Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1881 — The Newest Thing in Suicide. [ARTICLE]

The Newest Thing in Suicide.

The latest novelty in attempts at suicide comes, of course, from Paris. A workman, having quarreled with his wife, withdrew to his room, seized a poignard, the blade of which was ten centimetres long, took a hammer, and, putting the point of the poignard to the top of his head, drove the blade home with a blow. Instead of dropping dead, as one would suppose,'the Frenchman,-it is declared by the Siecle Medicals, experienced no unusual sensation, either mental or physical. He thereupon endeavored to extract the poignard, but, though he tugged hard, he tugged in vain. Doctors were sent for, who found themselves unable to extract the poignard. “The man,” we read, “was ultimately taken to a workshop in the neighborhood, accompanied by the medical gentlemen, and here he was seated on the floor, held down in a sitting posture by two persons, whilst mechanical force was used to draw the weapon from the skull. ” This operation having been successfully performed, he was sent to St. Louis Hospital and kept there a week. He was then sent home to muse, perchance, over some surer means of taking his own life than burying a poignard in his brain. Scientific men are racking their heads over the problem this singular case presents.