Louis Betrand's awarded essay on suicide, 1857

A prize-winning 19th-century essay on the causes and prevention of suicide, selected by the Imperial Academy of Medicine.

The author argues that materialism is the root cause of suicide, which he considers a “double crime”: one against the Creator and another against humanity. He distinguishes between two main forms—voluntary suicide and maniacal suicide—the latter subdivided into suicides caused by sudden passion, by “lypemania” (melancholia), and by “monomania.”

Approved by a cardinal of the Catholic Church, the work strongly promotes Christianity as “the most effectual means for the prevention of suicide.” To reinforce this moral stance, the author recommends that governments suppress the publication of works favorable to voluntary death and that newspapers avoid reporting suicides.

This treatise captures a moment when suicide was still legally and morally condemned: those who died by suicide were often denied Christian burial, and their property was confiscated. Over the course of the 19th century, such attitudes slowly shifted, with suicide gradually decriminalized and, by the mid-20th century, legalized in much of the world.

An important historical document for collectors of medical history, psychiatry, and moral philosophy, reflecting how 19th-century medicine and the Catholic Church sought to frame—and control—the debate around suicide.