Thursday, July 15, 2010

12 Ways To Commit Suicide

Twelve Ways to Commit Suicide,” from the American Medical Journal, reprinted in the Manhattan and de la Salle Monthly, 1875:
  1. Wearing of thin shoes and cotton stockings on damp nights and in cold, rainy weather. Wearing insufficient clothing, and especially upon the limbs and extremities.
  2. Leading a life of enfeebling, stupid laziness, and keeping the mind in an unnatural state of excitement by reading trashy novels. Going to theatres, parties and balls in all sorts of weather, in the thinnest possible dress. Dancing till in a complete perspiration, and then going home without sufficient over-garments through the cold, damp air.
  3. Sleeping on feather-beds, in seven-by-nine bedrooms, without ventilation at the top of the windows, and especially with two or more persons in the same small, unventilated bedroom.
  4. Surfeiting on hot and very stimulating dinners. Eating in a hurry, without masticating your food, and eating heartily before going to bed every night, when the mind and body are exhausted by the toils of the day and the excitement of the evening.
  5. Beginning in childhood on tea and coffee, and going from one step to another, through chewing and smoking tobacco and drinking intoxicating liquors, and physical and mental excesses of every description.
According to this article I should be dead (see numbers 2, 4 and 5).
See more at Futility Closet

2 comments:

  1. Ha Ha, how did any of us survive?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I fed my kids raisins. I can't believe they're still alive!

    ReplyDelete