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Although psychiatry has always been considered a part of medicine, psychiatric patients were long treated separately from other sick people. Only in relatively recent years have general hospitals provided facilities for these patients—a trend that is increasing. With the new understanding of mental illness provided by psychoanalysis came the recognition that the emotionally ill are really sick and that rational treatment can be provided for them. Recognition of the importance of emotional factors in organic diseases led to a more valuable role for psychiatrists in all medical practice. Thus psychiatric services in general hospitals began to develop, and sections for psychiatric patients were cautiously introduced.
Insulin and electric shock treatment seemed to provide means for the amelioration of acute illnesses so that length of hospital stay was greatly reduced; this enabled psychiatric hospitals to consider the time element which influences general hospital practice. More recently the psychotropic drugs have furthered the speed with which many acute illnesses can be brought under control. There has