Historical statements about mental health in correct date order. How many did you get right? You might be surprised! Mental Health Awareness

If a man is mad, he shall not be at large in the city, but his family shall keep him at home in any way which they can: or if not let them pay a penalty. Plato Laws Book XI, 5 th Century BC

Though this be madness, yet there is method int. Polonius in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, circa 1601

Beyond prayer, little can be done for serious melancholy and mania. Robert Burton Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621

Lycanthropy, wolf-madness, is a disease in which men run barking and hunting about graves and fields in the night, lying hid for most part of all day and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves or some such beasts. Robert Bayfield a Treatise De Morburum Capitis, 1663

They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn, they outvoted me. Nathaniel Lee 17 th century playwright protesting about being held in Bethlem Hospital

Madness is a distemper of such a nature, that very little of real use can be said concerning it; the immediate causes will forever disappoint our search, and the cure of that disorder depends on management as much as medicine. John Munro Dr. Batties Treatise on Madness, 1758

We find the prisoner not guilty: he being under the influence of insanity at the time that the act was committed. First time that an Insanity Plea was accepted – verdict of jury at trial of James Hadfield, who shot at George III. Hadfield believed that he had to die to save mankind, and he thought that the surest way to ensure his execution was to assassinate the king, 1800

Madness has been placed exclusively in the mind. I object to this opinion… because the mind is incapable of any operations independently of impressions communicated to it through the medium of the body. Benjamin Rush Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the Mind, 1812

First campaigning user group is established by John Perceval, the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society. 1845

The Lunacy Act made the provision of public asylums compulsory. 1845

The diagnosis of drapetomania – an illness that manifests itself by an irrestrainable propensity to run away – is commonly given to slaves. Used in USA around 1850

1879 Mental After Care Association (MACA) established.

The term schizophrenia is coined and sufferers are described as strange, puzzling, inconceivable, uncanny, incapable, sinister, frightening… It is impossible to approach them as equals. Manfred Bleuler, 1911

Mental Treatment Act Patients can be admitted to hospital on a voluntary basis, 1930

1959 Mental Health Act

The Suicide Act ended the criminal status of suicide. 1961

1972 National Schizophrenia Fellowship formed.

The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its classification of mental disorder after campaigning by gay rights groups. 1973

1983 Mental Health Act

1985 Survivors Speak Out established.

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. Margaret Thatcher Womans Own, 1987

1990 NHS and Community Care Act

We must allow ourselves to be moved by others. Psychiatry has lost touch with this ability, indeed it is questionable whether it ever possessed it in the first place. Philip Thomas The Dialectics of Schizophrenia, 1997

This is where the policy of care in the community has failed. Its failure to deal effectively with the most severe cases has dealt a blow to all mental health efforts and lost the confidence of the public. Frank Dobson Health Secretary at launch of modernising Mental Health Services, 1998