Lewis, Aubrey

   (1900–1975)

   Called "the leading psychiatrist of his time" in Britain, Lewis was born in Adelaide, Australia, the son of a watchmaker who had emigrated from London 10 years previously. After earning his medical degree at Adelaide in 1923, he began a residency in psychiatry, then, after obtaining a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1926, he was able to study at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, the Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins under Adolf Meyer, who had a large influence on him, and even in Berlin and Heidelberg.

   Lewis learned to read German fluently and was fond of quoting original German passages in his papers. Eliot Slater later noted that Lewis had been trained by Meyer, but "much of what he passed on to us came from his earlier apprentice experiences in Heidelberg."

   In 1928, Lewis joined the Maudsley Hospital in London, opened 5 years previously, as a researcher and in 1932 was appointed consultant. In 1936, he became clinical director of the Maudsley. During the Second World War, he accompanied the part of the hospital that was evacuated to Mill Hill School, and in 1946 was appointed professor of psychiatry in the University of London (Edward Mapother’s successor) and director of the professorial unit at the Maudsley. He became emerited in 1966. In 1948, Lewis masterminded the creation of the Institute of Psychiatry which was closely affiliated with the newly merged Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital, making the 500-bed facility the largest and most eminent teaching center for psychiatry in Britain. Also in 1948, he became honorary director of the first Medical Research Council Unit created with a psychiatrist in command, the Occupational Psychiatry Research Unit at the Maudsley (after 1958 it became the Social Psychiatry Research Unit). There, investigators sought to show how patients with chronic mental disease formerly kept in institutions could work and live in the community. His 1959 knighthoood was the first conferred on a psychiatrist in England. Reflecting the influence of Meyer, Lewis took what Michael Shepherd called a "broad psychobiological standpoint and tried to put it into practice." He was insistent that the registrars (residents) in the 3-year course for psychiatrists-in-training take comprehensive histories and quote patients verbatim. After writing a classic paper on depression (see DEPRESSION: EMERGENCE: British debate [1934]), he became acknowledged as an expert in mood disorders. In retrospect, Lewis’s main contributions were to have opened up the subject of social psychiatry in Britain and to have made the Maudsley Hospital a world-class institute for training and research.