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One Suicide Every Second According to WHO Report

"Despite progress, one person still dies every 40 seconds from suicide.  Every death is a tragedy for family, friends and colleagues. Yet suicides are preventable. We call on all countries to incorporate proven suicide prevention strategies into national health and education programmes in a sustainable way.”  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Director-General

While noting progress in the five years since the publication of the first WHO global report on suicide,  only thirty-eight countries currently have a national suicide prevention strategy in place to prevent deaths.  Though suicide rates vary widely between countries, the global age-standardized suicide rate was 10.5 per 100,000 in 2016.   Suicide rates appear highest in high-income countries although seventy-nine percent of all suicides occur in middle- to low-income countries.   Men are also three times as likely to commit suicide as women in high-income countries even though the gender disparity is more equal in poorer countries.

Suicide remains the second leading cause of death among young people aged 15-29 years (road injury is the leading cause).   For girls in the 15-19 age range, only pregnancy-related medical conditions causes more deaths annually than suicide.  For boys in that age range, suicide is the third leading cause of death (after road injury and interpersonal violence).  Popular methods for committing suicide are hanging, pesticide self-poisoning, and using firearms and government programs have reported success in preventing death by restricting access to firearms and pesticides.

Given the toxicity of most pesticides used worldwide, they remain a popular choice due to their effectiveness and the lack of adequate medical services in many places.   This means that deliberate suicide attempts are often fatal whether or not self-poisoners intended to kill themselves.   In a report recently released by the WHO titled  Preventing suicide: a resource for pesticide registrars and regulators, numerous research studies have demonstrated prohibiting the use of highly hazardous pesticides can lead to reductions in national suicide rates.

In Sri Lank, for example, government bans on pesticides have led to a 70% fall in suicides and an estimated 93 000 lives saved between 1995 and 2015.   Paraquat remains a particularly popular choice for suicide in many parts of Asia and accounted for most suicide deaths in the Republic of Korea during the 2000s.   Since the Korean government imposed a ban on paraquat in 2011-2012, the rate of suicide deaths from pesticide poisoning has dropped by half between 2011 and 2013.

Even as progress is being made, tracking suicide rates remains a major problem in many countries.  Only 80 of the 183 WHO Member States provide reliable data concerning suicide rates, largely due to the lack of a strong medical infrastructure as well as the stigma that continues to surround suicide worldwide.  

Aided by international partners such as World Federation for Mental Health, the International Association for Suicide Prevention and United for Global Mental Health, the WHO launched the 40 Seconds of Action Campaign which culminated on October 10 which is World Mental Health Day.   By working together to help prevent suicide, the WHO and its supporters are hoping for a better future for everyone.

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The Strange Death of James Moon

Despite being one of Lafayette, Indiana's most well-known landmarks and the site of that city's first hotel, the Lahr House Hotel has another claim to fame which is far more macabre.

When a guest named James Moon first checked into the hotel on June 10, 1876, nobody paid much notice despite the rather large and bulky trunk he had with him.  While living with his wife and six children on a farm in a nearby Quaker community, the 37-year-old Moon still traveled into Lafayette often enough to be fairly well-known to  staff from his previous stays at the hotel.    He also had a reputation of being an inventor and all-around "jack-of-all-trades" so nobody thought much about the trunk itself.    On checking in, however,  he asked hotel staff for a quiet room as he was a light sleeper who didn't wish to be disturbed.   After hearing some suggestions, Moon decided on a third-floor room located to the rear of the building and stated that he would only need it for a few days.   

After settling in his room, Moon then left to run several errands in the city.   Though he mostly kept to himself, he did mention in passing to one of the hotel's owners that he was working on "perfecting a patent of considerable importance."     What nobody knew at the time was that, during the course of his errands in the city, he bought a large ax-head at a nearby hardware store two thick iron plates at a foundry.   At that same foundry, he instructed staff to bore holes through the ax head and the plates and stated that they would be part of a machine he was building for creating "fruit baskets".    While  this foundry work was being done, he went to a barber shop and had his heavy beard shaved off and then stopped at a drug store and bought cotton padding and chloroform (it was a simpler time back then).   

Finally, he picked up his order from the foundry and placed his purchases in the heavy trunk which was still on his carriage.    After paying a visit to several of his comrades from his days fighting in the Civil War, Moon then returned to the hotel where he arranged for his trunk to be brought up to his room.  Despite being well over six feet tall and weighing close to 200 pounds, the trunk was still too heavy for Moon to carry himself  and he needed help from two baggage handlers to lug the trunk up to the third floor.   With that final chore taken care of, Moon then locked the door.   

On Sunday, June 11, a maid named Bridget Clogan tried several times during the day to enter Moon's room for cleaning but got no response.   At 5 pm, she tried once more and, getting no answer, she used her passkey to enter the room.   What she saw there sent her into a fit of screaming that alarmed all the guests in nearby rooms.  Two of these guests rushed to her assistance and found Moon's decapitated body strapped to the floor with his head lying nearby.   What he had passed off as a machine for making fruit baskets was actually a crude guillotine which he had used to cut off his own head in one of the most bizarre suicides on record.   

Hotel staff  called the police who then began examining the crime scene in elaborate detail.   He had apparently been carrying the disassembled pieces of the guillotine in his trunk and, once he got the ax head and metal plates needed to complete his device, had carefully assembled the device in the hotel room.  Moon's contraption basically consisted of a broadax attached to a jointed wooden arm that swung on a hinge screwed into the floor.   The ax head had two thick wooden bars which were bolted together to provide a counterweight.    But Moon's ingenuity didn't end there.   He also prepared a soapbox to hold his head secure and placed a large wooden block under his neck to ensure that the blade would make a solid hit.  He had then carefully fastened a cord to the wooden arm and attached the other end to the windowsill.   All that remained was for Moon to set a candle holder by the window with the flame being lit so that it would burn through the cord.    This allowed Moon enough time to get his head in position and wait for the cord to be burned all the way through.   It was a testament to Moon's ingenuity that this bizarre suicide method worked on his first try.

Since Moon failed to leave behind a suicide note, police were baffled over his motives for killing himself in such a bizarre fashion.  All that they could determine was that he had been dead for about ten hours before his body was discovered which put the time of death around 7:00 am on Sunday.    The body was moved to a nearby funeral home and his widow, Mary, came up with several relatives to make arrangements to ship the body home (no word on how long it took hotel staff to clean up the room to prepare it for the next guest).   

As you might expect,  stories about Moon's bizarre suicide were carried by newspapers across the country.    Most of the coverage on the story came from the local paper in Lafayette which also provided further details about Moon's life.  This included his being a self-taught blacksmith and his various attempts at creating a perpetual motion machine.   But most of the details that we know about James Moon came from the coroner's inquest and the various people who provided testimony about the deceased inventor.   

Many of the witnesses called were former neighbours who described Moon as a well-educated man who was kind to his family. Being the son of a Quaker minister, it was likely no surprise that he was thoroughly familiar with the Bible though, intriguingly enough, he was also a bit of an atheist.    Other people who knew Moon also described his fascination with machines for causing death.   One of these neighbours, O.W. Phillips, testified that Moon had  told him back in 1875 that he could "make a better machine that could take life than has yet been invented."   To nobody's surprise, the jury returned a verdict of suicide though the reason he chose to kill himself they way he did died with him.

James Moon was buried in the Farmer's Institute Cemetery, not far from his farm.  As for the guillotine used to kill Moon, that went on display at a site not far from the hotel where the bizarre death took place.  Thousands of men, women, and children came to see the device before it was finally disassembled.  Photographs of the bizarre apparatus can still be found online.

Netherlands Court Explores Murky Questions about Dementia and Euthanasia

Should someone suffering from dementia be allowed to  reconsider euthanasia?   

A Netherlands court is currently embroiled in controversy while trying to decide that very question in a landmark case.    After passing one of the first assisted dying laws in 2002, the Netherlands has remained at the forefront of the euthanasia debate.   While people with dementia are deemed qualified for euthanasia, the current legislation only allows this if an advance directive has been made.    In the case currently before the court, an unnamed female doctor is accused of having broken the law by facilitating the death of a 74-year-old woman three years previously.   While the unnamed patient had previously given her consent to being euthanized, prosecutors maintain that she gave "mixed signals" about proceeding.   Though the doctor was deemed to be acting "with the best of intentions", she had reportedly acted without the patient's knowledge by slipping a sedative in her coffee.    A lethal drug was then administered and family members needed to hold the patient down as she struggled against the injection.

While this is the first case of its nature since the passing of the euthanasia bill seventeen years ago, it still addresses growing questions about whether dementia patients can be euthanized based on an advance directive alone without considering whether they can be allowed to change their minds.   Though euthanasia of people with severe dementia remains rare, the debate over how medical doctors should proceed when dealing with patients no longer capable of providing informed consent remains controversial.   Under the current legislation, doctors are required to keep patients informed about all aspects of the euthanasia process and to seek an independent opinion about whether the patient is capable of giving permission.  

The debate over dementia and euthanasia has escalated since 2018 with the resignation of medical ethicist Berna van Baarsen from a regional euthanasia board over that very question.  In one media interview, van Baarsen stressed that she was no longer capable of defending the right of dementia patients to give advance directives.  “It is fundamentally impossible to establish that the patient is suffering unbearably, because he can no longer explain it,'" she said.   Something that prosecutors in the ongoing euthanasia case also stress, citing the ambiguity of the current law.

According to  data published on the website of the Dutch national broadcaster NOS, only two people with severe dementia were helped to die in 2018 as opposed to 144 patients with early dementia and 4,000 cancer patients.   As prosecutors are preparing to move forward with four other criminal investigations into euthanasia, more doctors than ever are expressing are becoming apprehensive over the possibility of facing charges under current law.   With the rising number of dementia cases expected over the next two decades, as well as the increasing number of jurisdictions approving assisted dying, the verdict in this latest case, which is expected over the next week, will likely influence similar cases worldwide in years to come.  

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Dealing with Afghanistan's "Haunted"

They're known by many names across Afghanistan.  

Whether they're called "haunted," "crazy", "stupid", or "idiots", people suffering from mental illness have few options for treatment.   In the Afghan city of Jalalabad, for example, families often leave their mentally ill relatives at the Amyali shrine on the outskirts of the city.   Such shrines often act as makeshift sanctuaries for the mentally ill across many Islamic countries, largely due to the reports of miraculous cures that take place there.   

During their stints at the Amyali shrine,  the "haunted" are chained up for much of the day and are rarely allowed to leave the room in which they are kept.    All that they get each day is one piece of bread, a red chili, and a glass of water.  While many locals insist that the people who leave the shrine after forty days are cured, the reality is very different.

And the incidence of mental illness in Afghanistan has been rising steadily in recent years, largely as a result of decades of warfare that shows little sign of ending.   According to Afghanistan's Health Ministry, as much as fifty percent of the population reports experiencing significant psychological stress.   As well, many people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder  (PTSD), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious psychiatric conditions often go undiagnosed and untreated due to the lack of proper mental health resources even in the larger cities.    

Depression is especially prevalent and the latest United Nations  World Happiness Survey places the country as the third most unhappy globally.  Only South Sudan and the Central African Republic score lower overall.    Hospitals are called on to treat cases of attempted suicide on a daily basis though suicide statistics remain incomplete due to the stigma that causes many families to conceal actual cause of death to investigators.   

In a recent interview with Global Media, Bashir Ahmad Sarwari, director of  the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, states that the problem is getting worse.  “People do not know about mental health illness and come up with various names for sufferers — idiots, crazy, stupid, or haunted.  The stigma toward mental health illness is everywhere, not only among ordinary Afghans but also among doctors, staff, politicians, and policy-makers.”

That means that many of Afghanistan's hospitals are ill-equipped to handle cases of mental illness.  Kabul's Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Hospital is widely considered to be the best facility for the mentally ill in the country but can only handle 100 to 150 patients at a time.   But critics of the hospital insist that the treatment there falls well below international standards.  Many patients are released after only a few days with no real options aside from returning to their homes and the stigma that makes their problems worse.  

Though many people try to get psychiatric help in Pakistan and India, usually because of the better services there, poverty often forces them to return home.   In the meantime, the ongoing political and military crisis in Afghanistan means more people than ever needing mental health services that are already strained to capacity - and beyond.

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The Darwin Connection

The publication of Charles Darwin's seminal masterwork On The Origin Of Species in 1859 marked a turning point in the understanding of how species form and change over time. It is doubtful that Darwin himself really anticipated the storm of protest that followed the book's publication. Scientists and theologians alike became locked in a battle that lasted for decades (and still continues today).

Of all the stout churchmen reacting to Darwin's theory, perhaps no one felt outrage more keenly than Robert Fitzroy, former captain of the HMS Beagle.   Born in 1805, Fitzroy was part of one of the most illustrious families in England. After an idyllic childhood, he entered the Royal Naval College at the age of twelve and the Royal Navy a year later. His life was never the same following the suicide of his uncle, Viscount Castlereagh, in 1822. The stigma of having a suicide in the family left Fitzroy with a sense of dread over the possibility that the madness that had claimed his uncle was hereditary. This fear was made all the more real for him when he became Captain of the HMS Beagle in 1828 following the suicide of its previous captain, Pringle Stokes.

When the Beagle's second voyage was being planned in 1831, it seemed only natural that he arrange for a suitable traveling companion to help him stay sane on the proposed five-year voyage of exploration. After other candidates turned down his offer, Fitzroy settled on a 22-year old Cambridge naturalist and theologian named Charles Darwin.  Although Fitzroy was initially suspicious of Darwin due to the shape of his nose (he was a great believer in physiognomy), Darwin's credentials as a naturalist won him over.   A dedicated churchgoer, Fitzroy relished the idea of using the Beagle's voyage to gather evidence confirming the Biblical account of creation.

Over the course of the long voyage, Darwin and Fitzroy became fast friends despite Fitzroy's volatile temper leading to frequent clashes between them (often over matters of religion). The Beagle's voyage took them from South America to the Galapagos Islands.  It also gave Darwin an unprecedented opportunity to learn about (and puzzle over) the diverse range of fauna and fossils to be found.  On their return to England in 1836, both Darwin and Fitzroy published their research findings to critical and popular acclaim.

In the years that followed, the two men drifted apart as Darwin began formulating his famous theory while Fitzroy continued to champion the Biblical account of creation. Despite an illustrious naval and political career (including a disastrous five-year term as Governor of New Zealand), Fitzroy eventually retired from active service in 1851 and was then named to the Royal Society for his prominent work in meteorology (Darwin was one of his supporters).

Fitzroy's health had taken a turn for the worse by this time and the shock that he felt when Darwin finally published his treatise on evolution contributed to his decline. His sense of betrayal and guilt over the role that he had played in furthering Darwin's research led him to oppose evolution at every opportunity. When Bishop Samuel Wilberforce attacked Darwin's theory in 1860 at the famous British Association meeting with Darwin's supporters, Fitzroy was there imploring the audience to "believe in God rather than man". There was little sympathy when he spoke of the "acutest pain" that Darwin had caused him and he was shouted down.

Following Fitzroy's retirement in 1863, his depression worsened significantly. It didn't help matters that he was passed over for an important naval post and was desperately in need of money to support his family. On the morning of April 30, 1865. Fitzroy got out of bed and went to the washroom. He then used a razor to cut his throat (much as his uncle had done years before). Only after his death was it discovered that his entire fortune had been spent during the course of his long public service. His wife and daughter would have been left destitute if friends had not launched a testimonial fund on their behalf (Charles Darwin contributed one hundred pounds).  Fitzroy is buried in Brompton Cemetery in London.

Robert Fitzroy left a substantial scientific and political legacy behind him with his numerous discoveries in meteorology and geography. Still, his life would be little more than a historical footnote except for the role that he unintentionally played in furthering Charles Darwin's revolutionary theory. To what extent that contributed to the ardent churchman's death is anybody's guess.

Are Suicide Rates Declining Worldwide?

According to the World Health Organization, suicide remains a critical public health issue with an estimated 800,000 deaths occurring each year.

But the results of a new research study published in the British Medical Journal suggests that suicide rates worldwide may have actually decreased over the past twenty years.    The study is based on data compiled by the Global Burden of Disease analysis, conducted annually by the Institute for Health and Metrics Evaluation, a University of Washington think tank partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   Including   estimates of mortality owing to 264 causes by location, age, and sex between 1990 and 2016 for 195 countries and territories,  the Global Burden of Disease estimates mortality by cause, location, age and gender gathered from hundreds of data sources.

The latest study data shows that 817,000 people killed themselves in 2016, a slight increase from the 1990 total.  When examined in terms of years of life lost based on life expectancy in different regions of the world,  researchers estimates that  34.6 million years of life were lost globally from suicide in 2016 alone.  Still, when population increase across different regions are taken into account,  the rate of suicide adjusted for age and population size fell from 16.6 to 11.2 deaths per 100,000 people a 32.7 per cent decrease over that same time period.   

But there were still significant regional differences in suicide rates.  Despite the overall decrease, suicide continues to be the 4th leading cause of death in eastern Europe and parts of Australasia.   Among individual nations, South Korea, Indonesia, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe had particularly high suicide rates that skewed the overall rates for their respective regions.     Men were also found to be far more likely to commit suicide than women in all regions and age groups except for 15 to 19-year-olds though the actual cause for this disparity remains unclear.   There were also significant age trends with higher levels of suicide occurring before age 30 for both sexes in south Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East.

"Suicide is considered a preventable cause of death and this study shows that we should continue in our efforts towards suicide prevention," said Heather Orpana, research scientist with the Public Health Agency of Canada and a collaborator on the study in a recent media interview.  "With further efforts we could take further reductions in suicide mortality."   She also pointed out that suicide deaths have fallen in close proximity with overall mortality rates which strongly suggests that suicide should be treated as just another illness. "Sometimes we might look at suicide as a different kind of health outcome than, say, cardiovascular disease or cancer, which are considered more traditional," she said.  "But what the similar rate (fall) may be telling us is that suicide may be similar to other health outcomes and in some ways may be driven by similar factors."

Though much more research is needed to examine whether these trends will continue,  there are still significant regional differences which emphasize where suicide prevention programs can be most effective.   While the WHO has targeted a 10 per cent cut in global suicide rates by 2020, whether that target is achievable remains to be seen.

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Does Chronic Pain Increase Suicide Risk?

Death by suicide is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Because individuals with chronic pain are at least twice as likely to report suicidal behaviors or to complete suicide, it is of utmost importance to target which risk factors contribute the most to increasing suicidality. A comprehensive review recently published in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry aims to provide an update on research advancements relating to the identification of potential risk factors for suicidality in individuals with chronic pain. Supporting the results of prior reviews, the authors found robust evidence that chronic pain itself, regardless of type, was an important independent risk factor for suicidality. The only sociodemographic factor found to be associated with suicidality in individuals with chronic pain was being unemployed/disabled. Depressive symptoms, anger problems, harmful habits (e.g. smoking, alcohol misuse, illicit drugs), childhood or adulthood adversities, and family history of depression/suicide were all also identified as general risk factors. Regarding pain-related factors, sleep problems, poorer perceived mental health, concurrent chronic pain conditions, and more frequent episodes of intermittent pain, were all found to be predictors of suicidality. Unexpectedly, pain characteristics (e.g. type, duration, and intensity/severity) and physical status (e.g. pain interference or disability) were not related to suicide risk. The authors also identified promising new psychosocial factors (e.g. mental defeat, pain catastrophizing, hopelessness, perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness) associated with suicidality outcomes. A large number of these factors are amenable to change through targeted intervention, highlighting the importance of comprehensively assessing chronic pain patients at risk for suicide, while also incorporating a suicide prevention component into chronic pain management programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Why Are Newer Suicide Methods Becoming More Popular?

Suicide death by gas inhalation has been the subject of global scientific interest due to a rapid increase in the use of helium and charcoal gas for suicide. These may be particularly amenable to means restriction strategies. There has been little scientific attention of this phenomenon in Canada. In a recent study in the Journal of Affective Disorders, a review of coroner records was conducted for all suicide deaths in Toronto (1998–2015). Deaths were categorized as due to inhalational asphyxia by compressed gas (i.e. helium or nitrogen), charcoal burning or motor vehicle exhaust, with suicide deaths by other methods as a comparator. Demographic, clinical and suicide specific differences between decedents in these four categories were compared using chi-squared or ANOVA global test of significance with additional pairwise comparisons where appropriate. Secular trends were also examined. Result: sGas inhalational deaths accounted for 190 (4.7%) of all suicides in Toronto (n = 4062) over the study period and a higher proportion of males used compressed gas or motor vehicle exhaust gases than those who died by other methods (83.3% and 84.0% vs.69.7%, both p = 0.01). Comparing 1998–2003 to 2010–2015 there was a 1075% increase in deaths by helium (4 vs. 43 deaths) and a 533% increase in deaths by charcoal burning (3 vs. 16 deaths) although helium and charcoal burning deaths still accounted for only 4.2% of total suicides 2010–2015. Deaths by helium were more likely to be accompanied by the book “Final Exit” than those by non-inhalational methods (15% vs. 0.7%, p < 0.0001) while 13 of 14 people who died by charcoal burning whose ethnicity could be determined were Asian. Ethnicity and specific details of procurement of suicide methods were not systematically available in coroner records.  Suicide by inhalational asphyxia, particularly by compressed gases, has increased substantially over time in Toronto consistent with observations in other countries. Increased surveillance of these deaths, efforts to restrict access to these methods, and timely interventions including minimizing media reporting are all warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

What Time of Day is Suicide Most Likely to Occur?

Previous research on hourly diurnal variation in suicide frequency has often suffered from geographical and time-span limitations in the data.S study published recently in the Journal of Affective Disorders examined diurnal and daily variations of suicide by analyzing a large dataset based on the national death registry in Japan between 1974 and 2014. The diurnal and daily patterns of 873,268 suicide deaths over 41 years were examined by sex and age group through Poisson regression and visual inspection. The authors also investigated whether these patterns are related to Japan's economic conditions. Results: Suicide by middle-aged males was most frequent in the early morning especially on Mondays after the end of Japan's high growth period. They observed large midnight peaks in suicides among young and middle-aged males. The proportion of early morning suicide deaths by young and middle-aged males increased as the country's unemployment rose. Females and elderly males were more likely to die by suicide during the day than at night. Though this study examined time of death, not time of suicide attempt, it is possible that there is a discrepancy between the two. Different subpopulations die by suicide at different times of the day and days of the week. Time patterns of suicide varied considerably over time, suggesting that they cannot be explained by biological circadian rhythm alone. These findings suggest that the patterns are partly explained by economic conditions. Future suicide prevention efforts should consider the time patterns of suicide unique to each subpopulation, especially when economic growth is depressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

The HMS Beagle Curse

When the 235-ton sailing ship that would be christened the H.M.S. Beagle was first constructed in 1819 at the shipyards in Woolwich, England, no one had any idea of that small ship's strange destiny.  Or the tragedy that would later strike two of its most famous captains.

In 1825, the Beagle was selected to be part of an ambitious long-term voyage of exploration. Along with a larger ship, the H.M.S. Adventure under the command of Captain Philip Parker King, the Beagle would carry out the in-depth charting of the southern coast of South America.  In addition to the relatively routine mapping, the ships would also explore the complex channel and island geography around Tierra del Fuego at South America’s southernmost tip. Considering the length of time both ships would be at least (more than two years), the captain and crew of both ships needed to be carefully selected to avoid the kind of personality issues that might contribute to poor morale and the failure of the voyage.

From the perspective of Captain King and the other Royal Navy commanders who commissioned the voyage, there was already an ideal candidate available to serve as the Beagle’s captain. Though relatively young to serve as captain (he was 32 when given the commission), Commander Pringle Stokes had a stellar reputation as an able seaman and had been part of the Royal Navy since he was twelve years old.    

Having already traveled on long voyages to West Africa and South America as well as being promoted to Commander through his work combating the slave trade, Stokes seemed well suited for the task.   While he was not trained as a professional scientist (the main point of the voyage),  he had arranged for his own educational upgrading in Edinburgh to prepare for what lay ahead.   Along with Stokes, the Beagle's crew also had its own share of scientists including Robert Fitzroy who acted as the ship's meteorologist.

The Beagle and the Adventure left Plymouth, England on November 19, 1826 with Montevideo, Uruguay as their first port of call.   The careful charting of the South American coastline was an ambitious task considering the uncertain weather conditions around the tip of South America and the shortage of available ports at the time.   The ship also encountered many native tribes, often for the first time ever, and Stokes seemed up to the task as the months dragged on.    In the extensive logs which he kept during his voyage, Stokes described his encounters with some of the native, including commenting on the primitive conditions he found in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.

The ships also faced enormous changes in weather ranging from terrible storms to unfavourable winds that left them unable to proceed at times.   The weather was often overcast as well which made astronomical and meteorological observations impossible at times.  There were also various crises along the way including having to rescue the crew of a sealing ship, the Prince of Saxe Cobourg.   Captain Stokes personally took part in that rescue.  Despite the best efforts of both captains, there were also deaths along the way.   Not only were both ships facing unknown dangers but the crew were left exposed to various tropical diseases with little in the way of medicine except what the ship's doctors had available.

By 1828, the Beagle had been at sea for more than two years and the rigours of the long voyage began having a negative effect on the entire crew, especially the ship's captain.   Though Stokes had been on long voyages before,  his naturally gloomy disposition had been badly affected by the voyage and knowing that it would be a long time before he could ever return to England.   In his journal of the voyage, Captain King reported that one of the Beagle's crew told him that Captain Stokes had been confined to his cabin because of illness.   On visiting Stokes, he found him "looking very ill and, in low spirits.  He expressed himself much distressed by the hardships the officers and crew under him had suffered, and I was alarmed at the desponding tone of his conversation."    Though Captain King's visit appeared to rally him somewhat, the worst was yet to come.

By mid-July, Stokes mental state was at an all-time low and he was largely confined to his cabin while his second-in-command, Lieutenant William Skyring, effectively took over the ship.   On August 1, Captain Pringle Stokes shot himself in the head with his own revolver.   The wound was not immediately fatal but medical doctors from the Adventure could do little to keep him alive since gangrene had already set in.    Over the next four days, Captain Stokes was often delirious and raved at length about the Beagle's voyage and all the dangers that they had faced.   Although he recovered from this delirium and managed to be somewhat lucid,  nobody had any real hope of his survival.   He died in extreme agony on the morning of August 12th. 

As Captain King noted in his journal: 

Thus shockingly and prematurely perished an active, intelligent, and most energetic officer, in the prime of life. The severe hardships of the cruize, the dreadful weather experienced, and the dangerous situations in which they were so constantly exposed—caused, as I was afterwards informed, such intense anxiety in his excitable mind, that it became at times so disordered, as to cause the greatest apprehension for the consequences. On the return of the Beagle he got better; and the officers were so sanguine in hoping for his complete restoration to health, on account of his progressive recovery, that nothing which had transpired was communicated to me until after his decease.

The log which Captain Stokes had been keeping faithfully up until his death provides the best evidence of the mental deterioration that he underwent in the final weeks of his life.   In one memorable passage that he wrote in June, he commented on the tedium of the voyage.   "Nothing can be more dreary than the scene around us.  The lofty, bleak, and barren heights that surround the inhospitable shores of this inlet, were covered, even low down their sides, with dense clouds, upon which the fierce squalls that assailed us beat, without causing any change..."   More ominously, he ended the log entry by saying that "The weather was that in which... "the soul of man dies in him."  

After Stokes' suicide, William Skyrigg commanded the ship until it returned to Montevideo for repairs.   While there, the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Robert Otway decided that Lieutenant Robert Fitzroy should be the Beagle's new captain.   Fitzroy took over command of the Beagle on December 15, 1828 and completed the rest of the mapping mission before returning to Great Britain in 1830.    As for Pringle Stokes, his body was buried in the "English cemetary" in Puerto del Hambre (Port Famine) and his gravestone is now on display at a nearby museum.    Captain King used his log of the voyage up to the time of the suicide to prepare the official report of the voyage although the circumstances of his death were largely ignored.

Except by Robert Fitzroy...

Bothered by his predecessor's suicide and worried about the possibility of hereditary suicide in his own family (his uncle Viscount Castlereagh had committed suicide some time previously), Fitzroy decided to take special precautions in preparing for the Beagle's second voyage.    Along with extensively refitting the ship (and moving his own captain's cabin as far away from Stokes' cabin as possible), he also requested that a full-time scientific gentleman would be allowed to accompany him on the voyage.   The idea would be that the companion would share his own scientific ideas, provide intellectual companionship, and generally keep him from falling into the same depression that had doomed Captain Stokes.   After several other candidates turned down the position, Fitzroy eventually settled on a young naturalist named Charles Darwin.   Fitzroy had early misgivings about Darwin since, according to his ideas about physiognomy, the shape of Darwin's nose suggested he had "insuffiicient energy and determination".   Darwin was eventually able to persuade him, though.

It was that second voyage of the Beagle which lasted from 1831 to 1834 that would eventually transform biology as we know it.  Based on his naturalistic observations during the voyage, Charles Darwin would eventually publish On The Origin of Species in 1859.   The book, which outlined his groundbreaking theory of evolution, would face tremendous controversy.   Ironically, one of his most ardent critics would be Robert Fitzroy himself who, as a staunch creationist, would publicly admit his own guilt at the role he had inadvertently played in the development of evolution.   That guilt, along with his own fears of becoming insane would eventually lead to his graphic suicide in 1865.

But that's another story.