This review of historical research demonstrates there had been extensive studies of suicide preceding Durkheim, addressing not only the importance of social factors, but also those factors which are now subsumed in the medical model. It is asserted some of the earlier reviews can now be seen as more balanced & comprehensive than that of Durkheim. The paper does not address writings from ancient civilations but refers to several references from the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries, & then focuses on the increase in scientific research in the nineteenth century. (99 notes)