Sixty young male patients with insomniac disorders were treated with nitrazepam 5 mg or triazolam 0.5 mg in a double-blind single night cross-over study. The results were favourable for triazolam in all the sleep parameters assessed. The significance of an hypnotic with a short life and its use in clinical practice is discussed.

Alcoholism and suicidal attempts constitute major problems in modern society. Studies of alcoholics have revealed a positive correlation between alcoholism and suicidal attempts. Dahlgren (1945) found 44 (46.8 per cent) alcohol addicts in a series of 94 male patients admitted to medical or psychiatric clinics for attempted suicide. Amark (1951) found 6 per cent suicidal attempts among alcoholics. Studying attempted suicide, Batchelor ( 1954) reported 43 (21.5 per cent) of 200 cases who gave a personal history of excessive drinking. Hoff & Ringel (1956) diagnosed chronic alcoholism in 123 (13.95 per cent) of 882 patients admitted for attempted suicide. In a followup group of 305 suicidal attempts, Jansson (1962) found 40 per cent alcoholics among males and 15 per cent among females. Glatt (1954) reported that of 75 male alcoholics admitted to a mental hospital, 40 stated that at some time or other they had thought it would be best for them to be dead, whereas 24 had contemplated suicide more earnestly, and 19 (25.3 per cent) had actually attempted suicide. A later report on 200 male alcoholics (Glatt 1961) revealed the same proportion of suicidal attempts: 48 (24.0 per cent). On the basis of reported investigations and clinical experience, Menninger

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