To examine the clinical aspects of death and suicide, the authors studied one hundred suicides that occurred between 1966 and 1968 in the West Sussex area of England. The witnesses at inquests who had been identified as most likely to know about the suicide were visited by the investigator shortly after the inquest, with no advance warning, and were interviewed. The examiners found that this procedure made acceptance of the investigator more likely and caused little distress. The most important finding was the high proportion of people—93%—who had been diagnosed as mentally ill prior to their suicides. Mood disorders were the predominating disturbances. At the time of their suicides, 25% of the cases were in psychiatric treatment, 85% suffered from depression or alcoholism, 80% were seeing a doctor, and psychotropic drugs had been prescribed for 80%. Over half had given warnings of suicidal thinking. While some of the patients may have been unresponsive to the available methods of treatment, the authors felt that many