Year: 1970 Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, v.212, no.12, (22 June 1970), p.2121 SIEC No: 20060028

This letter to the editor contradicts an earlier letter by Veith in which it was claimed it was not now possible to determine if suicide played a minor role in depression during the Elizabethan era. The present author cites several passages from Burton’s “The Anatomy of Melancholy” (1621) to support his argument that suicide played no less a role in clinical depression in the Elizabethan era than it does in modern times.