Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 50907-h.htm or 50907-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50907/50907-h/50907-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50907/50907-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/anatomyofsuicide00wins Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The original text contains some unpaired quotation marks which could not be corrected with cofidence. [Illustration: Vide p. 331.] THE ANATOMY OF SUICIDE: by FORBES WINSLOW, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London; Author of “Physic and Physicians.” “But is there yet no other way, besides These painful passages; how we may come To death, and mix with our connatural dust? * * * * * Nor love thy life, nor hate: but what thou liv’st Live well; HOW LONG OR SHORT PERMIT TO HEAVEN.” MILTON. London: Henry Renshaw, 356, Strand. Sold By Carfrae & Son, Edinburgh; And Fannin & Co., Dublin. 1840. TO JAMES JOHNSON, ESQ., M.D. PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO THE LATE KING, ETC. ETC. This Work is dedicated, AS A TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR HIS HIGH PROFESSIONAL ATTAINMENTS, AND AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM A PERUSAL OF THE MANY ABLE WORKS WITH WHICH HE HAS ENRICHED THE MEDICAL LITERATURE OF HIS COUNTRY. _London,—May, 1840._ PREFACE. This treatise had its origin in the following circumstance:—A few months ago, the author had the honour of reading before the _Westminster Medical Society_, a paper on “Suicide Medically considered,” which giving rise to an animated discussion, and evolving an expression of the opinions of several eminent professional men, excited at the time much interest. It was the author’s object in his paper to establish a fact, he believes, of primary importance,—that the disposition to commit self-destruction is, to a great extent, amenable to those principles which regulate our treatment of ordinary disease; and that, to a degree more than is generally supposed, it originates in derangement of the brain and abdominal viscera. Notwithstanding, however, these points were not considered with the minuteness commensurate with their value, the discussion which followed the author’s communication afforded him great satisfaction. It tended to strengthen in his mind an opinion previously formed, that the members of the medical profession were inferior to no other class in a knowledge of those higher branches of philosophy that give dignity and elevation to human character.