At the end of the 19th century, large institutional asylums were inundated with patients and financial support from the government was insufficient to adequately run these hospitals. As a result, there was no time to provide individualized treatment to each mental illness patient, and many were incarcerated. The 19th century zeitgeist viewed the mentally ill as feeble-minded, incapable of functioning in society, and lacking in hygiene. Furthermore, Darwin's theory of “survival of the fittest” has led to a lack of social commitment to promoting moral treatment for the mentally ill. In the early 20th century, a diverse group of professionals in North America, including Adolf Meyer, emphasized the importance of a moral treatment approach to promoting characteristics of care for ill and disabled people. In particular, Meyer created the theory of psychobiology which became one of the most insightful and significant approaches to understanding mental illness. Meyer believed that human beings understand themselves better when their daily activities throughout their lives are taken into account, thus creating the paradigm known as occupational therapy (Kielhofner, 2009, p. 17). Personal and professional life Adolf Meyer was born on September 13, 1866 in Switzerland in a small village called Niederwenigen and was the son of a Zwinglian minister (Scull & Schulkin, 2009, par.1). According to Lidz (1966), Meyer's grandfather was a follower of a Swiss folk philosopher named Jakob Gujer better known as Kleinjogg (p. 323). The Meyer family intermarried with the Gujers, eventually purchasing a farm (Lidz, p. 323). The Meyers adopted Kleinjogg's instrumental approach to farming which was to be an innovator rather than follow tradition by discovering new ways of farming... middle of paper... was responsible for starting this movement. In 1908, he assembled the National Committee on Mental Hygiene (Weckowicz & Liebel-Weckowicz, p. 285). Lidz (1966), provides information on Meyer's major contributions to John Hopkins: "to introduce psychobiology and dynamic psychiatry into the medical school curriculum – at that time, to the medical school; establish a graduate training center for psychiatrists; bring psychiatry into a close working relationship with the rest of medicine; build and develop a university psychiatric research and teaching hospital; organize and operate a model community-oriented psychiatric hospital” (p. 328). the program of medical school, in-house training, facilities, and treatment program at the Phipps Clinic set the standard for other medical institutions (Lidz, p. 328).