From over 20,000 autopsies performed by the Department of Forensic Medicine of The London Hospital Medical College over a period of 5 years from 1983 to 1987, 7.4 per cent were classified as unnatural deaths, and from these 659 (3.2 per cent) were suicides.
The object of this paper is to study the different methods of self-destruction, the incidence of these methods by sex and age, and evidence left by the deceased.
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