but often not easily tolerated. We may be seeing here a new exciting beginning in psychiatry and the possibility of a treatment era such as followed the introduction of anaesthesia in surgery". Sargant's methods inspired Australian doctor Harry Bailey who employed deep sleep treatment at Sydney's Chelmsford Private Hospital, eventually leading to the death of 26 patients. Bailey and Sargant were in close contact and apparently competed to see which of them could keep a patient in the deepest coma. The death rate among Sargant's patients was lower than that among Bailey's, largely thanks to the nursing skills of the 'Nightingales' (St Thomas' nurses). Each sleeping patient was allocated a nurse or student nurse who would monitor their sleep every 15 minutes and wake them every six hours to feed and wash them and take them to the toilet. Some of the nurses disliked working in the narcosis ward, but a former ward sister defended the treatment, recalling patients as 'being pleased to be helped'. There were, however, several deaths. It was Sargant's firm belief that anyone with psychological problems should be treated early and intensively with all available methods – combined if necessary. He referred to himself as "a physician in psychological medicine". The available methods, which Sargant also referred to as "modern" and "active" treatments, were drugs in large doses (antidepressants, amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquillisers, neuroleptics), electroconvulsive therapy, insulin coma therapy, continuous narcosis and leucotomy. Failures in treatment were put down to the patient's lack of a "good previous personality". (Sargant was fond of saying that you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.) Such failures were sent from St Thomas' to the wards of mental hospitals. The part-time nature of Sargant's NHS contract at St Thomas' allowed him time to treat patients at other hospitals and establish a private practice on Harley Street (when he died he was worth over £750,000). He also wrote articles for the medical and popular press, appeared in TV programmes, and published an autobiography, The unquiet mind, in 1967. He was president of the section of psychiatry at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1956-57, and was a founding member of the World Psychiatric Association. In 1973 he was awarded the Starkey medal and prize by the Royal Society of Health for work on mental health. A second bout of tuberculosis and depression in 1954 gave Sargant time to complete