About 1839 the first specialized asylum for the insane, originally an Orthodox monastery (the Marcutza Asylum, then near Bucharest) opened its doors to individuals considered insane and beggars; however, none of the doctors who worked there had any prior train­ing in psychiatry. This situation continued until 1866 when Alexandru Sutzu (Alexandros Soutzos) was appointed as assistant medical doctor, following the completion of his doctoral studies in Paris. For 40 years (1867-1878 and 1880-1909), Sutzu was the director of this medical institution, and he made a significant imprint on the development of psychiatry in Romania. All the time Sutzu was trying to turn this asylum from a place of isolation and detention into a modern medical institution aimed at returning the cured insane indi­vidual back into society. He made sustained efforts to improve the methods of occupational therapy by organizing special workshops/workstations for the inpatients. John Conolly’s abolition of mechanical restraint at the Hanwell Asylum in 1839, a decision which by 1850 had been adopted in almost all asylums throughout England, had also been adopted in Bucharest Marcutza, around 1860. Sutzu retired in 1909 from the Marcutza Asylum (which had by then been renamed the Marcutza Institute). This presentation provides an insight into the origins of modern clinical psychiatry and medical advances in Romania, and to the contemporary personalities in Romanian and Eastern European medicine.