Amariah Brigham
American
Amariah Brigham (1798-1849) was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts and received his medical training at the NY College of Physicians and Surgeons. He spent the following year in Europe to further his medical education and returned to Massachusetts in 1829 to establish a practice. In 1840, he became Superintendent of the Hartford Retreat, and in 1842, moved to the Utica State Hospital, the first public mental hospital in New York State.
His book, Remarks on the Influence of Mental Cultivation on Health (Hartford, 1832), went into three editions. He believed that insanity often resulted from moral causes such as worries and anxieties. In 1840, he published another monograph, An Inquiry into Diseases and Functions of The Brain, Spinal Cord and Nerves (New-York). - US National Library of Medicine, NIH