Suicide: Its History, Literature, Jurisprudence, Causation, and Prevention — Themes and Context

Military and Prison Suicide Rates

Westcott presents detailed comparative statistics showing that soldiers and prisoners have markedly higher suicide rates than civilians. In Saxony, the military rate was 640 per million against 368 for civilians; in Prussia, 419 to 168; in Sweden, 450 to 101. Officers in Austrian, Italian, and French armies had double the rate of enlisted men, while non-commissioned officers had the highest. The author notes that high military rates seemed to affect nearby civilians, with elevated civilian rates on military frontiers.

For prisoners, Westcott distinguishes between convicts and untried detainees. In England, prisoners had a rate of 1,100 per million versus 350 for convicts. Female prisoners in Denmark and Italy showed very high rates, exceeding males. Over half of prisoner suicides were convicted of crimes against the person. The author observes that longer confinement reduced suicide tendency, and solitary confinement produced greater risk than associated imprisonment. Notably, nearly half of all prison suicides occurred in the first year, and two-thirds of those who died had been reported as “well conducted.”

Seasonal and Celestial Patterns

Westcott devotes a chapter to the timing of suicides, noting that “modern science rather scouted the ideas of the astrologers and Chaldeans” but that suicide statistics reintroduced a connection to the sun. He cites Morselli’s observation that the number of violent deaths varies with the earth’s position relative to the sun: a maximum occurs when the earth is in aphelion, a minimum in perihelion. Statistical analysis shows the maximum suicide rate occurs in summer 88 times out of 100, with spring accounting for 9 out of 100. The author does not offer his own interpretation but presents these findings as empirical patterns drawn from European data.

Original Data from London Inquests

Westcott’s role as Deputy Coroner gave him direct access to suicide cases investigated by Dr. Danford Thomas and himself. He states that he “added to this volume original instances and estimates derived from those suicidal deaths of London, upon which inquests have been held.” The preface emphasizes that these firsthand observations supplement the statistical work of Legoyt, Morselli, and Wagner. While the excerpts do not include the specific cases, the author’s position suggests a practical, medico-legal perspective that grounds the treatise in contemporary English practice rather than relying solely on foreign data.

Westcott’s treatise is a product of its time—rooted in Victorian social science, coronial practice, and European positivism. Readers should approach its statistics and causal claims as historical artifacts, noting the author’s reliance on categories like “moral plague spot” and his assumption that suicide rates reflect social health. The book offers a snapshot of late-19th-century thinking about self-destruction, framed by the author’s professional experience and the limited English-language literature then available.

There’s something haunting about Westcott’s 1885 inquests—how carefully he catalogued despair, hoping statistics might prevent it. It makes me think of older certainties, like England’s strange claim to rule the waves themselves, a kind of legal fiction. Both feel like attempts to impose order on vast, indifferent forces. I keep returning to The Sovereignty of the Sea An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters — Themes and Context for that same quiet, futile ambition.