Discussion What do you think suicide was like in old times?

[johnny]

What do you think suicide was like before modern society? I wonder how common it was, what methods were used?

I imagine hanging was the most common. They had no guns, no real heights to jump from. You see stories about ancient Romans and Greeks using poison but I imagine that was only accessibly by high status people, I doubt commoners could get their hands on it.

 

[wxtyubidi7y]

Good question. I am guessing that the rate of successful suicidal attempts was actually higher because there would have been fewer unsuccessful overdose attempts, but I could be wrong.

Cutting was probably a popular method that was also probably usually unsuccessful, like it is now.

 

[therhydler]

Good old reliable hanging

 

[CuriousAboutThis]

Or if they jumped from a high cliff maybe yeah hanging or stabbing themselves several times in the gut or slitting their wrist or poison if they knew how to do it or have access to it like you said probably mid to high social and economic status.

 

[Memento Mori]

Maybe they paid someone to kill em if that was cheaper than accessing poison.

no real heights to jump from? Why do you think that?


Back then there was no real ambulance/first aid/much medical knowledge...there were no benzodiazepines n stuff but you also had easier access to some natural deadly stuff I think. Or you did just sit down at a place you already know someones gonna roll a big fat rock down that hill to transport it. xD Learning by doing. Maybe even attacking the imperial guard so that they get stabbed?
Modern Society causes 'involuntary/unwanted suicide' , do we count that too?
We never know if it was that common since there are no records, I'd also give a shit on the actual records as any statistic not made by yourself with reliable respondents could just be fictional or rough estimation to make it look like someone worked on something instead of pulling cocaine all day

 

[wxtyubidi7y]

Soldiers would "fall on their swords" but damn, you wouldn't want to miss the heart..

 

[J.E. Morrow]

In Japan people who wanted to ctb used to leap into the crater of Mount Mihara until government built a wire fence around the vantage point. It was in the 20th century but I guess it could have been an option way before and not only in Japan.

 

[Johnnythefox]

Considering the life expectancy in those times, you probably considered yourself lucky to be alive. If you didn't die from natural causes then there was a whole host of diseases, plagues, wars and other simple things that were deadly considering how medicine was at that time.

Life expectancy at birth was a brief 25 years during the Roman Empire, it reached 33 years by the Middle Ages and raised up to 55 years in the early 1900s. In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood.

 

[wxtyubidi7y]

I think it's been mentioned elsewhere on this site but in ancient Rome:

"If someone wished to willingly end their life within the borders of the Roman Empire, they were to apply to the Senate so that the Senate could judge whether their reasons for suicide were sound. If the reasons were considered sound, the person would be allowed to commit suicide. They would even be provided with hemlock, a highly poisonous plant, free of charge."

 

[CuriousAboutThis]

I think it's been mentioned elsewhere on this site but in ancient Rome:
In this day and age if I were allowed to do this I would have second thoughts
"If someone wished to willingly end their life within the borders of the Roman Empire, they were to apply to the Senate so that the Senate could judge whether their reasons for suicide were sound. If the reasons were considered sound, the person would be allowed to commit suicide. They would even be provided with hemlock, a highly poisonous plant, free of charge."

 

[HelensNepenthe]

A post on /r/AskHistory talks a bit about Medieval Europe suicides.

 

[retarddd]

Suicide was probably the same rate it was now (maybe a bit lower but not that much to make a difference), they just tried covering it up, the 50's had many cases of "accidentally" pulling the trigger when cleaning your gun (also back then people were more religious and probably were scared of going to hell)

 

[21Neberg]

Good question. I am guessing that the rate of successful suicidal attempts was actually higher because there would have been fewer unsuccessful overdose attempts, but I could be wrong.

Cutting was probably a popular method that was also probably usually unsuccessful, like it is now.

On the other hand, people back then didn't have the resources we have today. There might have been more unsuccesful attempts since they didn't have great forum like this one, to discuss their plans.

 

[ctrl_alt_delete]

 

[Logic]

What do you think suicide was like before modern society? I wonder how common it was, what methods were used?

I imagine hanging was the most common. They had no guns, no real heights to jump from. You see stories about ancient Romans and Greeks using poison but I imagine that was only accessibly by high status people, I doubt commoners could get their hands on it.

Basically in many cultures suicide was much respectable and relaxed compared to today. In Rome there were times when suicide was government sanctioned, and hemlock(suicide drink) was given free of charge if the reasons were judged to be sound. There was even the rare play were wealthy families who lost their wealth would choose to commit suicide in front of audiences as a form of entertainment by choice. Than Monotheistic movements etc came it declared suicide as a crime against invisible sky daddy, kept creating more and more stigma for thousands of year. Drug companies declared suicide was a lack of neurotransmitter based off of a hypothesis that has never been proven to be true. (We are our brain evreythig we feel is the result of our brain, but suicide is certainly not the result of lack of serotonin)

Most people went with it because just like how they went with opiates are not addictive, being gay is a mental disorder etc we could go on an on.

 

[johnny]

no real heights to jump from? Why do you think that?

Well unless they had access to a high tower (which were likely guarded), there wouldn't be any structures to jump from. And cliffs suitable for suicide out in nature are not very easy to come by.

 

[johnny]

Considering the life expectancy in those times, you probably considered yourself lucky to be alive. If you didn't die from natural causes then there was a whole host of diseases, plagues, wars and other simple things that were deadly considering how medicine was at that time.

That's the average though, which includes babies dying. If you made it to adulthood then you were likely to live a longer life

 

[Johnnythefox]

"17th-century English life expectancy was only about 35 years, largely because infant and child mortality remained high. Life expectancy was under 25 years in the early Colony of Virginia, and in seventeenth-century New England, about 40 per cent died before reaching adulthood."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

 

[JustAboutDone]

@Johnnythefox i love your posts and facts You should be a teacher in a school