William Battie (sometimes spelt Batty;[1] 1 September 1703[2] – 13 June 1776) was an English physician who published in 1758 the first lengthy book on the treatment of mental illness, A Treatise on Madness, and by extending methods of treatment to the poor as well as the affluent, helped raise psychiatry to a respectable specialty. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1764.