Career
Henry A. Cotton had studied in Europe under Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer, considered the pioneers of the day, and was a student of Dr. Adolf Meyer of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who dominated American psychiatry in the early 1900s. Based on the observation that patients with high fever often turn delusional or begin hallucinating, Meyer introduced the possibility of infections (then viewed as the cutting edge concept of scientific medicine) being a biological cause of behavioral abnormalities, in contrast to eugenic theories which emphasized heredity and to Freud's theories of childhood traumas. Cotton would become the leading practitioner of the new approach in the United States.
After becoming medical director of Trenton State Hospital at the age of 30, Cotton instituted many progressive ideas. These included abolishing mechanical restraints that had created nightmare conditions in asylums for hundreds of years and implementing daily staff meetings to discuss patient care.
Read more about this topic: Henry Cotton (doctor)
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