Robert Gardiner Hill

Robert Gardiner Hill MD (26 February 1811 – 30 May 1878) was a British surgeon specialising in the treatment of lunacy. He is normally credited with being the first superintendent of a small asylum (approximately 100 patients) to develop a mode of treatment in which reliance on mechanical medical restraint and coercion could be dropped altogether. In practice he reached this situation in 1838.

The debate concerning the merits of his methods continued for many years. Hill was marginalised by medical colleagues, in particular for his insistence that standard medical procedures had nothing to offer in the treatment of mental illness. Provided by Wikipedia