ABSTRACT
When one thinks of it, the situtation may be surprising, but it is only within the last few years that the history of psychiatry itself has started to become established on secure academic grounds. For many years medical history in general was more or less consigned to the concerns and hobbies of retired physicians; but lately it has been possible to conceive of people pursuing an interest in the history of psychiatry not only at the outset of their academic careers, but as a means of normal professional advancement. The journal The History of Psychiatry, which is only a few years old, has been a strikingly excellent supplement to more well-known quarterlies such as the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, the Journal of the History of Medicine, the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, and Social History of Medicine.
