Death by charcoal

I was momentarily taken aback by Stendhal’s reference to charcoal as a tool of the would-be suicide. Only momentarily though – I soon had to ditch some delightfully daft images of sketching oneself to death.

Of course it’s the carbon monoxide generated by burning the stuff in an enclosed space. What I didn’t realise was that Stendhal’s readers must have been familiar with charcoal as a painless way to go. Wikipedia suggests the charcoal exit has been popular in the Far East for some time.

In November 1998, a middle-aged woman in Hong Kong committed suicide using this method inside her small, sealed bedroom. As this method is not listed in Tsurumi’s Complete Manual of Suicide from 1993, she may have invented it herself; she had a chemical engineering background.

In order to prevent charcoal burning, the Hong Kong Government replaced the traditional countryside charcoal barbecue with an electric grill. Some non-government organizationsworked with charcoal retailers to promote the message of “treasure your life” by putting “seek help” labels on the charcoal bags.

Obviously the subject has lots of scope for tasteless suggestions, especially now the issue of assisted dying has been raised again.