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Henry Andrews Cotton, MD (1876–May 1933) was an American psychiatrist and the medical director of New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton (previously named New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, now known as Trenton Psychiatric Hospital) in Trenton, New Jersey between 1907 and 1930. He embraced the concept of scientific medicine that was emerging among physicians at the turn of the twentieth century, which included a belief that insanity was the result of untreated infections in the body, and to treat them he directed his dental and medical staff to practice surgical bacteriology on the patients.[1]

Henry A. Cotton had studied in Europe under Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer, considered the pioneers of the day, and was a student of Dr. Adolf Meyer of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who dominated American psychiatry in the early 1900s. Based on the observation that patients with high fever often turn delusional or hallucinating, Meyer introduced the possibility of infections (then viewed as the cutting edge concept of scientific medicine) being a biological cause of behavioral abnormalities, in contrast to eugenic theories which emphasized heredity and to Freud's theories of childhood traumas. Cotton would become the leading practitioner of the new approach in the United States.

In October 1930, Cotton was retired from the state hospital and was appointed medical director emeritus. Although this ended the abdominal surgeries which were so dangerous before the discovery of antibiotics, the hospital continued to adhere to Cotton's humane treatment guidelines and, to carry out his less risky medical procedures until the late 1950s. Henry A. Cotton continued to direct the staff at Charles Hospital until his death.

Henry Cotton was born in Cheshire. A prestigious cricketer, while attending Alleyn's School in Dulwich, South London, he and the other non-prefects were ordered by the six prefects in the school team to transport their cricket clothing back to the school on public transport. After returning to the school, he wrote a letter to the headmaster explaining that he was not amused. The headmaster ordered that he be caned in punishment, but Cotton refused. Resultantly banned from the cricket team, Cotton and his brother took up their second sport golf at the Aquarius Golf Club [1] in Honor Oak from 1920. In 1923 Cotton won the Hutchings Trophy, the club championship. The brothers left in 1924 to become professionals.