In the early 19th century there developed a concern over the rising rates of suicide. Suicide became the subject of medical and social investigations. More and more efforts were made to identify the conditions leading to such self-destructive behavior, develop ways to treat suicidal patients, and to have statistics for further research.
             The medical profession searched for a connection between suicide and mental disorders. The French scientist Esquirol came to the conclusion that while self-destructive behavior was often viewed as a symptom of insanity, suicide itself was not a mental disease. He also was the first to observe that the greatest number of suicides happened in the spring and that men killed themselves more often than women.
             In 1822, a Frenchman by the name of Falret, released a study identifying four causes of self-destructive behavior: predisposition, due to heredity or environment; accidental direct factors such as passion or worry; accidental indirect factors such as illness or pain; and civilization and religious fanaticism. His work pointed out that suicide could result from a variety of factors.
             As early as 1825, the German physician Casper recognized the problem with suicide statistics, and stressed the need to consult a variety of sources not just one. Researcher such as him, did not focus on the individual suicide cases, they approached suicide as a social phenomenon. Casper's contemporary, Etoic-Demazy developed the use of suicide rate, instead of absolute numbers, which lead him to establish that the tendency toward suicidal behavior increased with age.
             By the late 1800's the French sociologist, Durkheim, proposed that the causes of suicide could be defined in the relationship between the individual and society. He also identified four characteristic kinds of suicide, each representing different degrees of social regulation and integration. His seminal w
             ...