ABSTRACT
The idea that the mentally ill and the physically ill should be treated under the same roof has a very long history. Medical historians are fond of pointing out that Thomas Guy, in founding his famous hospital in 1722, insisted that twenty beds should be set aside for lunatics. Jones fails to establish how effective the hospital was in influencing attitudes towards the treatment of mental illness. In 1889 the first outpatient clinic was opened at St Thomas's Hospital by Rayner, and a number of other general hospitals and asylums followed suit. The introduction of hospital-trained nursing staff and the copying of methods used in general hospitals influenced the life of mental hospitals. In England the first real impetus to the development of both inpatient and outpatient centres in general hospitals arose from the crisis in the asylums caused by the First World War.
