Harry C. Solomon (1889–1982), an American neurologist, psychiatrist, researcher, administrator, and clinician, was among the first to advocate for major changes in public psychiatry.
His entered the field of neurology and psychiatry during his second year at Harvard while studying at the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, Massachusetts.
Dr. Elmer E. Southard, the Bullard professor of Neuropathology at Harvard University was then the Superintendent of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and Solomon studied under him.
He was widely sought as a consultant and advisor to the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Veterans Administration, the National Research Council, and during World War II, the Selective Service Board.
In 1958, during his presidential year at the American Psychiatric Association, he startled the profession by declaring that the large public mental hospitals were antiquated, outmoded, and rapidly becoming obsolete, and that they should be liquidated.