HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 5April 1946, 44,000 of 74,000 (60 percent) Veterans Administration
(VA) hospital beds were filled with neuropsychiatric patients alone,
costing at least $40,000 per bed.^16
Eight million Americans–or 6 percent of the American population
at the time–were also found to be suffering from some mental disorder
and the economic consequences of this were profound. Professional
personnel to treat these patients, however, was seriously lacking. There
were only 3,500 psychiatrists nationwide at the beginning of the war
and the shortages of trained personnel in two other related mental health
fields–psychologists and psychiatric social workers–were very large.^17
Knowledge of and research on the etiology, treatment, and prevention
of mental illness were also significantly lacking.^18 Toward the end of
the war, this lack of personnel, knowledge, understanding, and treat
ments led to a new national awareness of mental illness, of its problems,
its costs, and the need for effective intervention.^19
The National Mental Health Act
The Superintendent of the Division of Mental Hygiene, physician
Lawrence Kolb, had pursued the idea of establishing a research center–
similar to the existing National Cancer Institute (NCI)–that would
focus on mental illness.^20 When he retired in 1944, he was followed by
physician Robert Hanna Felix, who combined his background in
epidemiology, community-based mental health training, and public
health to draft a bill for a National Neuropsychiatric Institute.
Felix expanded Kolb’s ideas to include a training and service com
ponent.^21 By February 1945, Mary Switzer, special assistant to Watson
Miller, the administrator of the Federal Security Agency, and Felix had
visited Gladys Harrison and Sidney Saperstein in the General Counsel’s
Office. The two worked with them in drafting the bill in very broad
language. Felix and Switzer were then introduced to Congressman J.
Percy Priest (R) of Tennessee, Chairman of the Labor and Public Welfare
Committee, who introduced Felix’s bill into Congress in March 1945.^22
The bill was to focus on three things: research, training, and commun
ity services. Toward these three goals, the bill sought an appropriation
of $10 million as well as an additional $4.5 million for the creation of
a National Neuropsychiatric Institute and a National Mental Health