SUICIDE HAS broad psychiatric and social implications, which can be studied by both clinical and epidemiologic methods. This paper reports an epidemiologic study of suicide in the capital of Chile, Santiago, for the years 1961-62. It includes data not available earlier, plus more detailed analysis. Da,ta on suicide in Chile have been available in the 1964 Demographic Yearbook of the United Nations (1) and in a report by C. R. Fuentes (2). According to the yearbook, the rate of suicide in Chile for 1960 was 3.4 per 100,000. Fuentes reported that Chilean men committed suicide more frequently than Chilean women, that Chilean women used poisoning as their method more frequently than Chilean men, and that suicide rates in the country increased during the spring and summer. We obtained our basic data, from the Instituto Medico Legal and the Asistencia Puiblica in Santiago. The institute provided data on suicides, while the Asistencia Piublica was the source of the data on serious suicidal attempts. The Instituto Medico Legal (Institute of Legal Medicine) operates in the country's major cities as an agency of the Ministry of Justice. One of its principal activities is to advise the courts in resolving medical-legal problems by conducting autopsies, studies of injuries, toxicological examinations, and the like. At the request of the courts, an institute of legal medicine issues a report which gives the results of its analysis of a problem. The people of Santiago (population 1,789,039 in 1961) receive first aid treatment in emergency centers called postas or asistencia publica. The three centers that function in the Salvador, Barros Luco, and J. Joaquin Aguirre general hospitals provide emergency care to approximately one-third of the city's population. Two of the postas function in children's hospitals (the Roberto del Rio and Arriaran hospitals) that specialize in emergency child care. The other four centers (posta central, posta 2, posta 3, and posta 4) operate under the asistencia puiblica, which is responsible for supplying emergency medical care to the remaining two-thirds of the capital's population. The asistencia pulblica is a part of the national health service and operates independently of the hospital's emergency services. In the first part of this paper all suicides committed in Santiago in 1961 and 1962 are discussed. The second part provides data on serious attempts at suicide during 1961 as observed in four emergency centers in Santiago. The third part is devoted to more detailed analysis of suicides in Santiago in 1962.