Pathology of Suicide

Abstract

From approximately fifteen thousand consecutive medicolegal autopsies, a series of 764 completed ‘suicides’ have been collected and studied. When analysed, this series revealed 3 principal types of self-destruction. Over 50 per cent of the cases, irrespective of age and sex, changed the methods employed for subsequent suicide attempts and 30 per cent of the men and 40 per cent of the women, irrespective of age, had made attempts prior to the final act. Mental illness was noted in 76 per cent of those cases with previous suicide attempts compared with 40 per cent of those without a history of previous attempts, in whom other factors, such as physical and social, were predominant. Medical treatment, gastric casts, and missed suicides are also discussed, so as to reveal their significance in lowering the suicide rate at a time when it has been escalating.