Cross-cultural, transnational or interdisciplinary? Eric Wittkower’s psychosomatic medicine and transcultural psychiatry in historical context

Abstract

This article traces the career, scientific achievements, and emigration of the Berlin-born physician, psychoanalyst, and psychosomatic researcher Eric Wittkower. Trained in Berlin and practicing internal medicine, he became persecuted by the Nazi regime and, after fleeing Germany via Switzerland, continued his professional career in the United Kingdom, where he turned to psychosomatic medicine and worked in the service of the British Army during World War II. After two decades of service in the UK, Wittkower joined McGill University in Canada. His increasingly interdisciplinary work contributed to the establishment of the new research field of transcultural psychiatry. Finally the paper provides a detailed history of the beginning of the section of transcultural psychiatry at the Allan Memorial Institute.

Introduction

The history of medicine in National Socialist Germany and the forced migration of Jewish medical doctors, who were Holocaust survivors, has already been explored in a variety of research projects and monographs (Müller, 2000, 2005, Müller & Zur, 2014; Stahnisch, 2020). However, this picture remains incomplete as even major actors in the history of medicine continue to be unappreciated, not to mention those who practiced medicine but did not conduct research or publish widely. This article sheds light on the life and work of Berlin-born Eric Wittkower (Delille, 2017, 2018; Hayward, 2010; Hennig & Vogelsänger, 2014), a medical doctor trained in immunology and active in psychosomatic medicine, whose work contributed to transcultural psychiatry becoming a global academic discipline by integrating the social sciences.

Three stages of Wittkower's life and his respective career steps in Berlin, London, and Montreal are portrayed using Wittkower's Some Autobiographical Notes (see Appendix 1) ¹ found in the archive at McGill and the family's estate. First, Wittkower's life in Berlin is depicted, starting with his childhood, his youth, his studies of human medicine as well as his research activities, especially his focus on internal medicine. In 1933, Wittkower was forced to migrate to the United Kingdom via Switzerland, where he continued his interdisciplinary work in psychosomatic medicine and completed his training as a psychoanalyst. However, unlike many of his contemporaries (Geisthövel & Hitzer, 2019; Peetz, 2013), who co-founded and shaped psychosomatic medicine, Wittkower was scarcely acknowledged in historiography. His main work on psychosomatics, Der Einfluss der Gemütsbewegungen auf den Körper [The Influence of Emotions on the Body] (E. D. Wittkower, 1936) was published with delay in 1936 as a result of his forced emigration, which was still 14 years earlier than Franz Alexander's much-cited work Psychosomatic Medicine (1950). In German-speaking countries, Wittkower's work received little attention.

During World War II, Wittkower also worked as a psychiatrist in the British Army. After spending almost two decades in the United Kingdom, he was offered a position at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, with the help of Ewen Cameron. At McGill he worked and lectured as a psychiatrist and in 1955 founded an interdisciplinary research unit. This unit was primarily dedicated to the development of transcultural psychiatry, and its staff succeeded in establishing close links to the social sciences.

One of Wittkower's most obvious talents throughout his entire academic career was his ability to initiate interdisciplinary cooperation, culminating in the establishment and subsequent development of the first unit in transcultural psychiatry in the academic realm (Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry). This paper integrates the interdisciplinary, transnational, and cross-cultural aspects of his medical and academic career, while also taking the historical context into account. A short description of the first team in transcultural psychiatry at McGill University will be provided as well.

Berlin: Childhood and youth

On April 4 in 1899, Eric Wittkower was born in Berlin as Erich David Wittkower to parents of Jewish descent. He described his parents as agnostics; his father was a merchant born in Scotland (A. Wittkower, 2010). Upon his son's birth, his father immediately applied for his British citizenship. Wittkower had two older sisters, who were later victims of Nazi persecution. His older sister was said to have been very religious and was married to a rabbi. Wittkower attended Sunday school where his brother-in-law worked (see Appendix 1).

During WWI, however, British citizenship also brought difficulties for the family. Wittkower's father and his three brothers were suspected of being British agents at the time. While they were imprisoned in an internment camp, Wittkower was allowed to continue attending school under the condition that he renounced his British citizenship. In September of 1917 he enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. ² In the register of students for the summer semester of 1919, it is noted that Wittkower was “in the field.” Yet, according to his autobiographical notes (see Appendix 1), he had no experience in fighting.

Studying medicine in the roaring 1920s

During his clinical studies, Wittkower worked mainly in internal medicine, namely in the II Medical Clinic of Charité. The director at the time was the internist Friedrich Kraus (1858–1936) and it was here that Wittkower—aged 22 and a medical candidate—wrote his first scientific paper entitled “Clinical and Experimental Investigations of the Platelet Question” (E. D. Wittkower, 1921). While he continued his studies and research in the fields of biochemistry, immunobiology, and physiology, he ultimately wanted to become clinically active (see Appendix 1).

His doctoral thesis, which he submitted and defended under the supervision of Professor Erich Leschke (1887–1933), Professor Peter Rona (1871–1945, presumably killed in Auschwitz), and Dr. Ludwig Pincussen (1873–1941) (E. D. Wittkower, 1923), was on the changes in blood components during anaphylactic shock. For this purpose, Wittkower examined guinea pigs that he had injected with human or horse serum. His results were consistent with the hypotheses on anaphylactic shock at the time and on the first of May in 1924, at only 25 years of age he received his license to practice medicine. ³

During the 1920s, Wittkower continued his work as a “medical trainee” in Berlin in clinical-theoretical subjects, and between 1921 and 1931 he published numerous scholarly papers in the fields of haematology, biochemistry, and immunobiology.

With the spread of National Socialism, academic publications in Germany had to be increasingly countersigned by a “non-Jewish supervisor.” Sometimes these papers were pejoratively devalued as “Jewish works” and their authors stigmatized. Privy Councillor Wilhelm His (1863–1934), who was Wittkower's scientific mentor at the time, told Wittkower that he did not like Jews and therefore expected them to work much harder than their non-Jewish colleagues. This open discrimination was not an isolated case. Some Jewish scientists even had themselves baptized to avoid potential detriment to their scientific careers, but this was no guarantee. Shulamit Volkov (2000, p.157) wrote: “Toward the end of the 19th century, it was a commonplace that [for academic Jews] a normal fulfilment of tasks was not sufficient.” Since Jewish scientists were often denied a career in the then promising fields of research, which was at least true for the so-called major subjects of human medicine, the only option left was to specialize at an early stage in the career (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Eric D. Wittkower (1899–1983) in Berlin in the late 1920s.

© E. D. Wittkower family Estate. Reprinted with permission.

The 1930s and forced emigration

Wittkower's interest in patho- and immuno-physiological phenomena, such as anaphylaxis, prompted him to take a closer look at the genesis of bronchial asthma. Initially and in accordance with his training, his approach was strictly physiological and somatogenic. However, he presumably modified his approach as he encountered patients and noticed that emotional factors played a role in maintaining the symptoms. He began “to introduce psychotherapeutic methods within the framework of the inner clinic” (E. D. Wittkower, 1936). Wittkower at least noted that “there was a great need for such methods within the framework of the internal clinic.”

At the age of 30, Wittkower was appointed senior physician at the medical clinic of the Charité Hospital in Berlin. Shortly thereafter he headed the asthma clinic and in 1930 transferred to the psychiatric clinic. At that time, the clinic was under the direction of Privy Councillor Karl Bonhoeffer (1868–1948) (Neumärker, 2017) and, according to his autobiographical notes, he also began his psychoanalytic training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute.

In addition, Wittkower began working on his research to prepare for his professorial thesis on internal medicine. Later in 1935, he published his work in English (E. D. Wittkower, 1935) and the aforementioned book Der Einfluss der Gemütsbewegungen auf den Körper [The Influence of Emotions on the Body] in German (E. D. Wittkower, 1936).

During the last years in Berlin (from 1932 to 1933), Wittkower worked in the internal medicine and psychiatric university hospitals and held lectures on “the significance of psycho-physical connections for internal medicine; diagnosis and therapy of organ neurosis (hypnotic experiments and patient demonstrations).”⁴ His lectures were well attended. In contrast to the burgeoning anti-Semitism on the “outside,” Wittkower—according to his own testimonies—experienced no unrest in the lecture hall. Students allegedly took down swastikas for his lectures (see Appendix 1).

On January 30 in 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich. The Reichstag was dissolved on 1 February 1933, which was followed by the day of the so-called Jewish boycott on April 1, 1933, when posts of armed SA [“Storm Detachment”], “Hitler Youth,” and “Steel Helmet” regiments (Stahlhelme) were set up in front of Jewish stores, doctors’ offices, and law firms in order to hinder customers and clients from entry.

According to Wittkower's notes (see Appendix 1), a friend advised the couple to take “a long, very long vacation outside of Germany.” Already at the end of March in 1933, Eric and his wife Claire Wittkower took the advice and left Germany. In a letter to the Berlin medical faculty on April 21, 1933, Wittkower asked to take a leave of absence from lectures in the summer semester of 1933 to “conduct climatophysiological studies at the Swiss Research Institute in Davos,” which was immediately granted a few days later, on April 24. For six months, he worked for a small salary under Professor Adolf Loewy (1862–1937) at the “Swiss Institute for High Mountain Physiology and Tuberculosis Research” in Davos.

In September of 1933, Wittkower's teaching license was retroactively revoked as of April 7, 1933, pursuant to §3 of the law to restore the civil service [Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums]. After numerous attempts to gain employment in the Netherlands (Groningen), Sweden (Uppsala), Spain (Madrid), Switzerland (Geneva), England (London), and the USA (Chicago), the couple decided to leave for the United Kingdom.

United Kingdom

The “British Jewish Refugee Organisation” supported the Wittkowers and shortly after they arrived in London, Wittkower's former British citizenship was restored (see Appendix 1). Wittkower received a research fellowship at the Central Pathological Laboratory, which was assigned to Maudsley Hospital. The department, headed by Sir Frederick Golla (1877–1968) at that time, was mainly devoted to research on possible organic causes in mental illness. Wittkower, for example, investigated the respiration of schizophrenic patients and published his first article in English as early as 1934 (E. D. Wittkower, 1934). He rejected the hypothesis that schizophrenic psychosis was a cause of gonadal dysfunction and a reduction in testicular volume in affected patients.

Wittkower then moved to the renowned Tavistock Clinic, where he was awarded a Sir Halley Stuart Research Fellowship by the director at the time, John Rawling Rees (1890–1969). Despite earning this recognition, he had to take exams at the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in order for his German medical degree to be accredited.

During WWII, Wittkower was employed as an army psychiatrist in Edinburgh where he played a key role in developing an aptitude test as part of the selection process for officers, namely the War Office Selection Board (WOSB). After that he was transferred to Birmingham and to Northfield Military Hospital, formerly Hollymoor Hospital, which became known for the “Northfield Experiments.” These experiments constitute a milestone in the development of theory and practice of group therapy (Harrison & Clarke, 1992). The hospital was restructured into a teaching hospital and Wittkower took over tasks around organizing teaching and further education for both British and U.S. officers. In addition, Wittkower devoted further studies to those returning disabled from the war, invalids, and the traumatized, or in his words, “the one-eyed, the blinded, the amputees and, as the war approached its end, the emotional problems of soldiers suffering from dermatological disorders” (see Appendix 1).

Wittkower was discharged from the army at the end of WWII and moved back to London with his family, where he returned to the Tavistock Clinic and received a research grant from the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Through his research, he became acquainted with all the relevant sanatoriums in England. Wittkower then collaborated with Robert Merttins Bird MacKenna, who invited him to work in the dermatology department at Bartholomew's Hospital in London. MacKenna also enabled him to continue psychodermatological studies and provided him with his own practice on Harley Street: “Hence, for a while, I became a Harley Street specialist – striped trousers, black jacket, bowler hat, and umbrella. The standard of living for my family went up” (see Appendix 1). After numerous interruptions, Wittkower finally completed his psychoanalytic training at the London Institute of Psychoanalysis. He lectured at Maudsley Hospital and continued to work at Bartholomew's Hospital and at the Tavistock Clinic, at the interface between internal and psychiatric medicine.

In 1951, Ewen Cameron (1901–1967), director of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, sent Peter Edgell—a young psychiatrist—to London as a scout and ambassador so that he could learn psychosomatic medicine with Wittkower (Wittkower & Edgell, 1951). At the time, Cameron was looking for physicians trained in psychoanalysis to retain young psychiatric residents in Montreal and prevent a brain drain to the United States. In this context, Wittkower was hired by the Allan Memorial Institute. At the beginning of 1951, the family boarded the passenger ship “Île de France” in Southampton, which reached the port of New York on February 22 in 1951 (A. Wittkower, 2010).

Before explaining Wittkower's turn to transcultural psychiatry in Canada, we can point out that the role of the environment was already at stake in Wittkower's core research in the UK; besides, he changed his professional identity by becoming a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at the same time as he changed countries. But due to his dual nationality, he was racially discriminated against on both sides, as a Jewish scientist in Germany and a German émigré in England. At this point it can be assumed that these experiences shaped him greatly and paved the way for him to find a different approach to the question of culture. In Canada, following a suggestion from Cameron, he seems to have recognized that this question must be answered in a new kind of research.

A university career in Canada: McGill and the rise of transcultural psychiatry

Wittkower was recruited to teach clinical psychiatry due in part to his training as a didactic psychoanalyst. During his time in Montreal, he would make a considerable contribution to the education of young physicians and of psychoanalysts for the Canadian Society of Psychoanalysts, much like Alastair MacLeod, who was recruited shortly after Wittkower and also came from the British Society. In 1955, with Cameron's support, Wittkower created a transcultural psychiatry research unit (Bains, 2005; Delille, 2018; Jilek, 1983; Murphy, 1983) by bringing together medical doctors and social scientists like anthropologists Jacob Fried and Norman Chance. Cameron wanted to place the Allan Memorial Institute at the top of all university psychiatry departments in Northern America by covering all fields of research. Many American universities were bestowed with chairs in social psychiatry and first-rate researchers such as Alexander H. Leighton (Cornell University)—like Cameron, a student of Adolf Meyer—but also medical doctors and anthropologists such as Thomas A. C. Rennie, Marvin Opler, Leo Srole, and others. Furthermore, before Wittkower and Fried were able to establish their collaboration, already well-known cases of cooperation between anthropologists and psychiatric doctors existed: in the 1930s, for instance, Kardiner and Linton worked together in the context of a prominent research seminar organized at Columbia University, which contributed to the spread of the “Culture and Personality” movement. The intellectual aura of psychoanalysis had thus eased the dialogue between medical doctors and anthropologists, which is perhaps what caught Wittkower's attention and opened new horizons for him, beyond those of psychosomatic medicine.

In Wittkower's papers, culture was understood as an environment that could modify the way biological processes at the root of these pathologies express themselves. In this way, culture is an external environment like the internal physiological environment in biology. Essentially, this model was identical to Wittkower's explanatory model for psychosomatic medicine. In a book written while at McGill in 1953 (Wittkower et al., 1953, p. 15), he proposed an interactive model of the aetiology of skin diseases, wherein environmental factors were classified either as “internal” or “external.” This double conception of the internal environment and external cultural influences was possibly a mere analogy in a theoretical explanatory model. However, for someone like Wittkower, who lived in different cultural contexts like Germany, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and the Canadian province of Quebec, the impact of the cultural environment was also a personal experience: Wittkower had to quickly adapt to new environments because of National Socialism in Germany and World War II. Changing culture and language several times during his lifetime, and the sudden loss of friends and family, probably helped him to reorient his research on the role of the external environment in medicine, i.e., sociocultural factors. His experience was not only an academic one, but also a transnational, a transcultural, and a very personal one. As a specialist of psychosomatic medicine in different countries, there is no doubt that he was capable of grasping sociocultural differences.

The sessions at McGill took place at the Allan Memorial Institute in a medical context. Events, however, must be considered in strict chronological order as these sessions were still far from the paradigm of medical anthropology: though internationally recognized as a discipline today, medical anthropology was only beginning to emerge in the 1950s. Thus, it is necessary to quote Wittkower himself to better grasp his approach:

Cultural psychiatry concerns itself with the mentally ill in relation to their cultural environment within the confines of a given cultural unit, whereas the term transcultural psychiatry denotes that the vista of the observer extends beyond the scope of one cultural unit to another. (E. D. Wittkower, 1970, p. 162)

While this definition arrives late, it is nonetheless comparable to other propositions made by Wittkower and Fried in the 1950s in Culture and Mental Health (Wittkower & Fried, 1959), which was edited by Martin K. Opler. It is also comparable to propositions made in the 1960s (Delille, 2018, p. 286), which did not distinguish between the culture of an individual and the environment of a living organism. Thus, Wittkower's conception of transcultural psychiatry seems to be an extension of psychosomatic medicine, despite not being explicitly defined as such. Wittkower conceives that illness can present itself in different ways depending on a social group's cultural characteristics and introduces the idea of specific sociocultural unities, with research projects likely to go beyond these specificities. To encourage this kind of systematic analysis, he recruited several researchers, of which both Brian Murphy and Henri Ellenberger were named associate professors between 1958 and 1959 (Delille, 2017; Ellenberger, 2017, 2020). Cameron, however, never participated in their activities, as he was more interested in biological psychiatry projects. By now we know that some of his research was financed by the CIA (Marks, 1979) and did not respect any ethical values. Patients were chosen without their consent to test new substances. Was Wittkower aware of this? He never addressed the matter.⁵

Newsletter and teaching

The unit led by Wittkower and Fried rapidly gained international visibility and became well-known thanks to its newsletter: Transcultural Research in Health Problems. Launched in 1956, it still exists today as the journal Transcultural Psychiatry. This can be called Wittkower's master strike in the North American academic field, the act which allowed the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry to exist in the eyes of other scholars. Starting off as a simple mimeographed document, the newsletter had the function of centralizing and circulating information on transcultural psychiatry throughout the world: for the first time in an academic context and without a direct link to colonial administrations. These were falling apart due to the decolonization process in the world and many new states in Africa and Asia gaining independence. In relation to this, there was a definite will to reconsider mental illness in a transnational perspective, without a metropolitan center. The world nonetheless had geopolitical borders, modeled by the British and American sphere of influence (Delille, 2017, p. 42). These included the countries of Western Europe, their former colonies, and the former Axis powers (Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany) who had become American allies during the Cold War.

What did this newsletter contain? It included book reviews, statistics, conference announcements, and the beginnings of a local scientific production based on international research or from different communities in Canada. This newsletter, for the first time, centralized information about psychiatry at a global scale, such as in the former or last European colonies, in new independent countries in Africa (Ghana, Senegal, etc.) or Asia (India, Malaysia, etc.), but also in South America. For instance, English-speaking readers now became familiar with French-speaking innovative experiences and research findings in social and cultural psychiatry, like at Fann hospital in Dakar, through McGill's newsletter. As tools, journals first and foremost enable dispersed specialists to overcome geographical distances, scientific boundaries, and translation difficulties to create social ties. It is worth noting that even if the newsletter was published in French-speaking Quebec, it was written in English. It cannot, however, be claimed to be a purely English language journal: Guy Dubreuil, Francophone and director of the Université de Montréal's anthropology department, quickly took over from Fried to co-organize the publication in the 1960s with Wittkower and Ellenberger, a French-speaking psychiatrist who was on the drafting committee beginning in 1960.

These physicians and social scientists created a specialized lecturing program together, which was not considered to be a new academic discipline but rather an interdisciplinary curriculum. They did not seek to promote a kind of “transcultural therapy” distinct from classic therapy, despite the trend at the time for alternative forms of therapy (Dyck & Delille, 2020) in the context of American counterculture. The transcultural psychiatry curriculum integrated knowledge which emphasized quantifiable data (statistics), typical of an academic unit on the quest for legitimacy. The training of students in medicine, anthropology, and psychology was at the heart of the curriculum from the very beginning. The teaching brochure (Table 1) emphasized this interdisciplinary dimension.

Table 1.

Graduate Program in Transcultural Psychiatry, 1967.

Social Psychiatry: Application of sociological theory to psychiatry; principles of social psychiatry; sociopsychiatric research techniques. (20 hr)	H. B. M. Murphy
Clinical Aspects of Transcultural Psychiatry: Cultural influences on symptomatology; modification of therapeutic approaches in different cultural settings; indigenous therapies. (20 hr)	E. D. Wittkower et al.
Anthropological Approaches to Psychiatry: Application of anthropological concepts to psychiatry; use of psychiatric data in anthropology. (20 hr)	N. A. Chance & R. Wintrob
International Epidemiology of Mental Illness: Cultural variations in incidence and prevalence; survey and statistical techniques; validity of international comparisons. (20 hr)	H. B. M. Murphy
Transcultural Aspects of Administrative and Community Psychiatry: Cultural influences on demand for and attitude towards services; British, French, American and Caribbean models; incorporation of traditional healers in Africa and India. (20 hr)	M. Lemieux et al.

Note. This table has been previously published in earlier papers of one of the authors of this study (Delille, 2017, 2018; Ellenberger, 2017, 2020). McGill University Archives (Montréal): Graduate Program in Transcultural Psychiatry. Revised Version December 1967. 5085 RG: 32 C. 2244 Box 2.

Despite the department not awarding a specific diploma, the validation of courses in transcultural psychiatry was nonetheless recognized within the students’ curriculum and open to foreign interns (e.g., Japanese anthropologists).

In the beginning: Transcultural psychiatry's early research projects

From 1955, Wittkower began to send out questionnaires to all continents not only to collect data, but also to preserve and reinforce readership and identify McGill as an authoritative academic centre. These questionnaires initially concerned: 1) the universal character of mental disorders and cultural relativism, and furthermore contained questions on the objectives and the methods of transcultural psychiatry; 2) the question of consensus on the universality of schizophrenia; and 3) the expression of depression in different cultures. Wittkower's main objective was therefore to initiate and implement a network of correspondents likely to transmit scattered knowledge to his unit. Moreover, he wanted to develop a fruitful dialogue and create dynamic exchange activities across a wider research network.

Raymond Prince (1925–2012) witnessed the development of the transcultural psychiatry unit from the 1960s onward up to the early 21st century and produced an indicative list (Prince, 1995, p. 180) of the main active members at McGill for the first 10 years: Norman Chance, Henri Ellenberger, Brian Murphy, Juan Negrete, Raymond Prince, Jean-François Saucier, Ronald Wintrob and—last, but not least—Wittkower. Curiously, the list omits the anthropologists Fried and Dubreuil, and thus shows how the pieces of the story may struggle to fit together: differences in remembrance make for an uneven narrative. This underscores the importance of comparing archival documents with secondary literature without ever only trusting “ego documents,” whether from McGill (Prince, 2000, 2006) or elsewhere (Devereux, 1978).

A selection of reports made by Wittkower gives succinct and trustworthy information on different research projects launched in the 1950s and 60s.⁶ One of the first projects was by Jacob Fried, the anthropologist with whom Wittkower began the whole movement. His research project was to collaborate with a psychiatrist in Peru, Carlos Alberto Seguín (Lima). The fieldwork concerned the links between migration, cultural change, and psychosomatic disorders found in indigenous people. Another topic Fried outlined before pursuing a career in the United States concerned the modes of adaptation (or lack thereof) of Hungarian migrants in Canada. After his integration into the unit in 1959, Prince implemented a project in the late 1950s and the early 1960s on the treatment of mental illness by local healers (native practitioners) of Yoruba (Nigerian) origin, in relation with Leighton (Cornell-Aro Health Research Project). The goal was to obtain epidemiological data from techniques developed and perfected in Nova Scotia within the framework of the Stirling County Study, a very ambitious epidemiological study about the distribution of mental disorders. The aim of the project was to first establish the needs of the population for prevention and treatment, and second, to ascertain whether the questionnaires already used in Nova Scotia could be used in other cultures. It was thus the replication of quantitative techniques which was at stake, and following this project, Prince went on to work with Leighton in Nova Scotia. He therefore functioned as an intermediary between McGill and Cornell universities, much like the anthropologist Norman Chance. Prince also led research in Jamaica alongside a WHO project. He was the third director of the division after Wittkower and Murphy.

Brian Murphy (H. B. M. Murphy, 1915–1987) was a central figure (Delille, 2017, 2021, 2022; Ellenberger, 2017, 2020) of the unit and Wittkower's successor following his retirement. He led epidemiological enquiries into rural communities of Quebec (“Villages Study”, in collaboration with a psychiatrist from the Laurentides, Marcel Lemieux) and Ontario, with the aim of better understanding the sociocultural factors associated with schizophrenia. He also put together international studies, for example, with Hugh Sampath on the prevalence of mental illness and its sociocultural implications in the Virgin Islands (the Caribbean archipelago), and in Mauritius (Indian Ocean) with A. C. Raman.

Finally, the anthropologist Norman Chance led studies on the effects of cultural change in isolated Inuit communities and with Ronald Wintrob, psychiatrist and close collaborator, on the acculturation of Cree Natives to Western lifestyles. Wintrob was and still is a significant figure of transcultural psychiatry, in the United States and within international institutions.

As for the Francophones, Henri F. Ellenberger (1905–1993) is generally more widely recognized than the other protagonists mentioned above. He became the object of international critical acclaim for his monography on the history of psychiatry entitled The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (1970), a work which has been translated into several languages. However, it is little known that he was a doctor trained in Paris and that he was recruited by Wittkower in 1958–59 for a project entitled “The Impact of a Severe, Prolonged, Physical Illness of a Child upon the Family.” Before that he worked as a psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation (Topeka, Kansas), where he became acquainted with the anthropologist George Devereux (1908–1985), another central figure and adherent of complementarity between psychoanalysis and social anthropology. However, Ellenberger would go on to obtain the Chair of Criminology at the Université de Montréal in 1962 and Jean-François Saucier would continue his research project. Saucier would also undertake a study of intercultural marriages and their impact on the mental health of children, comparing French-Canadian and Irish-Canadian families. Despite the brevity of his activity at McGill, it was through collaboration with Wittkower that Ellenberger wrote the first synthesis on transcultural psychiatry in the French language. Published in 1965 by a Parisian editor, it has been the object of a recent critical edition (Ellenberger, 2017, 2020). Finally, Negrete and Dubreuil should not be overlooked. The former is a doctor who received a (partly) French-speaking education in Argentina and who came to specialize in psychiatry in Montreal after meeting Ellenberger, rapidly integrating Wittkower's unit to work on addiction with Murphy. Guy Dubreuil (1925–2014) was a Montreal anthropologist specializing in Quebecois society and an author of studies on Martinique, the relations between psychology and social anthropology, and even on the methodological aspects of transcultural psychiatry. Following Wittkower's retirement, he continued to collaborate with the McGill unit until the end of the 1980s (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Eric D. Wittkower (first from right) at one of his many interdisciplinary meetings.

© E. D. Wittkower family Estate. Reprinted with permission.

Culture-bound syndromes, psychiatric epidemiology, and the study of possession states

A culture's specific mental health issues and the relativity of symptoms in the West, compared to other ways of expressing distress and ill-being in non-Western cultures, were taken into consideration in projects implemented at McGill. In the newsletter, the example of depression is often referred to: it is associated with a strong sense of guilt in Western Protestant cultures and with somatic issues in others. During the post-war period, researchers were not yet explicitly referring to culture-bound syndromes, a concept which was progressively developed (Crozier, 2018) by the psychiatrist Pow-Meng Yap (1921–1971), professor at the universities of Hong Kong and Toronto; Yap's concept only received a glorious reputation posthumously. In the 1960s, Wittkower's results from transcultural studies were instead drawn from epidemiological techniques, following in the footsteps of Leighton's work. These “pioneers” of transcultural psychiatry attempted to emancipate themselves from the colonial dimension of European medicine from which they descended and to interrogate the conditions that would enable a comparison of cultures by analyzing the “real prevalence” (Murphy, 1982) of mental disorders in distinct social groups. While hospital statistics were not standardized enough throughout the world to compare them systematically, it was nonetheless possible to study other aspects carefully: the universality of schizophrenic psychoses, the sociocultural construction of hospital chronicity, the relativity of sub-categories of mental disorders and their frequency in different social groups. In short, the vanity of Western classifications was not taboo, even if major categories such as schizophrenia and depression were hardly overthrown.

Unlike Leighton and Devereux, Wittkower did not seek to publish anything innovative in the field, he did not forge any new concepts, nor did he incarnate the figurehead of a movement. He would limit himself to the role of team leader and pursue his activity as didactic psychoanalyst, which he continued until the end of his life. Only a handful of articles allow us to understand his interest in specific themes, such as states of possession and Voodoo, which ensued following a research trip to Haiti in 1962, or even magic. On this topic he collaborated with the American anthropologist Hazel H. Weidman (Wittkower & Weidman, 1969), who was one of the founders of medical anthropology in the 1960s and 70s alongside Dorothea Leighton, Alexander Leighton's first wife. As a didactic psychoanalyst and professor in the McGill Department of Psychiatry, Wittkower never became a “medical anthropologist”; his work has always been interdisciplinary in a broader sense. His principal collaboration in Montreal remained with anthropologist Guy Dubreuil, with whom he published academic papers, but no book or manifesto. Medical anthropology would take a more important place in Montreal in the 1970s and the 80s, after Wittkower's death, when a bilingual and interdisciplinary group of scholars called GIRAME published a newsletter in medical anthropology entitled: Santé, Culture, Health (1983–94), first led by anthropologist Guy Dubreuil and epidemiologist Brian Murphy (Corin & Bibeau, 1988).

Conclusion

Wittkower's career illustrates how emerging practices and discourses in public health over the course of the 20th century do not derive from scientific disciplines with clearly drawn boundaries right from the beginning. On the contrary, psychosomatic medicine and transcultural psychiatry have a great following and they are certainly not isolated cases. Both help to define the relationship between the body, the mind, and its environment through the intermediary of emotions and their sociocultural codification. Did Wittkower want to develop a new discipline? There is no real evidence of this. Rather, it has been shown that transcultural psychiatry was initially conceived as an interdisciplinary program, and that “transcultural” essentially meant “transnational.” Other scholars in medicine and the social sciences regarded Wittkower highly, not because he was a founder, but because he was good at networking and organizing teams, journals, and academic collaborations. Wittkower is a significant figure in that he was able to create networks, which obviously remains one of his major scientific achievements, impacting the field until today.

Another important aspect, generally ignored in historiography, is the proximity between Wittkower's unit in transcultural psychiatry at McGill and the scientific surveys of social psychiatry professors in the United States. Without minimizing the intellectual aura of psychoanalysis in post-WWII North American society, the notoriety of protagonists like Devereux acts as a smokescreen when in fact there were many more exchanges between Wittkower's unit and their alter-egos: social psychiatry professors. This story is yet to be written, as is the history of the complex relationships between different kinds of connected sciences at the time, like medical anthropology and psychiatric epidemiology, which would progressively emancipate themselves and obtain international academic recognition. Reciprocally it means for the history of transcultural psychiatry and its agents that they have always been dependent on other actors in mental health: psychologists, social scientists, therapists, and different kinds of subspecialists in medicine (like psychosomatic medicine). This interdisciplinarity is different in each context, be it in Montreal and or other places. These locations have different stories to tell about transcultural psychiatry and postcolonial medicine.

Finally, did Wittkower ever develop a critical position against colonialism and colonial medicine during his journey in transcultural psychiatry? This question is difficult to answer because one would hardly find an academic paper written by Wittkower about this issue. One reason could be that he himself came from a persecuted minority. To avoid over-interpreting this important matter without adequate archival sources, we can underline that a protagonist in Wittkower's team, namely Prince, constitutes a link between British colonial medicine in Africa (Nigeria) and the academic networks in transcultural psychiatry after decolonization. A historical analysis of Prince's papers will certainly help understand transcultural psychiatry at McGill, especially since Matthew Heaton's work on the history of Nigerian psychiatry (Heaton, 2013).

Biography

Christina Hennig, MD, is a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy and works in private practice in Berlin. She is doing her doctorate on the life and work of Eric D. Wittkower at the Research Unit for the History and Ethics of Medicine of the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy I, The University of Ulm/Centre for Psychiatry Südwürttemberg (Ulm/Ravensburg), Germany.

Emmanuel Delille, PhD, is a historian of science and medicine, researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch (Humboldt University, Berlin) and a lecturer at the Department of Contemporary History of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Recently he authored the critical edition of Henri Ellenberger's Ethnopsychiatry (McGill-Queens University Press, 2020) and Une histoire comparée de la psychiatrie (Éditions rue d’Ulm, 2021). He received a prize from the French Academy (Académie des sciences morales et politiques) for this achievement. He is interested in the history of scholarly networks and comparative history. He is currently researching the history of psychiatric epidemiology in France, Germany, UK, and Canada.

Thomas Müller, MD, MA, PhD, is Head of the Research Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Ulm's Centre for Psychiatry I/Centre for Psychiatry Südwürttemberg. He taught the history of medicine at the Free University of Berlin, Berlin's Charité University Clinic, and today teaches at the Universities of Ulm and Konstanz, FRG. Prof. Müller did his MD at Berlin's Charité in 1996, received a PhD in the History of Medicine from Greifswald University, and an MA in History/Cultural Sciences from Free University Berlin. Having passed Habilitation at Berlin's Charité in 2014, today he is part of the academic staff of Ulm University, where he received professorship in 2018. He is also curating the Wuerttemberg Museum of Psychiatry. His main research topics are the history of psychotherapies and psychiatry, comparative history of medicine, international transfer of medical knowledge and science, “Medicine and Jewry,” and the integration of the history of medicine into current curricula of medical education.

Appendix 1.

Some autobiographical notes: E. D. Wittkower, 1981

Edited and annotated by Christina Hennig, Emmanuel Delille and Thomas Müller

I was born in Berlin (Germany) on April 4th, 1899. My father, a merchant of German Jewish ancestry, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. My mother was of German Jewish Origin. Because my father was deeply attached to Britain, I was registered at birth as a British subject (birth certificate available). I had two sisters, Elsbeth, 12 years older, and Lilly (6 years older). Both sisters and their husbands perished in the holocaust. Their children escaped. The son of my sister Lilly was brought up by us. He served in the British Navy during wartime.

Because of my father's deep allegiance to Britain, emphasis was placed on British customs in my parent's household. The greatest expression of endearment which my father could give me was: “You have a real English face.” Both my parents were agnostic. Because my eldest sister was deeply religious, I was sent to a Jewish Sunday School where her husband taught. Until the Nazis came to power I experienced little anti-semitism. When the First World War broke out, a stormy period for my family started. My father was arrested and sent to prison as a British spy (although the little man had done no harm to anyone) and his three brothers, who had all been born in Scotland, were taken into an internment camp. I was expelled from school. At the request of my father the school principal (Schiller Realgymnasium) took me back. Another incident followed shortly. At one of the numerous victory celebrations I failed to participate in the singing of the National Anthem (because my singing voice is poor). Suddenly the school principal left his podium overlooking the audience and went straight to me, harshly ordering me to leave. “Raus,” he said, “wir wollen keine Engländer haben.”^a Again he agreed to my father's request to take me back on two conditions: that I drop my British citizenship and that I open my mouth rhythmically when the National Anthem was sung. Ultranationalism dominated my school life. For instance, our Latin essays had to end with the words “O dei immortales contunderent perfidos Albinos.” The patriotic goal taught to us was Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.^b I did well at school. An incentive for good performance might have been my lifelong competition with my cousin Rudolph who later became Chairman of the Department of Art History at Columbia University, New York. I probably differed from my class mates in my wide interest in the humanities and in my writing style. One of my teachers accused me of having my essays written by someone else; another compared me with Maximilian Harden, a writer who was very popular at the time.

After I had passed my Notabitur, I joined what was known as Hilfsdienst.^c I worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm InstituArticle l0 to 17 on my lte, Dahlem, which at the time was devoted to the study of the effect of poison gas on experimental – an extremely dangerous job. I must have done well because the authorities made tremendous efforts to defer my enlistment in the armed forces.

I was called up in the autumn of 1917 and joined the 70^th Infantry Regiment in Saarbrücken. I don’t think I was a great soldier. Because repeated examination by medical commission declared me g.v.h. (garnisonverwendungsfähig Heimat^d) I had no fighting experience.

On release from the Army I plunged with great enthusiasm into my medical studies. My fellow students nicknamed me Geheimrat.^e It was then that we had a foretaste of things to come. Graffiti in the men's washroom were full of antisemitic remarks. One ran: Um die Juden auszuroden exstirpe man die Hoden und den weiblichen Semiten sollte man den Spalt verbieten.^f I passed my physicum and Staatsexam with flying colours – magnum cum laude (documents lost).

I then went into internal medicine. The idea of going into practice never passed my mind. Still groping for my ultimate objective, I studied biochemistry and immunobiology. My interest in anaphylaxy – my M. D. thesis (document lost) led to my later research in bronchial asthma. I published my first scientific paper on a haemological subject in 1926 and a comprehensive monograph on a haemological disorder in 1926. Publications on biochemical and immunobiological subjects followed. Reprints of these publications are available.

It was customary in those days at German universities for a Jew, in order to be promoted, to write a number of papers which were signed by his non-Jewish supervisor as senior author. They were known as Judenarbeiten.^g Article l0 to 17 on my list of publications can be described as such. As a result I was made Oberarzt^h in 1929 (in charge of a ward). As mentioned before, shortly afterwards I was made Head of the Asthma Clinic.

The study of patients suffering from bronchial asthma impressed on me the importance of emotional factors for aetiology, participation, maintenance and relapses of disorders of the autonomic nervous system. Henceforth, and for many years afterwards, I devoted my clinical and research interest to the field of psychosomatic medicine. I am regarded as one of the founders – in fact the only surviving founder – of the psychosomatic movement. (See Weiner in G. Usdin's recent book Psychiatric Medicine. New York: Brunner / Mazel Publishers, 1977.)

It was then that I started my psychoanalysis, underwent training in psychiatry at the Psychiatric University Clinic (Geheimrat Karl Bonhoeffer) and applied for training in psychophysiology to Professor W. B. Cannon in Boston and Professor Pavlov in Leningrad. Unfortunately neither of them could take me. Both Cannon's and Pavlov's letter (handwritten) were lost.

The time had come to apply for my habilitation (Privatdozentur). When I asked the Director of our clinic, Geheimrat W. His, for permission to embark on it he told me that he did not like the Jews but if my thesis was three times as big and three times as good as that of a Gentile he would support me. For many months I worked hard on it, ably assisted by my fiancée who prepared tables and charts. The final test came. Dressed in tails, much too wide because borrowed, and clutching a top hat in my right hand, I had to face the assembled Medical Faculty. Perhaps because the subject of my thesis was unusual, I was severely cross-examined. My thesis was afterwards published in book form: Einfluss der Gemütsbewegungen auf den Körper (Sensen Verlag, Vienna). There were two editions. It was translated into English and appeared in the Journal of Mental Science.

Much later, again formally dressed as was customary, one Sunday morning l asked Geheimrat His for permission to marry and obtained it. He approved of my fiancée.

A copy of my thesis lies on the shelf at the back of the desk on which I am writing. It is an enormous tome. Opposite me on the mantelpiece stands a plaque with the features of Professor His whom, despite the above mentioned remarks, I greatly admired. He was a great man – cultured, gifted, erudite, and very kind to me. (He sent me a warm congratulatory letter on my establishment in England (letter lost).)

While I was facing the assembled Faculty of Medicine, my future wife was waiting at a little café nearby. “Have you failed?” she asked me, looking at my long face. “No, I said, but it won’t last long.”

My lectures on psychosomatic medicine were well attended – up to the uppermost row of the big amphitheatre. Though the Machtergreifung Hitler’s was near, I had neither riots nor antisemitic remarks. In facts, students removed their swastikas before attending my lectures. Eventually, in March 1933 the expected letter arrived telling me that “Zur Wiederherstellung des Berufs Beamtentums” (letter lost).ⁱ I had lost my position. A friend advised me to go on a long, very long holiday abroad. My wife and I left Germany towards the end of March 1933.

I found temporary employment with a small salary at the Swiss Institute for High Altitude Research (Professor A. Loewy). The shift I had to carry out was from psychophysiology to physiology. I wrote several articles on High Altitude research and joined Professor Loewy in writing a book on high altitude pathology, Oxford University Press.

Meanwhile I had written numerous letters to various countries regarding employment. I received encouraging replies from Holland (Groningen), Sweden (Uppsala), Spain (Madrid), Switzerland (Geneva), England (London), and the USA (Chicago). All these letters are lost. For obvious reasons I chose to go to England. We left Switzerland in September 1933.

In London, supported by a small grant from a Jewish Refugee Organisation, I worked at the Central Pathological Laboratory Maudsley Hospital. Soon after my arrival in England my British citizenship was restored. The laboratory at which I worked was devoted to the study of biological changes in psychiatric patients. In October 1934 I published an article entitled “Further Studies in the Respiration of Psychotics.” My next research assignment was to test Sir Frederic Mott's hypothesis regarding the aetiology of schizophrenia. Sir Frederic assumed that this illness was due to gonadal dysfunction. Professor Golla's suggested methodology consisted of taking casts of the testicles of schizophrenics and by filling the cast with water to compare any reduction in the size of the testicles indicative of atrophy. On theoretical and aesthetic grounds I was not keen on this project.

Professor Golla wrote, “I have been very much impressed by his indefatigable industry, He has a very wide knowledge of the application of physiological methods of neuropsychiatry” (Letter available at the Dept. of Psychiatry, McGill).

Consequently l decided to leave the Maudsley Hospital and join the Tavistock Clinic in London whose Director, Dr. J. R. Rees, had obtained for me a Sir Halley-Stuart Research fellowship. It was not much money, but it suited me to the ground. I had to pass my British medical degrees (LRCP, LRCS, LRFPS, Edinburgh, Glasgow). Our Scottish examiners were hard taskmasters. There were 121 refugee doctors. Only 21 passed. I was lucky enough to be one of them (certificate available).

The research work carried out under the auspices of the Tavistock Clinic consisted of personality studies of patients suffering from the same somatic disorder to whose aetiology and maintenance, in the eyes of intuitive physicians, emotional factors were relevant. Most of this work was done at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; some of it jointly with my friend A.T.M. Wilson. We soon became known as the psychosomatic twins. Especially the studies concerning Rosacea, ulcerative colitis, and psychogenic infertility had an impact. Psychosomatic medicine in those days was a virgin territory in England. Consequently we got much attention but also a good deal of opposition. One of the physicians with whom I worked was so enthralled by the collaboration with a psychiatrist that he convened monthly meetings between eminent physicians of most London Teaching Hospitals and a small group of us psychiatrists for an exchange of observations. These meetings were profitable for both groups (no documents available). All this came to an end when the war started.

I then received an invitation from Major Ferguson Rodger to continue psychosomatic research at Edinburgh Castle which was then a military hospital. A few months afterwards, no doubt on Major Rees suggestion, the Adjutant General of the Armed Forces, Sir Ronald Adams, asked me to develop an Officer Selection Scheme for the British Army. Dr. Rees, the previous Director of the Tavistock Clinic, had by then become Consultant in Psychiatry at the War Office. I was chosen for the task because of my experience in personality studies. A need for an Officer Selection Scheme had arisen because after Dunkirk, selection of suitable candidates on the basis of battle performance was no longer possible. The Adjutant General made it clear that selection of officers should henceforth no longer be confined to public school boys, but that suitable secondary schoolboys should be considered (verbal communication). To prepare me for the job I was posted to the Royal Scots Fusiliers as an RAMC officer, received through American sources information German officer selection procedures, and had the constant valuable advice of Sir Andrew Thorne, the Army Commander of Scotland. To test the validity of my appraisals, I was instructed to interview three samples, each 100, of officers at the Company Commander School in Edinburgh, and each report was compared by a neutral observer with the corresponding report by Colonel Buchanan Smith, Commandant of the School. The results of the comparisons were regarded as satisfactory. The Selection Scheme as I developed it, obviously with the help of many others, was in brief as follows: the officer candidate examined by a psychologist (for personality pointers), was interviewed for one hour by a psychiatrist, and was then tested by a Military Testing Officer (M.T.O.) for performance in the field. A trial then took place. If all members of the panel agreed, the candidate was passed; if not, further exploration took place. The presiding colonel had the final decision. The scheme was accepted and the first War Office Selection Board (WOSBI, Edinburgh) came into being. Plenty of praise was heaped on me, members of the Government and other VIPs visited us, and I felt that I had reached the peak of my life's achievement.

Dr. Rees wrote: “Early in the war Dr. Wittkower was responsible for devising the original technical details of the interviewing methods which were incorporated into the War Offices selection boards for the Army” (available at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University). The scheme of course ran into sharp opposition from representatives of vested interests. One day a certain general marched into our unit and was heard by one member of the unit to say, “I understand that all this work is done by a Hun. We don’t want to learn anything from the bloody Hun.” (This time it was the Hun was objected to.) He did not speak to me. Although I received a warm and friendly handwritten letter (unfortunately lost) from Sir Ronald Adams apologising for the general's behaviour, my position at WOSBI was no longer tenable and I was posted to Birmingham.

Northfield Military Hospital is probably the ugliest building an architect has ever designed. It was chosen by the military authorities because it was situated opposite the Austin works, an obvious target for bombing, so that our military patients continued to be exposed to wartime conditions. Redeeming features were: the presence of stimulating colleagues and, most important of all, the fact that it was turned into a Teaching Hospital. By this time the United States had entered the war and large numbers of young US officers, inexperienced in psychiatry and ignorant about military psychiatry, joined our Unit. My friend John Rickman and I organised the teaching and did some of the teaching ourselves.

New assignments awaited me at the War Office in London. Brigadier Osmond, in charge of the Venereal Disease Section, was concerned about the tremendous increase of V. D. among the troops. Assuming correctly that the rate of V. D. depends to some extent on indiscriminate promiscuity, I was instructed to explore this subject and to offer advice. Captain Cowan and I examined hundreds of soldiers suffering from V. D. all over England. The War Office memoranda presenting our observations got lost. A résumé of my findings has been published in the American Journal, Psychosomatic Medicine.

This was the time when London was subjected to air attacks by buzz bombs and rockets. The air bombardment was rather unpleasant.

Once at the War Office, my services were requested by other Departments. I studied the emotional problems of the one-eyed, the blinded, the amputees and, as the war approached its end, the emotional problems of soldiers suffering from dermatological disorders under Brigadier R. McKenna. I was privileged, together with Patricia Elton Mayo, to study the war blinded at work at a factory in Reading.

On my release from the Army I returned to the Tavistock Clinic and obtained a Research fellowship from the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis for the study of the emotional problems of tubercular patients. In pursuit of this information I visited sanatoria all over England. Two editions of my book A Psychiatrist looks at Tuberculosis have been published. Because it offered a psychiatric approach to institutional organizations, my paper on “The Psychological Aspects of Sanatorium Management” with Sir Geoffrey Todd has been regarded as a pioneer effort.

By the time my work on tuberculosis came to an end, Dr. R. McKenna asked me to join his Dermatological Department at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and to continue my psychodermatological studies. He also weaned me from exclusive preoccupation with research, allowed me to use his Harley Street office, and referred patients to me. Hence, for a while, I became a Harley street specialist – striped trousers, black jacket, bowler hat, and umbrella. The standard of living for my family went up.

Over the years my scientific reputation had grown. Because of it, Dr. Ewen Cameron, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University sent a young Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Edgell, to me for training in psychosomatic research. He must have liked being with me because on his return Dr. Cameron invited me to join his Department.

Looking back at the 18 years which I spent in England, I feel profound gratitude to that country but, as the following example shows, my opportunities were limited. On bidding farewell to the Dean at Bart's, he wished me well and said, “People of your race have greater opportunities on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and, of course, you will earn much more money.” When I met him many years later at a high level University meeting, he upbraided me for leaving Bart's.

Leaving England was hard for me and my family. It coincided with the completion of my repeatedly interrupted psychoanalytic training.

I arrived in Montreal in February 1952. To review the last 30 years is difficult because so much has happened.

1. I continued my interest in psychosomatic medicine. During the first two years of my new appointment I published two books on this subject. I became President of the American Psychosomatic Society and later President of the newly founded International College of Psychosomatic Medicine.

2. I helped set up the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, whose President I was in 1966. Much later I became President of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.

3. I shifted the main focus of my scientific interest from psychosomatic medicine to transcultural psychiatry, a field which previously had been little explored. This field concerns itself with the relevance of culture to the frequency, nature, course, and treatment of mental disorders in various parts of the world. Pursuance of this research implied close cooperation with social scientists at McGill University and at the University of Montreal. It also involved field research which I carried out in Haiti, Liberia, Senegal, and Nigeria. In Liberia I was made Honorary Paramount Chief of the Vai tribe (robe and cap available). Previous to reaching retirement age I was for many years Director of the Section of Transcultural Psychiatric Studies at McGill. Numerous studies and publications resulted from work in this area. In particular my work on magic and witchcraft together with Hazel Weidman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Miami, aroused a good deal of interest.

4. In 1956 I started editing a journal entitled Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review. This journal is published quarterly and presents overviews and reviews and abstracts of publications pertinent to our field of interest. I am still actively engaged in its preparation as its Editor in Chief.

5. In addition, I am one of the editors of numerous others journals concerned with either psychosomatic medicine or transcultural psychiatry, e.g. Revue de Medicine Psychosomatique, Journal of the Japanese Psychosomatic Society, Social Science and Medicine, Psychopathologie Africaine and the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.

6. Honours bestowed on me are listed in my curriculum vitae, e.g. Honorary Member of the Hellenic Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, of the Venezuelan Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, and of the German Society of Neurology and Psychiatry. A German book has been dedicated to me in honour of my 80th birthday. I am a Corresponding member of the Indian Psychiatric Association and of the Polish Psychiatric Association. I am a Life Member of the American and of the Canadian Psychiatric Associations. I have received Certificates of Honour for outstanding contributions from the International Association for Social Psychiatry and from the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. (documents available)

7. I have received and accepted invitations to lecture in many countries, e.g. Germany, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Italy, Holland, Senegal, Liberia, Nigeria, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, and have lectured at many prestigious research centres in the United States and Canada. At my latest visit to East Germany, my host, a student of mine before 1933, arranged for me to lecture in the same amphitheatre at which I had lectured before leaving Germany.

8. As an invited guest to a meeting in Czechoslovakia, Russian participants asked me to discuss with them the relative merits of psychosomatic medicine versus the Russian version of corticovisceral medicine. These discussions were continued at meetings in Madrid and in East Berlin. A late result of these meetings was a growing interest of the Russians in psychoanalysis, an interest which culminated in meetings in Tbilisi in 1978 and 1980. My disablement prevented me from accepting their invitation to these meetings.

9. As the years went by, I became more and more deeply rooted in McGill's academic life. Eighteen years ago I founded the interdisciplinary group at McGill which meets monthly and is attended by representatives of different disciplines, e. g. psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, literature, divinity, law, history, botany, marine biology, physiology, and engineering. The main criteria of selection of members is based on their interest beyond their own discipline. On each occasion, a member presents material from his own discipline for discussion.

I am now 82 years old. In 1972 I was made Professor Emeritus. In 1970 I became paraplegic after a disc operation. I still lead an active life, seeing patients, lecturing, editing, and writing books and articles. My last two books were published in 1976 and 1981.

• a. Translation: “Out, we do not want English people!”

• b. Translation: “It is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland.”

• c. Notabiturium: (in times of war) early matriculation examination for high school students who have been called up for military service; Hilfsdienst: Auxiliary Services Act (introduced 1916).

• d. Abbreviated “g. v. H.”, a statement of the troop doctor: garrison employable for home.

• e. Privy councillor.

• f. Translation: “To root out the Jews extirp the testicles and one should forbid the female Semites the crevice.”

• g. Translation: Jewish works.

• h. Translation: senior physician.

• i. Translation: Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.