E-text prepared by Turgut Dincer, Les Galloway, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/suicideitshistor00west Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A caret character is used to denote superscription. Superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: (_a′_∕_a_-1)^{1∕_n_}). A Social Science Treatise. SUICIDE Its History, Literature, Jurisprudence, Causation, and Prevention. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, M.B. LOND. Deputy Coroner for Central Middlesex. Joint Author of the Extra Pharmacopœia. London: H. K. Lewis, 136, Gower Street, W.C. 1885. TO GEORGE DANFORD THOMAS, ESQ., M.D., CORONER FOR CENTRAL MIDDLESEX, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED WITH MUCH RESPECT AND ESTEEM BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. In preparing an Essay on Suicide, which I recently delivered before a Society of medical men in London, I found it impossible in the limited time at my disposal to do anything like justice to the gravity and importance of the subject. The question is one well worthy of the earnest consideration of the community; indeed, it may be legitimately regarded as one of our Social Problems, as it involves matters which are intimately connected with our social organisation, and is with propriety embraced in our legislative enactments. When we reflect, with satisfaction perhaps, that in England crime has been steadily decreasing, the fact that Suicide has been as steadily on the increase in Great Britain, and in almost every country in Europe, while it awakens our sympathy on behalf of the unhappy victims, should stimulate our exertions towards promoting the diminution of this moral plague spot. These considerations, added to the fact that there are but two books in the English language devoted entirely to this subject,─one dated as far back as 1840, and the other, a most valuable but almost entirely statistical work, translated from the Italian,─have induced me to re-arrange and extend my notes, and I now offer them to my professional brethren and other students of Social Science in the following short treatise on the History, Literature, Jurisprudence, Causation, and Prevention of Suicide. As Deputy Coroner for Central Middlesex frequent opportunities are afforded me of investigating cases of Suicide, and I have added to this volume original instances and estimates derived from those suicidal deaths of London, upon which inquests have been held by Dr. Danford Thomas, or myself.