The Twenty-Fifth Maudsley Lecture—Henry Maudsley: His Work and Influence

Abstract

The keen pleasure I felt when I was invited to deliver this lecture arose not only from the honour which it conferred, but also because it offered an opportunity to link again the lecture founded in Henry Maudsley's memory with the hospital which is the living witness to his wisdom and generosity. The first Maudsley Lecture was given by Sir James Crichton Browne, a contemporary and friend of Maudsley; the second was given at the Maudsley Hospital by Sir Frederick Mott, who had seen much of him during the last decade of his life. Since then very few of those called to give this lecture had had any personal contact with him, and it seems appropriate that now, a hundred years after Maudsley entered University College Hospital as an apprentice, when he has become for most of us a shadowy figure of the Victorian past, I should attempt to revive the memory of what he did during his life and consider how his work lives on after him—most of all in the hospital and school where I, and so many more, have the privilege of working. Before I do this I would like to recall that on the list of Maudsley lecturers there is the name of Edward Mapother, a man singularly close to Maudsley in temperament and outlook, who carried forward the Maudsley Hospital in the spirit of its Founder's intention, and who would have been ideally fitted, in the 1939 lecture entrusted to him, to deal with the theme I am entering upon; unfortunately the war and his failing health came between, and Prof. Mapother never delivered the lecture. Sir James Crichton Browne compared Maudsley with Mercier; I compare Maudsley with Mapother, and recognize that in each generation there are men of rare gifts, severe in self-discipline, with strong and consistent purpose, who, in psychiatry as in other fields, accomplish much good and leave behind a lasting memorial.