Perpetual Motion/Insanity and Suicide

If early American newspapers are to be believed, the foregoing quote was a statement taken to have some truth to it during the mania for perpetual motion of the late 19th and early 20th century. We will attempt to catalogue those souls who were lost in the search for Self-Motive Power.

Persons Who Were Institutionalised in Relation to Perpetual Motion Claims

 * Otto Shade, an American of German descent residing at Ellsworth County, Kansas in 1900 who was adjudged insane after a violent episode at a county prison, his insanity linked to a hobby of perpetual motion
 * William McMillan, a Scots-born carpenter residing at St. Louis, Missouri in 1901 who was treated at City Hospital, released, and later attempted to murder his wife, his condition credited to his fanatic interest in perpetual motion
 * J. Warren Mercer, a railroad flagman who was adjudged to be insane in 1901, reportedly having been deranged by obsessive working on a perpetual motion machine
 * Peter O. Elliott, a machinist of Scandinavian origin, who was vaguely associated with perpetual motion claims, but whose main claim to fame was his apparent attempt to assassinate President Theodore Roosevelt in October 1903
 * Francis Henry Otto, a.k.a. Perpetual Motion Otto, a Wisconsin eccentric who was court-ordered to the state asylum in 1909 after many years of attempts at perpetual motion fund-raising

Persons Who Were Said to Have Committed Suicide in Relation to Perpetual Motion Failures

 * Basel Saheb, a student of Syrian origin who shot himself over his failures to perfect a self-motive motor
 * William Herford, a German-born carpenter who shot himself after falling into a depression linked to his thirty years of perpetual motion research