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Map of Denmark showing psychiatric institutions in 1952. The
branch institutions were placed under the control of the state
mental hospitals. These institutions were intended for elderly
psychiatric patients. (Medical Museion)
This hospital was an average establishment, it had approximately
850 beds in the 1930s (making it the fourth
largest of Denmark’s seven state mental institutions) and
it had a standard staff of seven psychiatrists. Among the
inmates of the Vordingborg hospital there were several
medical professionals, who were treated for drug addiction.
The number of physicians varies a little from year
to year during the period, but usually there were about
three or four physicians for every 100 patients. In the early
twentieth century, the hospital treated approximately
1200 patients a year. 14 The largest group were the general
practitioners, but surgeons, psychiatrists and other groups
with easy access to drugs were also well represented. Psychiatrists
with a drug problem were usually admitted to a
mental hospital situated in a different part of the country.
The same procedure was used with top physicians of university
clinics in Jutland. In order to avoid scandals these
physicians were admitted to hospitals in Zealand where
they were less known.
The physicians with a drug problem were rarely admitted
to the hospitals on their own initiative. Like in the case
of a 45-year old chief physician it was often the wife of
the patient who notified the health authorities about their
husbands’ abuse of drugs. According to his own statement,
the chief physician had begun using morphine because
of long working hours, health problems and «troublesome
private events». It had not been difficult for him
to get access to drugs, but after his wife had surprised
him while he was injecting morphine, he could no longer
conceal his habit and had to accept treatment in a mental
hospital. At the hospital in Vordingborg he was not di-
agnosed as having other psychiatric disorders than drug
addiction (abusus medicamentorum), and a psychiatrist at
the hospital noted that the patient did not show signs of
«the usual depravation of the morphinist». At the hospital
he went through the usual withdrawal treatment, a quick
treatment where the dose of morphine was reduced by 20
per cent per day and terminated after a week. As part of
usual treatment he was requested to stay at the hospital
for nine months in order to complete the cure. Yet he decided
to leave the hospital after a shorter period of time,
and like many other drug abuse patients he relapsed into
addiction again. 15
Like the 45-year old chief physician, the addict physicians
in Vordingborg were usually in middle age when they had
begun using opiates, and they often stressed that it was
chronic diseases that had led them to addiction. Occupational
stress, long working hours and depression were also
frequently mentioned among the causes of drug abuse as
well as contributing factors such as financial trouble and
marriage problems.
Photograph of the state mental hospital in Vordingborg from the
1940s. This hospital, founded in 1858, was the second oldest of
the Danish state mental hospitals. (Medical Museion)
Other records
The records of mental institutions such as the hospital
in Vordingborg do not, however, contain information
about all physicians with a drug problem. Several physicians
did not receive drug abuse treatment in psychiatric
hospitals and managed to conceal their condition.
Yet records of the Danish National Health Service can
provide further information about drug abuse among
physicians. The Danish National Health Service kept
a record of physicians who were abusers of drugs. The
names of 108 medical doctors were entered on the files of
the National Health Service in the period leading up to
the 1950s (the total number of physicians in Denmark in
1955 was 4952). The Health Service record is, of course,
not a complete record of all physicians who were abusing
morphine and other drugs. Several of the physicians who
got admitted to the mental hospital in Vordingborg and
other institutions were not listed in the Health Service