CHAIR OF PSYCHIATRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18170, 16 August 1922, Page 10

CHAIR OF PSYCHIATRY.

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY.

A Chair of Psychiatry has been established at the Sydney University, and Sir John Macpherson has been appointed to it. He has had a distinguished career as a specialist in the treatment of mental and nervous disorders, and in the position of Commisisoner of Lunacy for Scotland. The honour of knighthood was conferred upon him just prior to the sailing of the Ulysses for Australia. The official record accompanying his title referred to bi3 excellent work in Scottish Lunacy administration.

" I am particularly interested in the work of this new Chair, which is one of the first of its kind, not merely in Australia, but in the British Empire, in so far as the professor has no administrative duties in connection with asylums, but is purely a teacher of the subject," said Sir John in an interview. "In that respuct there are almost similar Chairs in most oJ the Continental universities, and also in some of those in America. It is hoped that the establishment of'this Chair at the Sydney University will place psychiatry in a- better position than it has formerly held in the medical profession, and will bring it into closer and more intimate connection with other branches of medical science. .The experience of the war has -been instrumental in advancing the treatment of neurosis and insanity, and also in exciting much wider interest in these subjects, not only in the medical profession, but in the mind of the general public."