ABSTRACT
As war loomed again over Europe in 1939, the British government planned a better response to a predicted whirlwind of mental trauma. The terrible force of modern weaponry having been demonstrated in the Spanish Civil War, the War Office predicted high levels of mental illness, with the civilian population as likely to be a target as military personnel and installations. Meanwhile in British mental hospitals the shift from a custodial to medical ethos gathered pace, manifested by the new somatic treatments, but also influenced by general nurses working in mental hospitals wholly or partly taken over for war casualties. The eugenics movement, which had been widely supported by mental hospital doctors, was irreparably tarnished by Nazi distortion of the doctrine. For responsibility to be placed in patients, the nursing role became more facilitative, and doctors came to nurses to review clinical and social progress. Bevan brought the neglected mental hospitals on board in the National Health Service Act 1946.
