The Crichton woman psychiatrist was a junior resident at "The Crichton Royal Lunatic Asylum". Among the people to have been treated there are artist Charles Altamont Doyle (father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), William James Blacklock, Lydia Miller (widow of Hugh Miller), and feminist writer Dora Marsden. An unidentified female patient of Dr James Gilchrist featured as an illustration ("Figure 19") in Charles Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872). The original hospital building, now Crichton Hall, was designed by William Burn and opened in 1839. The hospital was expanded in the late 19th century, when Sydney Mitchell
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals shows how human emotions link mental states with bodily movement, and are genetically determined, deriving from purposeful animal actions. He comments on the implications of the book: a single origin for the entire human species, with universal human expressions; and he stresses the social value of expression, citing the emotional communication between mother and child. This was one of the first books to be illustrated with photographs – with seven heliotype plates – and the publisher John Murray warned that this "would poke a [terrible] hole in the profits". The published book assembled illustrations rather like a Victorian family album,