Body and Mind

Body and Mind Synopsis

Yorkshireman Henry Maudsley (1835–1918) studied and built his medical career in London. From 1860 he specialised in psychiatry, working at hospitals and in private practice, and from 1863 to 1878 he was joint editor of the Journal of Mental Science. As one of the leading European 'alienists', he treated high-profile patients and became sufficiently wealthy to contribute £30,000 in 1907 towards the foundation of a specialist psychiatric hospital. In his many publications, he developed ideas of heredity derived from Darwin. His lecturing style was famous; Body and Mind contains his 1870 Gulstonian lectures, given before the Royal College of Physicians, and two earlier articles. Maudsley aimed to 'bring man, both in his physical and mental relations, as much as possible within the scope of scientific enquiry', and his preface dismisses 'vague and barren disputations concerning materialism and spiritualism' as futile compared to serious scientific enquiry based on physiology.