Suicide and the Victorian physicians.

Abstract

From 1830 to 1900, medical opinion of suicide underwent significant changes in Britain. During the 1830s and 1840s physicians, like most of the populace, saw suicide as a legal and moral question. However, major changes in the suicide law had called for increased medical testimony in questions of "temporary insanity" in suicide, and alienists were forced to refine their thinking about what was still termed "self-murder." By the 1850s and 1860s such refinement continued, with emphasis falling on categorization and physiology, while the 1870s and 1880s saw far more attention paid to social factors determining suicide. Statistics became more reliable, and, increasingly, prevention and compassion were urged by a number of prominent practitioners. By the end of the century, earlier attitudes, particularly as to the criminal implications of suicide, were reviewed and mainly discarded. Emphasis was now on diagnosis and on the social significance of suicide.