides, since more than half the total of voluntary deaths comes from the country; in France, from 1873 to 1878, the country accounted for 18,470 cases out of a total of 36,365. They therefore naturally occur more often as the inclement season becomes remote. They reach their maximum in June or July, when activity is greatest in the country. In August when everything begins to settle down, suicides diminish. They do so rapidly only beginning with October and especially November; perhaps because several harvests do not occur until Autumn.

The same reasons also affect the entire land, though to a lesser extent. City life itself is more active during the fine season. Communications being easier then, people travel more readily and intersocial relations increase. Below are the seasonal receipts of our great railroad lines, for express service only (for 1887) :

The inner life of every city exhibits the same phases. During this same year, 1887, the number of passengers travelling from one point in Paris to another regularly increased from January (655,791) to June (848,831), then decreased as steadily to December (659,960) .

A final instance confirms this interpretation of the facts. If, for reasons just indicated, urban life must be more intense in Summer and in Spring than during the rest of the year, nevertheless the difference between seasons should be less marked there than in the country. For trade and industry, art and science as well as fashionable activities are less interrupted in Winter than agriculture. The occupations of city-dwellers may continue with approximate regularity throughout the year. The greater or lesser length of days especially should have little effect in great centers, because artificial lighting there restricts darkness more than elsewhere. If then the monthly and seasonal variations of suicide depend on the irregular intensity of collective life, they should be less noticeable in great cities than in the country as a whole. The facts strictly confirm this conclusion. Table XVI (see below) shows that whereas in France, Prussia, Austria and Denmark there is a difference of 52, 45 and even of 68 per cent between the minimum and the maximum, at Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, etc., this averages from 20 to 25 per cent and even reaches 12 per cent (at Frankfurt).

It is clear, moreover, that the maximum generally occurs in Spring in great cities, unlike the rest of society. Even where Spring is surpassed by Summer (Paris and Frankfurt), the increase in the latter season is slight. This is because during the fine season a veritable migration of the chief public personages takes place and public life accordingly shows a slight tendency to slow down.

TABLE XVI—Seasonal Variations of Suicide in Several Large Cities Compared with Those of the Whole Country

To recapitulate: we first showed that the direct action of cosmic factors could not explain the monthly or seasonal variations of suicide. We now see the nature of its real causes, the direction in which they must be sought, and this positive result confirms the conclusions of our abstract analysis. If voluntary deaths increase from January to July, it is not because heat disturbs the organism but because social life is more intense. To be sure, this greater intensity derives from the greater ease of development of social life in the Summer than in the Winter, owing to the sun’s position on the ecliptic, the state of the atmosphere, etc. But the physical environment does not stimulate it directly; above all, it has no effect on the progression of suicide. The latter depends on social conditions.

Of course, we are yet uncertain how collective life can have this effect. But it already appears that if it contains the causes of the variation of the suicide-rate, the latter must increase or decrease as social life becomes more or less active. To determine these causes more exactly will be the purpose of the following book.

Bibliography.—Lombroso, Pensiero e Meteore; Ferri, Variations thermométriques et criminalité. In Archives d’Anth, criminelle, 1887; Corre, Le délit et le suicide à Brest. In Arch. d’Anth. crim., 1890, p. 109 ff., 259 ff.; by the same, Crime et suicide, pp. 605-639; Morselli, pp. 103-157.

See below, Bk. II, Chap. 4.

De l’hypochondrie, etc., p. 28.

The distribution of the cases of insanity among the seasons can be estimated only by the number of admissions to the asylums. Such a standard is very inadequate; for families intern invalids not immediately but some time after the outbreak of the disease. Also such data as we have are a long way from showing perfect agreement between the seasonal variations of insanity and those of suicide. According to figures of Cazauvieilh, the share of each season in 1,000 annual admissions to Charenton is as follows: Winter, 222; Spring, 283; Summer, 261; Autumn, 231. The same calculation for the total of insane admitted to institutions of the Seine gives analogous results: Winter, 234; Spring, 266; Summer, 249; Autumn, 248. It appears, first, that the maximum occurs in Spring and not in Summer; moreover, the fact must be kept in mind that for the reasons indicated the real maximum has to be earlier; and secondly that the seasonal differences are very slight. They are much more marked for suicides.

We take these facts from Brierre de Boismont, op. cit., pp. 60-62.

This stability of the proportional figures cannot be too much emphasized and we shall revert to its significance below (Bk. III, Chap. I.)

It is true that, according to these authors, suicide is only a variety of homicide. The absence of suicides in southern countries would thus be merely apparent, being offset by an excess of homicides. We shall see later what this fusion amounts to. But is it not already clear that this argument turns against its authors? If the excess of homicides observed in hot countries offsets the lack of suicides, why does not the same offset occur during the warm season as well? Why is the latter fertile both in self-murder and in the murder of others?

Op. cit., p. 148.

We omit the figures for Switzerland. They are calculated tor one year only (1876) and consequently nothing can be concluded from them. Moreover, the rise from October to November is very slight. Suicides increase from 83 per thousand to 90.

This uniformity relieves us of making Table XIII more involved. It is not necessary to compare the monthly variations of the day and those of suicide in other countries than France, since both are everywhere appreciably the same, unless one compares countries of very different latitude.

The French text here reads “evening.” But those committed in the evening are not more numerous than those committed in the middle of the day. A look at Table XIV makes it indubitable that Durkheim meant “afternoon.”—Ed.

12 Another proof that social life experiences a rhythm of rest and activity at the different times of day is the variations of accidents by hours. They are distributed as follows according to the Prussian Bureau of Statistics:

From 6 to noon 1,011 accidents per average hour

From noon to 2   686 accidents per average hour

From 2 to 6   1,191 accidents per average hour

From 6 to 7   979 accidents per average hour

It is noteworthy that this contrast between the first and second parts of the week recurs during the month. The following, according to Brierre de Boismont, op. cit., p. 424, is the distribution of 4,595 Parisian suicides:

During the first ten days of the month 1,727

During the next ten days of the month 1,488

During the last ten days of the month 1,380

The numerical inferiority of the last ten days is even greater than the figures show; for because of the 31st day it often includes 11 days instead of 10. The rhythm of social life seems to reproduce the calendar’s divisions; there seems to be renewed activity whenever a new period is entered and a sort of slackening as it draws to an end.

See the Bulletin du ministere des travaux publics.

Ibid. The following may be added to all the other facts showing the increase of social activity during the Summer; namely, that accidents are commoner during the fine season than at other times. Here is their distribution in Italy:

It should also be noticed that the proportional figures of the different seasons are substantially the same in the great cities compared, though different from those of the countries to which these cities belong. Thus, the suicide-rate is found everywhere stable in the same social environments. The suicidal tendency varies in like manner at different times of the year in Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Paris, etc. One thus realizes in some measure the full extent of its reality.