Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who established sociology as an academic discipline. In his seminal work Suicide (1897), he analyzed suicide rates among religious groups and found they were lower among Catholics than Protestants, demonstrating the protective effects of social integration. Durkheim identified four types of suicide based on levels of social integration and moral regulation: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. The study pioneered social research methods and distinguished sociology from other fields.

1. Crime and Suicide