William A. F. Browne - Early Psychiatric Career

Early Psychiatric Career

Browne became a physician at Stirling in 1830, and gave lectures on physiology and zoology at the Edinburgh Association which was formed in 1832 by the town's tradesmen. In 1832-1834, Browne published a lengthy paper in the Phrenological Journal concerning the relationship of language to mental disorder and in 1834 he was appointed superintendent of Montrose Lunatic Asylum, where he advocated the idea that mental illness had a physical basis in the brain. On 24 June 1834, Browne married Magdalene Balfour, from one of Scotland's foremost scientific families and sister of John Hutton Balfour (1808–1884), and they were to have eight children, the second of whom was James Crichton-Browne (1840–1938), an eminent psychiatrist of the Victorian period. Browne gave frequent lectures on the reform of mental institutions, often expressing himself in surprisingly political/reformist terms - like a sociological visionary. In 1837, five of his lectures were published with the title What Asylums Were, Are, and Ought To Be, setting out his ideas of the ideal asylum of the future and, in many ways, Browne sought to arrest - or even to reverse - the social consequences of the widespread industrialisation which had disrupted the Scottish culture of his childhood.

"Conceive of a spacious building resembling the palace of a peer, airy, and elevated, and elegant, surrounded by extensive and swelling grounds and gardens. The interior is fitted up with galleries, and workshops, and music-rooms. The sun and air are allowed to enter at every window, the view of the shrubberies and fields, and groups of labourers, is unobstructed by shutters or bars; all is clean, quiet and attractive. The inmates all seem to be motivated by the common impulse of enjoyment, all are busy, and delighted by being so. The house and all around appears a hive of industry"....W.A.F.Browne (1837) What Asylums Were, Are and Ought To Be.

In this enormously influential book, Browne agreed with the contemporary perception that insanity was associated with the social upheavals consequent upon the industrial revolution - and claimed that insanity was increasing because

He supported the idea that hereditary insanity was most prevalent amongst the highest rank of society and he concluded that "the agricultural population..... is to a great degree exempt from insanity". He speculated that insanity was common in America because

He also suggested that the higher incidence of mental illness amongst women was the result of inequalities and poorer education. On the basis of his studies of inmates of his hospital, he asserted that those canonised in the past as saints for their hyperactive organ of veneration would now be categorised as insane.