Psychiatry in Britain, c. 1900

Abstract

At this period, British psychiatrists practised in a climate of opinion that was deeply pessimistic, influenced by the views of Henry Maudsley and by the accumulation in asylums of incurable patients. The inflexible Lunacy Act of 1890 tended to encourage chronicity. The terminology both of mental illness and of the doctors who dealt with it was uncertain. Management of these disorders was intimately involved with the operation of the Poor Law. Neurology, on the other hand, carried high prestige and advanced clinically; many patients with neurotic disorders came under the care of neurologists. Postgraduate education and training in psychiatry was practically non-existent, as was academic psychiatry, in contrast notably to Germany, though there was a small professional organization.