George Savage (physician)

Sir George Henry Savage (1842–1921) was a prominent English psychiatrist.

Savage was born in Brighton in 1842, the son of a chemist. Educated at Brighton College, he served an internship at Guy's Hospital from 1861. After 1865, he was resident at Guy's; he earned his MD in 1867. He remained a regular lecturer at the hospital for decades after.

During his time as a doctor for a mining company in Nenthead, he met his wife, Margaret Walton; however, she died after a year of marriage. They had one child.

Shortly after his wife's death, Savage accepted an appointment as an assistant medical officer at Bethlem Royal Hospital. By 1878, he had become chief medical officer at the hospital; in the same year, he became MRCP.

Also in 1878, Savage cofounded the Journal of Mental Science with Thomas Clouston and Daniel Hack Tuke. He published regularly in this journal until the end of his career. At Bethlem and after, he was sparing in his use of chemical sedation, although his freedom with physical restraint drew criticism from Henry Maudsley, J. C. Bucknill, and others.

Over the course of the 1880s, private practice took up more of Savage's time; he retired from Bethlem in 1888 to devote himself entirely to private practice. In 1882, he married Adelaide Sutton, the daughter of another doctor.

He drew his private clientele from wealthy or well-connected London society. Virginia Woolf saw him intermittently for a decade, and he is among the figures lampooned in the Sir William Bradshaw of Mrs. Dalloway. At the same time, he worked as a consultant for a number of asylums, and was often called in on especially difficult cases.

His major public work was Insanity and Allied Neuroses, a reference book for students; published in 1884, it was revised and reissued in 1894 and 1907. In 1909 he delivered the Harveian Oration to the Royal College of Physicians on the subject of Experimental Psychology and Hypnotism. He was knighted in 1912.