Background

Charles Macfie Campbell was born on September 8, 1876 in Edinburgh, Scotland; the son of Daniel Campbell, a banker, and Eliza (McLaren) Campbell.

Education

After preparing at George Watson College, Charles enrolled at Edinburgh University and in 1897 received the M. A. degree, with first class honors in philosophy. He then entered the medical college of the university, from which he received the M. B. and Ch. B. degrees summa cum laude in 1902.

Career

Campbell's interest having turned to psychiatry, he spent a year in France and Germany, where he obtained basic training in clinical neurology under Pierre Marie and Joseph Babinski at the Hospice de Bicetre and in histopathology under Franz Nissl at Heidelberg. A year's residency at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh followed, during which he worked under Alexander Bruce. Bruce had already sent one young physician to the United States to work with the eminent psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, and in 1904 Campbell followed suit. Meyer was then director of the Pathological Institute (later the Psychiatric Institute) of the New York State Hospitals for the Insane, located on Ward's Island in New York City. Joining the Institute staff, Campbell served there until 1911, save for a year (1907 - 08) back in Scotland on the psychiatric staff of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. In 1911 he received the M. D. degree from Edinburgh with a thesis on "Focal Symptoms in General Paralysis. " That same year he became assistant physician at Bloomingdale Hospital, White Plains, New York, serving also as instructor in psychopathology at the Cornell University Medical School. Two years later Meyer called Campbell to Baltimore to serve under him as associate director of the new Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital; Campbell also became assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. In 1920 he moved to Boston to succeed Elmer E. Southard as professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and medical director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, positions that he held for the rest of his life. Although Campbell's early studies related to neurology and neuropathology, his interests later concentrated on emotional and personality problems. A brilliant teacher, he was primarily a clinician rather than a theorist, and in his work with students he emphasized the importance of obtaining a full knowledge of the patient and his circumstances. During his years at Johns Hopkins he developed what was probably his chief contribution to the understanding of emotional disorders, the view that mental illness was not an entity but the product of maladjustment to a total life situation, a conclusion he presented in his paper "On the Mechanism of Some Cases of Manic-Depressive Excitement" (Medical Record, Apr. 11, 1914). He was thoroughly acquainted with the writings of Freud and Adler and had studied briefly under Jung, but he adhered to no one school of psychiatric thought and urged the selection of valuable concepts from each. Although he could not be considered a follower of Meyer's psychobiological views, Campbell was one of the first to recognize the role of emotional conflict in producing physical symptoms. In his book A Present-Day Conception of Mental Disorders (1924) he set forth his conviction that some cases of chronic invalidism were "disorders of personal adaptation masquerading as physical ailments. " An early proponent of the mental health movement, he urged that each community should provide centers for the diagnosis and treatment of emotional disorders, just as it provided for the treatment of disease.

With a sparkling wit, a passion for clear statement, and an intolerance of careless work, he sometimes gave offense, but he was unfailingly helpful to students in trouble, and young physicians from all over the world came to him as psychiatric residents. Each morning, with medical students and residents, he made ward rounds, wearing his white coat, armed with ophthalmoscope, reflex hammer, and stethoscope; he insisted on a thorough physical and neurological examination of the patient as well as a mental examination.

Campbell became a United States citizen in 1918.

In addition to numerous papers dealing with mental health, Campbell published five books, including Human Personality and the Environment (1934), which dealt with the problem of child delinquency, and Destiny and Disease in Mental Disorders (1935).

He spent much time in studying the problem of schizophrenia, work that was still incomplete at the time of his death.

C. Macfie Campbell, as he was known, died in Cambridge of a coronary occlusion a few weeks before the scheduled date of his retirement; his remains were cremated.

Achievements

• Campbell's most important achievement was the training he offered. Campbell was one of the first to recognize the role of emotional conflict in producing physical symptoms.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Towards Mental Health

    (book)

  • A present-day conception of mental disorders, (Harvard health talks)
  • Human Personality and the Environment
  • Delusion and belief
  • Destiny and Disease in Mental Disorders with Special Reference the Schizophrenic Psychoses

Views

He was a supporter of the idea that mental illness was the product of maladjustment to a total life situation and was one of the first to recognize the role of emotional conflict in producing physical symptoms.

Membership

He served as president of the American Psychopathological Association (1918) and of the American Psychiatric Association (1937), and was a member of many other societies, including the American Neurological Association and the History of Science Society.

Connections

On June 3, 1908, Campbell married Jessie Deans Rankin of Scotland, also a physician, who predeceased him. Their children were Annie McNicol, Edith Storer, Charles Macfie, and Katherine Rankin.

Father:

Daniel Campbell

Banker

Mother:

Eliza (McLaren) Campbell

Spouse:

Jessie Deans Rankin

Physician

Daughter:

Annie McNicol

Daughter:

Edith Storer

Daughter:

Katherine Rankin

Son:

Charles Macfie

References

• The Commonsense psychiatry of Dr. Adolf Meyer