Biographies

Alexander Morison (1779- 1866)

Born near Edinburgh on 1 May 1779, Alexander Morison trained as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh, graduating MD in 1799. He began private practice in Edinburgh before moving to London in 1808. He was elected a Fellow of the Edinburgh College of Physicians in 1801, and a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1808.

In 1810 he became inspector of lunatic asylums in Surrey. Morison (1779-1866) is best remembered for establishing the first formal lectures on psychiatry, delivered in London and Edinburgh in 1823. These were published in 1825 as Outlines of Lectures on Mental Diseases . The impetus behind them was Morison’s acknowledgement that physicians who hoped to work with the insane needed specialist training. He was appointed physician to Bethlehem Hospital in 1835, and later became physician to Prince Leopold and Princess Charlotte. He became Sir Alexander Morison in 1838. Three years later he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He died in 1866.

His other works include: Cases of Mental Disease, with Practical Observations on the Medical Treatment, etc. (1828), and The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases (1840).