The emergence of psychiatry is part of a wider process of medical specialization in both newspapers:  specialists in urology, dermatology, internal diseases, skin and bladder diseases, varicose veins and piles; as well as specialist in nervous and mental diseases, in children's diseases, appeared in the North China Daily News as early as in 1934. They were joined by specialists in lowered virility in the male in 1949. In the Shenbao, specialists in gynecology (婦科 fuke), pediatrics (小兒科 xiao'erke), outpatient service (門診 menzhen), cholera (痧痘幼科 shadouyouke), dermatology (皮膚花柳科 pifuhualiuke) and even psychiatry (神經衰弱科 shenjingshuairuoke) appeared in 1949.

Note the use of the term mad/insane (瘋人 fengren) appeared in the Shenbao in 1941. Before psychiatry emerged as a special field of medical care, treatment for mental and nervous illness relies on self-medication. The Shenbao advertised pills to treat mental illness and weak nerves as early as 1924.