Isabella Frankau

Isabella McDougall Frankau (died May 1967), née Robertson, was a British psychiatrist who specialised in alcohol and drug addiction.

A London-based "society doctor",[1] her readiness to prescribe controlled drugs is credited with single-handedly transforming British drug policy from considering drug addicts as criminals, to be punished to one of considering addiction as an illness, to be treated.[2] From evidence she gave to the Brain Committee, she said the total between 1958 and 1964 was just over 500.[3]

After the death of her first husband Gordon Cunningham she married the eminent surgeon Claude Frankau (1883–1967) in 1935.[4][5] When her husband was knighted in the 1945 New Years Honours[6] Isabella Frankau became known as "Lady Frankau" in accordance with accepted usage.[7]

As Dr Isabella Robertson, she was one of the first researchers at the Maudsley Hospital, initially working with Frederick Mott and Frederick Golla on the physical basis of psychoses.[8][9][10][11] During the Second World War, she worked at Cambridge University's Psychological Laboratory on the use of dietary supplements to improve the physical performance of servicemen.[12] In the early 1950s she researched the use of subconvulsive electroshock therapy treatment for alcoholism.[13][14]