Medicine: Iodine Suicides

Young Dr. Merrill Moore of Boston is known as a psychiatrist, semiprofessional swimmer and author of 25,000 good and bad sonnets. With all his zest for life, Dr. Moore is most interested in the problem of suicide, has collected many scientific facts on this phenomenon. Last week in The New England Journal of Medicine he discussed the agent most commonly used by would-be suicides: iodine.

Although the years 1915-36 showed a steady increase in the number of iodine drinkers, said Dr. Moore, not one fatal case of iodine poisoning was observed in Boston and vicinity. Reasons: 1) Iodine cannot be absorbed by the body without chemical change. It combines with fatty acids, proteins, starches, or unites with another element and changes from a powerful, slow-acting cell poison to a less toxic iodide. 2) Iodine produces such intense irritation of the gastrointestinal tract that the stomach rejects even small amounts.

Only a heroic dose will result in death, and when death does occur it is usually due to overstimulation of the thyroid.

3) Many people purposely take only a small amount since “iodine is used chiefly by essentially immature persons at ages when they have failed to gain attention and satisfaction and bid for these by sensational means.” Largest group of iodine drinkers, added Dr. Moore, are females between 14 and 20 (they are home near a medicine cabinet most of the time). Largest group of males are between 26 and 30. Whether they know that an ordinary gulp of iodine is seldom fatal, Dr. Moore could not say. He inclined to think not, however, since druggists glue a suggestive skull and bones to every iodine bottle.