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SUMMARY: In A Plea for the Insane (1918), Lionel Weatherly outlined the inadequacies of the Lunacy Act 1890 and of asylum care in England and Wales, and proposed solutions and ways to bring about improvements. It took courage to persist, but Weatherly was undeterred by controversy or criticism. This article reflects on his book and its context and timing at the end of the First World War, and considers whether we may be inspired to confront current healthcare crises with the same sort of passion and fervour as he did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that examines the 1959 and 1983 Mental Health Acts in England and Wales. One issue that is being tackled in this study is the consent to treatment which was not mentioned in the 1959 legislation that assumes that a detained patient could be treated against his will. Furthermore, this study evaluates the issues in England and Wales who advocated and enabled this important change to come about, using examples from the clinical practice of electroconvulsive therapy.