The year 1887 is memorable in medical history for the painting depicting ‘Une leçon du Docteur Charcot à la Salpêtrière’ by André Brouillet (1857–1914), a pupil of Gérôme. Lithographs by Eugene Pirodon of this painting were much reproduced and Sigmund Freud hung a copy in his consulting room. In fact, Freud had travelled from Vienna to Paris, in October 1885, to observe the work of Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière. Charcot's views about hysteria and hypnosis were to have a formative and enduring influence on Freud, who returned home, four and a half months later, as one of Charcot's unqualified admirers and champions. It is timely, exactly a century later, to reflect on Charcot's work and influence, when his career was at its zenith and, in particular, to consider his impact on British psychological medicine.

For more than a decade psychiatrists have paid lip service to the idea that peer group medical audit might be valuable, but few have initiated regular audit meetings. This could be due partly to fear of criticism from colleagues and partly to a feeling that we can well do without additional, possibly time wasting, meetings. We in the Department of Psychiatry of the Royal South Hants Hospital have held monthly audit meetings for the last three years. We would like to report our experience of these, as we have found them to be supportive rather than threatening—despite our initial apprehension—and we believe that they have resulted in improvements in our service.

There is currently considerable interest in liaison psychiatry and recently a Royal College Special Interest Group has been set up in this field. Although few psychiatrists are employed full-time in this sub-speciality, it appears that much time is spent by psychiatrists in doing liaison work and this is likely to become more important with the increasing movement of psychiatrists into the District General Hospital (DGH). There is ample evidence to suggest that there is a high prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in a DGH population which can be seen as representing potential for expansion. However, there is no consensus as to the scope of liaison psychiatry, whether expansion would indeed be desirable and whether psychiatrists possess suitable skills for the job.

According to the recent Commons Report on Community Care, psychiatric patients are being discharged to inadequate community care. One of the reasons given for this situation is the lack of communication between professional groups, leading to bad planning of care.

Infant psychiatry research pursued over the last two years was presented at the International Conference of the Association of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines in Paris, July 1986, and the value of early intervention was underlined at the Third World Congress of Infant Psychiatry, Stockholm, August 1986.

“When early summer with its bright clear days has brought the academic year to a close, emptying chalky classrooms and leaving books at rest on library shelves, then academic folk long to go on pilgrimages.”