‘Graduate patients’ and the vanishing human history of psychiatry

During the 20th century psychiatry has become established as the clinical discipline that we recognise today. This has been a time of great change in attitudes to, knowledge of, and meth ods of care for mental disorder. In the early years of the century, the numbers of patients in mental institutions rose steadily and there was increas ing acceptance of mental disorder as an illness and there was an incipient optimism about the prospect of successful treatment. At the same time the prejudices associated with mental treat ment were slowly being eroded, culminating in the Mental Treatment Act of 1930 which pro vided for Voluntary' in-patient status. A further