Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/54128
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Type: Journal article
Title: Suicide research before Durkheim
Author: Goldney, R.
Schioldann, J.
Dunn, K.
Citation: Health and History, 2008; 10(2):73-93
Publisher: Australian Society of the History of Medicine
Issue Date: 2008
ISSN: 1442-1771
1839-3314
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Robert D. Goldney, Johan A. Schioldann, and Kirsten I. Dunn
Abstract: The casual reader could be forgiven for assuming that there had been little systematic research on suicide before the work of the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, published in 1897. This historical review demonstrates that there had been extensive studies in the preceding centuries, addressing not only the importance of social factors, but also those factors which are now subsumed in the medical model. In fact, some earlier reviews can now be seen as more balanced and comprehensive than that of Durkheim. In the twentieth century. the predominant focus of suicide research was on the importance of psychosocial factors, a focus which was undoubtedly a legacy of the influential work of Durkheim. Indeed, in 1971 Alvin Alvarez stated that the study of suicide had become the subject of intensive scientific research. The change began in 1897 with the publication of Emile Durkheim's classic Suicide: A Study in Sociology, and more recently Alexander Murray noted that, if the study of suicide had its own era it would divide into two ages, before and after that book ... Le Suicide ... which, more than any other, established its subject as a specialization. Therefore it is not unexpected that many believe that there had not been any substantial suicide research before Durkheim, let alone any which had addressed illness and biological factors and their inter-relationship with society.
Keywords: Humans
Suicide
Psychology, Medical
Sociology, Medical
Biomedical Research
History, 17th Century
History, 18th Century
History, 19th Century
DOI: 10.2307/40111304
Published version: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/hah/10.2/goldney.html
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest 5
Psychiatry publications

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