The Modern Disease

Abstract

Chapter 4 examines medical and forensic approaches to self-murder. Some Mexican scientists believed the causes of self-murder to be biological and environmental. Others followed Emile Durkheim's arguments and placed its roots squarely in the urban environment. The environment was the modern city—, its rapid work paces, its changing technology, and the increasing alienation of the individual from family, community, and religion. Newspapers advertised a myriad of tonics and medicines to cure neurasthenia and other causes of excessive nervousness. Class and gender played significant parts in the interpretation and judgments of suicides, and these narratives were acted out in the media and in, judicial, and medical discourse. The documentary base of this chapter includes contemporary the journals ofmedical schools journals, insane asylumthe intake questionnaires of insane asylums, case files of patients incarcerated in the asylums, and forensic-medicine publications.