ABSTRACT
Michael Shepherd is known as an outstanding clinician, a man to whom colleagues will confidently refer difficult and problematic cases for second opinion. This chapter is concerned with Shepherd’s epidemiological and social psychiatric interests and it is for his contributions in this domain that he is best known. In the midst of this clamour, Shepherd was quietly getting on with some epidemiological spade-work in a study of the pattern of major psychoses hospitalized in the county of Buckinghamshire during two periods 1931–1933 and 1945–1947. Paradoxically, the evolution of a successful and reliable classification applicable to the variety of psychiatric problems common in Shepherd’s field of primary care has proved elusive to date. Shepherd always emphasized the epidemiological nature of drug trials. Shepherd had many dealings with the British Medical Research Council and in the course of these was able occasionally to bring psychiatry into play as a facilitator of research in other medical fields.
