Abstract
DR. MERRILL MOORE (New England J. Med., 221, 691; 1939) discusses the relation between alcohol and suicide in a paper based on the study of 143 alcoholic patients, admitted to the Boston City Hospital during the period 1915–38, who had attempted suicide, out of a total of 1,195 admitted during, the same period after attempting suicide; 98 were men and 45 women. The great majority were between the ages of thirty and forty. Conditions of occupational, marital or economic maladjustment were present in all. By far the greatest number were unemployed or of unknown employment, and few skilled workers were included. As regards motivation the reasons offered for the attempted suicide were occupational maladjustment, domestic friction, depression and anxiety. Poison by mouth, especially iodine, the ineffectiveness of which was probably not realized, was the most popular method of suicidal attempt. Inhalation of illuminating gas came next, while less frequent methods were slashing, jumping from high places, hanging, immersion and firearms. 136 (95 per cent) were unsuccessful in their attempt and only 7 (5 per cent) died after admission to hospital, as compared with 11 per cent of the total number of suicidal patients admitted. Dr. Moore attributes the large number of failures in suicidal attempts among the alcoholic patients partly to the ingestion of non-poisonous substances or sub-lethal doses, and partly to the tendency of the alcohol to render the method of suicidal attempt less efficient.
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Alcoholism and Suicide. Nature 144, 1040 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/1441040c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1441040c0