Le suicide selon François-Emmanuel Fodéré

Abstract

At the turn of the 19th century, interest in the question of suicide shifts from the juridical context to the medical one, thereby becoming a problem that concerns mental health, public health and medical jurisprudence. One of the first major figures to greatly contribute to the study of this question from these three medical perspectives was François-Emmanuel Fodéré (1764-1835). Considered as one of the founders of modern medical jurisprudence, he was one of the first to define all suicide as an « act of madness ». This point of view was shared by most alienists in the first half of the 19th century. However, after developing these early psychiatric theories on suicide, Fodéré later reconsidered his position and called for the renewed criminalization of certain types of so-called « voluntary » suicides.

Keywords

• psychiatry
• madness
• suicide
• Fodéré (François-Emmanuel)
• medical jurisprudence
• morality