Frederick Walker Mott

worsened until dying out, though his selecting of cases

and statistics were questioned by other eugenicists.[5]
Mott advanced an overarching theory that mental disease was due to pathology of the sexual reproductive system, as evidenced for example by atrophied testes, causing breakdown of cerebral neurons in certain parts of the
brain.[6]

Sir Frederick Walker Mott KBE MD FRCP FRS

LLD (23 October 1853 Brighton, Sussex 8 June 1926
Birmingham, Warwickshire) was one of the pioneers of
biochemistry in Britain.[1] He is noted for his work in
neuropathology and endocrine glands in relation to mental disorder, and consequently as psychiatrist and sociologist. He was Croonian Lecturer to the Royal College of
Physicians for the year 1900.[2]
The Maudsley Hospital in London was Motts idea, inspired by Emil Kraepelin's clinic in Germany, and Mott
conducted the negotiations for its funding and construction. He ran the pathology laboratory which was transferred there, and treated shell shock patients during
World War I. His reputation had been greatly enhanced
by helping establish that 'general paralysis of the insane'
was actually due to syphilis, but he has been criticised for
overly organic and degenerative assumptions in regard to
mental illness including shell shock.[3] After the war, in
a lecture to the Eugenics Education Society, he claimed
that shell shock was rare in volunteers as opposed to regular conscripted men, and that it was not a new disorder but
merly a variety occurring in those already predisposed.[4]

1 Timeline
1884 Lecturer in physiology at the Charing Cross
Hospital Medical School
1895 Director of the London County Council laboratory at Claybury Asylum.[7]
1896 Fellow of the Royal Society [8]
190912 Fullerian Professor of Physiology and
Comparative Anatomy
1910 The Brain And The Voice In Speech And Song
1911 Awarded Fothergill Gold Medal of the Royal
Society of Medicine [9]

Mott, like Maudsley, appears to have held that mental

illness was inherited due to degenerate family lines that
1

3
1916 The Eects of High Explosives Upon the Central Nervous System The Lancet 1 (1916): 331338
1919 Knighthood
1923 The Action of Alcohol on Man (London, New
York: Longmans Green) with Ernest Henry Starling
(18661927), Robert Hutchison (1871)
192526 President of the Medico-Psychological Association
1926 President of the Royal Medico-Psychological
Association, the Royal Charter having been granted
in March 1926

References

[1] Patron of the Royal Institution.

Johnmadjackfuller.homestead.com. Retrieved on 8 June 2014.
[2] MOTT. Frederick Walker. Whos Who 59: 1266. 1907.
[3] 'An atmosphere of cure': Frederick Mott, shell shock and
the Maudsley
[4] Shell Shocked Britain: The First World Wars Legacy for
Britains Mental Health
[5] THE SO-CALLED LAW OF ANTICIPATION IN
MENTAL DISEASE, 1933
[6] International Relations in Psychiatry: Britain, Germany,
and the United States to World War II.
[7] Frederick Mott biography. Studymore.org.uk. Retrieved
on 8 June 2014.
[8] Notes.
Nature 54 (1389):
doi:10.1038/054133a0.

133.

1896.

[9] Sir Frederick Walker Mott. Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 12 January 2015.

External links
Works by Frederick Walker Mott at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Frederick Walker Mott at
Internet Archive

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

4.1

Text

Frederick Walker Mott Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Walker_Mott?oldid=715802966 Contributors: Klemen Kocjancic, D6, SmackBot, Shinryuu, Wikimandia, JL-Bot, Rotational, Materialscientist, Green Cardamom, PigFlu Oink, I dream of horses,
Plucas58, Klbrain, Suslindisambiguator, FiachraByrne, Barney the barney barney, Dexbot, VIAFbot, Robevans123, Wishfulness and KasparBot

4.2

Images

File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Frederick_Walker_Mott.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Frederick_Walker_Mott.jpg
License: CC BY 4.0 Contributors: [1] Original artist: Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718' title='wikidata:
Q4233718'><img
alt='wikidata:Q4233718'
src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.
svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png'
width='20'
height='11'
srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/
Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/
40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050' data-le-height='590' /></a>
File:Frederick_Walker_Mott2.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Frederick_Walker_Mott2.jpg License: CC BY 4.0 Contributors: [1] Original artist: J. Russell & Sons.
File:Wikisource-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Contributors: Rei-artur Original artist: Nicholas Moreau

4.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0