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Alcoholism and Suicidal Impulses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

W. C. Sullivan*
Affiliation:
H.M. Prison, Liverpool

Extract

The important part played by alcoholism in the causation of suicide has been abundantly recognised by all observers of both these social phenomena; and so far as debate now touches the question, it is merely to deal with points of detail.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1898 

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References

Sollier, , Du Róle de l'Hérédité dans l'Alcoolisme, Parie, 1889.Google Scholar

Dict. of Statistics, 1892.Google Scholar

Quoted in Morselli, , Il Suicidio, 1879.Google Scholar

§ Baer, , Der Alcoholismus, 1878.Google Scholar

Serré, in observations on 1500 cases of alcoholic insanity at Ville Evrard Asylum, noted [suicidal tendencies in 1286 per cent., assaults in 14·46 per cent. ( Th. de Paris , 1896).Google Scholar

In the five years 1892–6 there were 548 such cases evenly divided between the sexes. I am indebted for these figures to the courtesy of the Head Constable of the City of Liverpool.Google Scholar

Charcot, , Leçons sur les Mal. du Syst. Nerv., Paris, 1877.Google Scholar

Cp. similar process in dreams determined by morbid organic sensations. Ribot, , Maladies de la Personnalité, 1897, p. 27; Maury, , Le Sommeil et les Rêves, 1862, p. 75.Google Scholar

Ziehen, , Psychiatrie, Berlin, 1894.Google Scholar

It is interesting to note that this disease, in which, if the dominant lesions are nervous, they are yet extra-cerebral, is associated with strong suicidal tendencies. Morselli, , op, cit., p. 398, estimates that in the decade 1866–76, 30 per cent. of suicides from mental disease, or about 16·5 per cent. of all suicides in Italy, were due to pellagra.Google Scholar

Pathology of Mind, 1895.Google Scholar

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