Alcoholism and Attempted Suicide

Abstract

In her sociological study of suicide Cavan (1928) commented that “up to date no adequate studies have been made of the relation of the habit of drinking to suicidal tendencies”. Ten years later, Merrill Moore (1939) makes a similar complaint: “What relation, if any, is there between alcoholism and suicide? This question has never been definitely answered and little has been written about it… In the entire literature of medicine hardly more than twenty acceptable articles on this subject are recorded.” Little has been written on the topic since then.