Self poisoning – A study in Edinburgh

Abstract

Years ago the problem of self-poisoning was not recognised. People poisoned themselves, of course, but few survived.

The picture today is different. In Edinburgh more than a thousand adults are admitted to hospital each year after such an act. The great majority of those who poison themselves survive, and this fact goes far towards explaining why the practice has spread.

Poisoning used to be regarded as fatal. Instances of someone taking poisons deliberately to harm himself, but with the intent ion of surviving, are hard to find. Juliet did so, but Romeo had so little thought that she might not be dead that he killed himself in despair. He knew, as everyone knew, that if you took poison you died. This is not so today.

The growth of pharmaceutical products has brought about the change. The growth of self poisoning has come about in the train of a rapid rise in number of highly dangerous preparations employed therapeutically, together with a great contemporaneous increase in prescribing. The way has thus been opened for self -poisoning to flourish, since few who practise it have their minds set on dying.