Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 860

WILLIAM BATTIE (1703-1776) A treatise on madness. Printed for J. Whiston, and B. White 1758 vii [1] 99 pp. 26.3 cm.

Battie was an accomplished classical scholar and demonstrated anatomy at Cambridge before receiving his M.D. degree in 1737 and moving to London to practice medicine. A fellow of the Royal College of Medicine and later its president, he also authored a treatise on physiology and a medical textbook in the form of aphorisms. He became interested in the treatment of the insane when he was elected a governor of Bethlem Hospital in 1742. Eight years later Battie was a founder of St. Luke's Hospital for Lunaticks and was appointed its first physician. He also established two facilities for his private mental patients. Battie devoted his entire practice to the insane and his endeavors helped bring psychiatry into repute as a medical specialty. He was permitted to take students at St. Luke's and thus became the first teacher of psychiatry in England. He was vitally interested in improving the conditions and treatment of the mentally ill and his efforts and example gave rise to a number of new hospitals for the insane during the next four decades. The present work, the first English text on the subject, was based on Battie's extensive clinical experience with the insane. He unsuccessfully sought to explain mental illness in terms of the new neurophysiological concepts, relying particularly on Haller's theory of irritability (see No. 882). He believed that patients should be managed on an individual basis and his ideas sparked a more rational approach to the study of mental disease. His book met with some controversy, in particular from John Monro (1715-1791) who published a pamphlet castigating Battie. Both Monro and his father, James (1680-1752), had been physician to Bethlem Hospital and Battie had been critical of the Hospital's methods in his book.

See Related Record(s): 882

Cited references: Cushing B164; Garrison-Morton 4919.1; Wellcome II, p. 115

Gift of John Martin, M.D.