A Sadly Troubled History: The Meanings of Suicide in the Modern Age PDF
Preview A Sadly Troubled History: The Meanings of Suicide in the Modern Age
A 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 This page intentionally left blank nnddGGrraapphhss 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
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