Table Of ContentA SADLY TROUBLED HISTORY
mcgill-queen’s/associated medical services studies in the
history of medicine, health, and society
series editors: s.o. freedman and j.t.h. connor
VolumesinthisserieshavefinancialsupportfromAssociatedMedical
Services,Inc.(ams).AssociatedMedicalServicesInc.wasestablishedin1936
byDrJasonHannahasapioneerprepaidnot-for-profithealth-care
organizationinOntario.Withtheadventofmedicare,amsbecamea
charitableorganizationsupportinginnovationsinacademicmedicineand
healthservices,specificallythehistoryofmedicineandhealthcare,aswellas
innovationsinhealthprofessionaleducationandbioethics.
1 Home Medicine 7 A Young Man’s Benefit
TheNewfoundlandExperience TheIndependentOrderofOdd
JohnK.Crellin FellowsandSicknessInsurancein
theUnitedStatesandCanada,
2 A Long Way from Home
1860–1929
TheTuberculosisEpidemicamong
GeorgeEmeryandJ.C.Herbert
theInuit
Emery
PatSandifordGrygier
8 The Weariness, the Fever, and the
3 Labrador Odyssey
Fret
TheJournalandPhotographsof
TheCampaignagainstTuberculosis
EliotCurwenontheSecond
inCanada,1900–1950
VoyageofWilfredGrenfell,1893
KatherineMcCuaig
RonaldRompkey
9 The War Diary of Clare Gass,
4 Architecture in the Family Way
1915–1918
Doctors,Houses,andWomen,
EditedbySusanMann
1870–1900
AnnmarieAdams 10 Committed to the State Asylum
Insanity and Society in
5 Local Hospitals in Ancien Régime
Nineteenth- Century Quebec and
France
Ontario
Rationalization,Resistance,
JamesE.Moran
Renewal,1530–1789
DanielHickey 11 Jessi Luther at the Grenfell
Mission
6 Foisted upon the Government?
EditedbyRonaldRompkey
StateResponsibilities,Family
Obligations,andtheCareofthe 12 Negotiating Disease
DependantAgedin PowerandCancerCare,
Nineteenth-CenturyOntario 1900–1950
Edgar-AndréMontigny BarbaraClow
13 For Patients of Moderate 21 The Struggle to Serve
Means AHistoryoftheMoncton
ASocialHistoryoftheVoluntary Hospital,1895to1953
PublicGeneralHospitalinCanada, W.G.Godfrey
1890–1950
22 An Element of Hope
DavidGaganandRosemary
RadiumandtheResponsetoCancer
Gagan
inCanada,1900–1940
14 Into the House of Old CharlesHayter
AHistoryofResidentialCarein
23 Labour in the Laboratory
BritishColumbia
MedicalLaboratoryWorkersinthe
MeganJ.Davies
Maritimes,1900–1950
15 St Mary’s PeterL.Twohig
TheHistoryofaLondonTeaching
24 Rockefeller Foundation Funding
Hospital
and Medical Education in
E.A.Heaman
Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax
16 Women, Health, and Nation MarianneP.Fedunkiw
CanadaandtheUnitedStates
25 Push!
since1945
TheStruggleforMidwiferyin
EditedbyGeorginaFeldberg,
Ontario
MollyLadd-Taylor,AlisonLi,and
IvyLynnBourgeault
KathrynMcPherson
17 The Labrador Memoir of 26 Mental Health and Canadian
Dr Henry Paddon, Society
1912–1938 HistoricalPerspectives
EditedbyRonaldRompkey JamesMoran/DavidWright
18 J.B. Collip and the Development 27 sarsin Context
of Medical Research in Canada Memory,History,andPolicy
ExtractsandEnterprise EditedbyJacalynDuffinandArthur
AlisonLi Sweetman
19 The Ontario Cancer Institute 28 Lyndhurst
SuccessesandReversesat Canada’sFirstRehabilitation
SherbourneStreet CentreforPeoplewithSpinalCord
E.A.McCulloch Injuries,
1945–1998
20 Island Doctor
GeoffreyReaume
JohnMackiesonandMedicine
inNineteenth-Century 29 J. Wendell Macleod
PrinceEdwardIsland Saskatchewan’s“RedDean”
DavidA.E.Shephard LouisHorlick
30 Who Killed the Queen? 32 A Canadian Surgeon in the Army of
WhatWorksandWhatto the Potomac
FixinCanadianHealthCare FrancisM.Wafer
HollyDressel EditedbyCherylA.Wells
31 Healing the World’s Children 33 A Sadly Troubled History
InterdisciplinaryPerspectiveson TheMeaningsofSuicideinthe
HealthintheTwentiethCentury ModernAge
EditedbyCynthiaComacchio,Janet JohnC.Weaver
Golden,andGeorgeWeisz
A Sadly Troubled History
The Meanings of Suicide in the
Modern Age
JOHN C. WEAVER
McGill-Queen’sUniversityPress
Montreal&Kingston(cid:1)London(cid:1)Ithaca
© McGill-Queen’sUniversityPress2009
isbn978-0-7735-3513-8
Legaldepositsecondquarter2009
BibliothèquenationaleduQuébec
PrintedinCanadaonacid-freepaperthatis100%ancientforestfree
(100%post-consumerrecycled),processedchlorinefree
ThisbookhasbeenpublishedwiththehelpofagrantfromtheCanadian
FederationfortheHumanitiesandSocialSciences,throughtheAidto
ScholarlyPublicationsProgramme,usingfundsprovidedbytheSocial
SciencesandHumanitiesResearchCouncilofCanada.
McGill-Queen’sUniversityPressacknowledgesthesupportoftheCanada
CouncilfortheArtsforourpublishingprogram.Wealsoacknowledge
thefinancialsupportoftheGovernmentofCanadathroughtheBook
PublishingIndustryDevelopmentProgram(bpidp)forourpublishing
activities.
LibraryandArchivesCanadaCataloguinginPublication
Weaver,JohnC.
Asadlytroubledhistory:themeaningsofsuicideinthemodernage/
JohnC.Weaver.
(McGill-Queen’s/AssociatedMedicalServicesstudiesinthehistoryof
medicine,health,andsociety;33)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-0-7735-3513-8
1.Suicide–NewZealand–History.2.Suicide–Queensland–History.
3.Suicide.i.Title.ii.Series.
hv6545.w43 2009362.280993 c2008-907494-7
TypesetbyJayTeeGraphicsLtd.in10.5/13Sabon
ss
Contents
Tables and Graphs ix
Preface xiii
Illustrations following pages 100 and 256
Introduction 3
part one theory, conjecture, and politics
1 Suicide as a Gauge for the Times: The Nineteenth Century 19
2 Epistemic Communities and the Suicide Problem: The Twentieth
Century 62
part two rates, society, and motives
3 Bearings on a Temporal Compass: Rates, Seasons, Cohorts, and
Motives 109
4 Work and Troubles: Men and Motives 162
5 Sorrows and Burdens: Women and Motives 213
part three rationality, psyche, and treatment
6 What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? Intentions, Decisions, and
Acts 265
7 Managing Mental Crises: Psychiatry and Suicidal Patients 304
Conclusion 345
Notes 359
Index 429
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Tables and Graphs
tables
1.1 Subject distribution of suicide titles in national libraries or consortia
of libraries: French, British, and German titles 28
1.2 Authors mentioned in chapter 1: their backgrounds and main
positions on the suicide puzzle 28
2.1 Books published in New York that dealt with suicide, 1800–2000 63
2.2 Examples of status integration and suicide using United States census
data for 1950 75
3.1 Leading agricultural-sector occupations represented among suicide
inquests: New Zealand and Queensland males 131
3.2 Correlations of monthly distributions of suicides for selected places
and years 142
4.1 The under-representation of suicide among married men in New
Zealand and Queensland, 1900–50 168
4.2 The mean age, marital status, and presence of support for New
Zealand men who committed suicide, 1900–50 171
4.3 Leading alcohol-related motives for men and women: Queensland,
1890–1940 175
4.4 Leading alcohol-related motives for men and women: New Zealand,
1900–50 177
4.5 Motives and marital status: New Zealand, 1900–50 184
4.6 Motives and marital status: Queensland, 1900–50 185
4.7 Estimated suicide rate for returned soldiers: New Zealand,
1920–40 189
5.1 Witnesses’ reports of mental illness: New Zealand women,
1900–50 231
