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Suicide And Life
To the editor:
Your excellent article on Suicide brings to the fore one of the most serious problems of this modern world. It is on the increase throughout the world, even in such protected, truly welfare societies as Sweden—where the suicide rate is the highest.
Unless philosophically inclined, people are content to take life as it comes when things go reasonably well, preferring to evade the troublesome question of life’s purpose or meaning. In times of trouble, however," the problem forces itself on our awareness. To have found meaning is thus the only antidote to the deliberate seeking of death. Sir John Eccles, winner of the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1963 for his work in demonstrating the transmission of electrical impulses in the brain, and now turned philosopher says, “what worries me about the world is that I don’t think we have come to terms with the enormous explosion of information. We are drowned in too much trivial information so no one thinks anymore. It was much better in the days when people could think and talk and get some primitive understanding of their lives.”
Unquestionably alcohol and drugs play a part in many teenage suicides. But often it is the model boy or girl who “self-destructs.” The same peer pressures may drive some to alcohol and drugs, others to suicide. A biochemical basis for depression, the most common precursor to suicide, has recently been expounded. The theory is that depression results from a deficiency of chemical compounds, biogenic amines which are located in various areas of the brain but are heavily concentrated in part of the cerebrum that appears to be closely associated with the emotions—the hypothalamus. These amines function as neurotransmitters in these brain areas. A deficiency in the transmitters will stop brain message transmission and
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