en suicide and war was first brought
to my attention by the sudden and remarkable decrease of suicide in the
United States in 1898, the year of the war with Spain. Instead of
increasing that year, as it had every previous year for more than a
decade, the number of suicides decreased suddenly from 6,600 to 5,920, a
falling off of 680 cases. Then, when the war in the Philippines followed
the war in Cuba, the number was again reduced by 580 cases. When,
however, in 1900, we began to lose interest in the Philippines and to
think of our own home troubles and trials, the number of suicides rose
suddenly from 5,340 to 7,245, an increase of 1,905 cases in two years.
The decrease in the suicide rate during the war was nearly 16 per cent.,
and the increase after the war about 23 per cent.

_War As a Deterrent to Suicide_

This struck me as a phenomenon interesting enough to warrant
investigation, and I began study of it by looking up the statistics of
suicide in the national capital. It seemed to me that if the decrease in
1898 was due to a general economic cause, it would not be particularly
noticeable in the city of Washington, for the reason that Washington is
not a manufacturing or business center. If, on the other hand, the fall
in the suicide rate was really due to the war as a specific cause, it
would be most marked at the nation's capital, where the war attracted
most attention and created most excitement. I went to the District
Health Office and made an examination of the suicide records for a term
of six years, beginning with 1895 and ending with 1900. I found not only
that the depression in the Washington suicide curve was precisely
synchronous with that of the national suicide curve, but that it was
much deeper, amounting, in fact, to a sudden decrease of fifty per cent.

As suicides are tabulated in the Health Office of the District of
Columbia by months, I was able to ascertain, furthermore, that the
decrease began, not in the first month of the year, but in the spring
months, when the war excitement became epidemic. Normally, the suicide
rate should have risen, from January to June, in accordance with the
seasonal law; but, instead of so doing, it fell rapidly at the very time
when it should have been approaching its maximum. The colored population
of the city, taken separately, was affected in the same way and to an
even greater degree, the number of suicides among the blacks falling off
fifty-six per cent., a