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This book consists of a collection of papers written over the period 1946–67 and compiled as a tribute to Dr T. F. Main, who has been the Medical Director of the Cassel Hospital over this period. It gives insight into Main's work and ideas. The volume consists of 28 papers, five of which are by Main himself, and nine by one of his chief colleagues and one-time Matron of the Hospital, Doreen Weddell. The idea of the collection of papers was first proposed by the Cassel Hospital nurses themselves, and the Cassel Bursary Trust agreed to sponsor it. This Trust was founded in 1942 with the object of interesting nurses in the neuroses and in the work of the Cassel Hospital.
It is good to rediscover how much Main's ideas have influenced the widely held concepts about nursing and the 'therapeutic community' which are now part of our culture. Already in 1946, in his paper entitled 'The Hospital as a Therapeutic Institution', written as the result of his experience at Northfield Military Hospital during the war, Main says:
It is doubtful whether the hospital can usefully remain a building within which individual treatment is practised. Perhaps it must become a therapeutic institution.