Henry Devine (2 May 1879 – May 1, 1940) was a British physician and psychiatrist. After education at Merchant Venturers' School, Henry Devine studied medicine at

University College, Bristol University College, Bristol was an educational institution which existed from 1876 to 1909. It was the predecessor institution to the University of Bristol, which gained a royal charter in 1909. During its time the college mainly served the mid ...

and at

Bristol General Hospital Bristol General Hospital (sometimes referred to as BGH or Bristol General) was a healthcare facility in Guinea Street, Harbourside, Bristol, in the south west of England. It opened in 1832 and closed in 2012. The BGH was managed by the Universi ...

, qualifying for MB in 1902. After serving as a house physician at Bristol General Hospital, he studied medicine at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, where he received the degree MB BS (Lond.) in 1905. After a postgraduate educational visit to Kraepelin's clinic in Munich, he successively held junior appointments in England at London's Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption, at

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

's West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and at South West London's Chelsea Hospital for Women. He then entered the

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

's mental hospital service. After briefly serving at Cane Hill Asylum, he was appointed in 1907 as an assistant medical officer at

Epsom Epsom is a town in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain ...

's Long Grove Asylum. Devine joined 1905 the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane and was awarded in 1909 the Association's Gaskell prize (£45) and gold medal. In July 1909 he was awarded the MD degree of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in the division of psychiatry. From Long Grove Asylum he went as senior medical officer to the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum and then became medical superintendent of the Portsmouth Mental Hospital (in 1937 renamed St. James' Hospital). Devine was in command there during WWI and for his wartime services he was made OBE in 1919. He was appointed consulting physician to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. In 1919 he was elected FRCP. In 1920 Devine was a member of the editorial committee of the newly founded ''Journal of Neurology and Psychopathology''. On the editorial staff of the '' Journal of Mental Science'' he was an assistant editor from 1916 to 1920 and a co-editor from 1920 to 1927. In 1929 he published a volume on ''Recent Advances in Psychiatry''. Devine’s final post was that of medical superintendent of the Holloway Sanatorium, near

Virginia Water Virginia Water is a commuter village in the Borough of Runnymede in northern Surrey, England. It is home to the Wentworth Estate and the Wentworth Club. The area has much woodland and occupies a large minority of the Runnymede district. Its na ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, where he worked through the decade of the 1930s until his retirement in 1938, due to ill health. At the Holloway Sanatorium, which was built for the "middle-class insane", Devine experimented with thyroid shock treatment, a precursor of

insulin shock therapy Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks.Neustatter WL (1948) ''Modern psychiatry ...

. Upon his death in 1940 he was survived by his wife Phyllis née Hanson and two sons.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devine, Henry 1879 births 1940 deaths 20th-century English medical doctors English psychiatrists Royal Army Medical Corps officers Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Alumni of the University of Bristol Officers of the Order of the British Empire