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The London County Council and Sir Frederick Mott, K.B.E., F.R.S.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

The relinquishing by Sir Frederick Mott of the offices of Pathologist to the London County Mental Hospitals and Director of the Laboratory is happily not the occasion for a funeral oration, nor does it connote a cessation of those wide activities in the world of neurology and psycho-pathology which have distinguished his career, of which his 18 years' mental hospital service forms only a part, howbeit an important one. On the contrary, as we announced in our last issue, he has accepted the appointment of Honorary Director of the Pathological Laboratory of the Birmingham City Mental Hospitals and Lecturer on Morbid Psychology at Birmingham's University. It thus happens that London's loss is Birmingham's gain, but what is more important, Sir Frederick Mott's services to scientific psychiatry are retained, and, we hope, for many years to come. In his case, as with many illustrious men who have adorned the learned professions, age has only served to broaden the outlook, to give insight, and to ripen wisdom, all of which psychological medicine sorely needs if it is to be a fruitful branch of the healing profession. His British Medical Association Lecture on Psychology and Medicine, delivered in November last (1), is illustrative of this fact, and that his pronouncements now are of more value than at any period of his career.

Type
Occasional Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1923 

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References

(1) British Medical Journal, March 10, 1923.Google Scholar
(2) The Times, March 19, 1923.Google Scholar
(3) Report of the L.C.C. Asylums Committee for 1890–91.Google Scholar
(4) The Committee was instructed to “inquire into, and to report to the Council upon, the advantages which might be expected from the establishment, as a complement to the existing asylum system, of a hospital with a visiting medical staff, for the study and curative treatment of insanity.” The following gentlemen gave evidence: Sir T. Clifford Allbutt, Sir John T. Banks, Dr. C. Bastian, Sir James Crichton Browne, Mr. Bryant, Dr. Buzzard, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir D. Ferrier, Sir W. R. Gowers, Sir V. Horsley, Mr. J. Hutchinson, Dr. S. Mackenzie, Mr. Marshall, Dr. R. Quain, Sir J. Batty Tuke, Dr. T. Whipham. The Committee arrived unanimously at the following conclusions: (a) That in the opinion of the most eminent and most experienced members of the medical profession, the knowledge which is possessed with regard to the nature, prevention and cure of the diseased changes which underlie and occasion insanity, is not commensurate with that which is possessed with regard to diseased changes of other kinds, even those which affect other portions and other functions of the nervous system. (b) That the difference in question is mainly due to the circumstance that patients suffering from insanity have been to a great extent withdrawn from the operation of the ordinary methods of hospital investigation and treatment, which have been so fruitful of good in the case of diseases of other kinds. (c) That the establishment, on the ordinary lines, of a hospital for the study and treatment of insanity, with a visiting medical and surgical staff, could scarcely fail to be productive of increased knowledge of the subject, and, consequently, of increased means of prevention and of cure. (d) That the legal disabilities of the insane, and the necessity for subjecting them to a certain amount of restraint, render it impossible for the suggested hospital to be established by private benevolence, or by any other authority than that to which the care and treatment of the insane are committed by law.Google Scholar
(5) Report of the L.C.C. Asylums' Committee for 1893–94.Google Scholar
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