Conolly, John (1794–1866)

English physician. In 1832 he helped found the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (now the British Medical Association). As resident physician to the Middlesex Asylum 1839–44, he introduced humane methods of treatment for the mentally ill and dispensed with mechanical methods of restraint.

Conolly was born in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and practised at Chichester and at Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1827 he went to London and was professor of the practice of medicine at University College from 1828 to 1830, when he moved to Warwick and was appointed visiting inspector to Warwickshire asylums. In 1838 he moved to Birmingham and in 1839 to Hanwell, to his post at the Middlesex Asylum.

His publications include Indications of Insanity (1830), Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums (1847), Treatment of Lunatic Asylums (1847), and Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraint (1856).