Dr. Warren F. Evans, in his book, "Mental Medicine," published three years before the first edition of "Science and Health," said: "Disease being in its root a _wrong belief_, change that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a law here which the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of the most remarkable cures, effected by psychopathic remedies, at the same time proved the truth of the theory and the efficiency of that mode of treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practise would now have been deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history. But all this was only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impressible condition." [17] Distribution of every 1000 suicides by season: _Country Summer Spring Fall Winter Total_ Denmark 312 284 227 177 1,000 Belgium 301 275 229 195 1,000 France 306 283 210 201 1,000 Saxony 307 281 217 195 1,000 Bavaria 308 282 218 192 1,000 Austria 315 281 219 185 1,000 Prussia 290 284 227 199 1,000 Durkheim, "Le Suicide," (Paris, 1897), p. 88. [18] The figures are those of Dr. Forbes Winslow for the United States, those of Dr. M. Gubski for Russia, those of Dr. Rehfisch (in _Der Selbsmord_) for Europe, and those of the Government Statistical Bureau for Japan. [19] Durkheim, "Le Suicide" (Paris, 1897), p. 93. [20] Five or six years ago, in a paper that I read before the Literary Society of Washington, D. C., I suggested this explanation of the high suicide rate in June. At the conclusion of the reading, a young Italian student, who happened to be present as a guest, came to me and said: "If I did not know it to be impossible, I should think that your explanation of June suicides had been suggested by, if not copied from, a letter left by a dear friend of mine who killed himself in Genoa, two years ago, on a beautiful evening in June. You have expressed his thoughts almost in the words that he used." [21] For the suicide statistics embodied in this table I am largely indebted to the cooeperation and assistance of Mr. M. L. Jacobson, of the Bureau of Statistics in Washington. In the literature of the subject there are no figures more recent than 1893 for most of the European countries. In this table they are nearly all later than 1900. [22] The figures for Europe are from the latest reports of government statistical bureaus, and for America from the registration area covered in the twelfth census.