The Mental Health Pioneer Still Remembered at Ealing Hospital

A pioneering doctor who championed treatment of the mentally challenged is recognised by a blue plaque on the site of Ealing Hospital.

John Conolly was superintendent at the sprawling Middlesex County Asylum, Hanwell, which housed more than 800 ‘pauper lunatics.’

Conolly noted on his appointment in 1839 that many of its more unruly inmates were kept in a variety of shackles and restraints.

He recognized existing drug treatments were often ineffective and dangerous using substances including antimony, digitalis and strychnine.

The use of leeches, regularly purging the bowels with enemas and a spinning chair to ‘bring patients to their senses’ were also employed although Conolly dryly noted that ‘medical men are not much disposed to make trial of in their own persons.’

He knew many conditions were beyond treatment and sought a more compassionate approach which was reinforced when he visited a privately-run asylum in Lincoln.

Here, he found a fellow doctor who managed 150 patients with no need for ‘mechanical restraints’ and subsequently ordered the removal of ‘all instruments of restraint,’ increased the ratio of keepers to patients as well as increasing their wages.