Crichton-Browne, Sir James (1840-1938)

6 autographed letters by Sir James Crichton-Browne, numbered 1-6; one proof of verses written by Sir James Crichton-Browne, numbered 7

1882-1895

1 file (7 items)

Purchased from: Sotheby's, London, May 1930 (acc.52792); Stevens, London, December 1931 (acc.68293); Glendining, London, January 1935 (acc.67947); Transferred from Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, c.1939 (acc.91800): probably originally purchased c.1906 but details not known (acc.16277); Accession details recorded for (acc. 68293) or (A103).

Online Archives and Manuscripts catalogue

Sir James Crichton-Browne (1840-1938), physician and psychiatrist, born in Edinburgh, he was brought up in a medical household, with his father, William Francis Browne (1805-1885), being the medical superintendent of the Crichton Institution, Dumfries (which was financed by his godmother, Elizabeth Crichton), and his mother, Magdalene Howden Balfour, daughter of Andrew Balfour of Edinburgh. He entered Edinburgh university in 1857, and was favoured by the professor of physic there, Thomas Laycock. He joined the Royal Medical Society in 1858 and was elected President in 1861. He qualified for his licentiate at the College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, in 1861 and graduated MD with honours the following year. He then qualified LSA in London in 1863, before visiting a number of medical schools and asylums in Paris. Between then and 1865 he served as assistant medical officer in various asylums in the English provinces before becoming medical superintendent at the new borough asylum in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1865. In 1866 he was appointed medical director at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum at Wakefield in Yorkshire.

In the ten years he spent at Wakefield he secured a national reputation within the profession. He made new appointments (including that of a pathologist), he involved the local medical community, he organised the publication of medical reports, and he handled issues of asylum cleanliness, asylum drainage, and asylum social engagements. In 1878 he helped found and co-edit the journal Brain .

In 1875 Crichton-Browne was appointed the lord chancellor's visitor in lunacy and moved to London where he held the post until 1922. He is best known for his early encouragement of a physiological and neurological examination of asylum patients. He remained committed to the older and trusted "moral management" therapy rather than the new confessional forms of psychological analysis.

Elected FRS in 1883, Crichton-Browne was knighted in 1886. He received a number of honourary degrees and was president of a variety of medical societies in the 1870s and 1880s. During his later years he published a number of popular reminiscences such as Victorian Jottings (1926), What the Doctor Thought (1930), Doctor's Second Thoughts (1930), and The Doctor's Afterthoughts (1932).