The author calls his monograph a statistical, clinical, psychological and catamnestic study. The last-mentioned aspect is the most important, because it has been sadly neglected by most writers on attempted suicide hitherto. The author has found that only a small minority of those who have attempted suicide finally kill themselves. He expresses the view that suicide research has been much too statistical in the past. Nevertheless, he tends to draw far-reaching conclusions from the available figures concerning suicidal acts. He believes the total of suicides plus attempts among both sexes to be about the same, and the greater incidence of suicide among men to be the expression of a lower vitality of the male. He found the mortality from natural causes to be greater among persons who attempted suicide than in a comparable group of the general population. Although some of Schneider's views are open to doubt this book is a valuable contribution to the literature on attempted suicide.