In 1929, George W. Henry published a paper on ‘Some Modern Aspects of Psychiatry in General Hospital Practice’ and thus became the founder of what later came to be known as liaison psychiatry. He described his work as a psychiatric consultant at Cornell Medical School and advised that ‘On the staff of every general hospital there should be a psychiatrist who would make regular visits to the wards, who would direct a psychiatric out-patient clinic, who would continue the instruction and organize the psychiatric work of interns and who would attend staff conferences so that there might be a mutual exchange of medical experience and a frank discussion of the more complicated cases'. This quotation spells out the essence of psychiatric liaison with medicine. The work of Henry and a few other pioneers bore fruit: psychiatry was at last brought into general hospitals and the mainstream of twentieth century medicine. This was a development of far-reaching consequence for both clinical disciplines, and a major landmark in the history of modern psychiatry.