The Shaping of Concepts in our Field: Gruenberg in the Hollingshead tradition

Some more material for those of you who must write your masters thesis, and want to learn more about psychiatric epidemiology and its roots. I have not seen any authoritative biography of Aaron J. Rosanoff (and I hesitate  to suggest the same about Holst of Norway because most of that work would be in Norwegian or perhaps Danish). Ernest M. Gruenberg is a noteworthy contributor as well. In contrast to Rosanoff and Holst, you would have people to interview who knew EMG well. I was lucky to have him as PDF co-mentor with Morton Kramer at Hopkins when I was an NIMH T32 fellow there. EMG (complementing Leon Gordis, Chair of Epidemiology) was my first 'boss' at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health until EMG retired as chair and Abraham Lilienfeld became my 'boss' in his capacity as 'Chair Pro Tem' of the mental hygiene department.

Hollingshead was Gruenberg's teacher. In this ASR essay, you will see Hollingshead working through application of epidemiology to schizophrenia, as well as some of the research issues that Gruenberg had on his mind before and during the years when I first met Gruenberg and Kramer on a visit to JHU in Spring 1977.

Some Issues in the Epidemiology of Schizophrenia

August B. Hollingshead

American Sociological Review

Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1961), pp. 5-13

Published by: American Sociological Association

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2090507

Hollingshead was Professor at Yale. EMG was his student and it was Ernie who taught me about ABH. Hollingshead had helped consolidate epidemiology and psychiatry credentials for Gruenberg after WWII.

Gruenberg, following MD studies at Hopkins, served in the US military during WWII ("Screaming Eagles"), parachuted on or around D-Day and got hung up on a tree, causing injury and disablement. Was captured and taken to POW camp behind enemy lines. Told me that his job as a POW was to make life miserable for his captors. (I found a 'Screaming Eagles' note on the internet. It mentions him and says he was taken away to a POW camp deeper in Germany for 'being bothersome and Jewish.')

(Later, I'll come back to some items from Gruenberg's childhood and the Ethical Culture movement that involved both his parents.)

I believe Ernie said he was taken as POW eastward toward what now is Poland, and then the German army retreated westward, moving quickly to escape arrival of westbound Russian troops. So quickly that Gruenberg and a few other POW were able to hide in a barn. Once the coast was clear, they headed eastward toward Moscow.

Here is what the Washington Post said about this 'adventure': Numerous stories circulated about the bravery and generosity of Soviet soldiers and average citizens. The Washington Post detailed the story of Captain Ernest M. Gruenberg, a paratroop surgeon, on D-Day. Upon escaping from a POW camp, Gruenberg and two other U.S. officers made the journey to Moscow in just fourteen days. Gruenberg recounted, “We hardly ever walked. Always there was a truck or train to haul us and no one ever asked for money or tickets. We were Americans and nothing, apparently, was too good for us. Everywhere people took us in. We rode in trucks and box cars but we made a grand entry into Moscow in the car reserved for Russian officers—free, of course.” The Soviets and Poles were so willing to share their meager food supplies that Gruenberg believed he gained back the twenty-five pounds he had lost in prison. (This is a link to a text file where you will find the story in its original context. I downloaded it and found no malware: https://goo.gl/wGROVu ).

From Moscow, Gruenberg was airlifted back to the States, where he finished out service in intelligence operations (origins of CIA).

EMG has been described as the first psychiatrist ever to receive formal training in epidemiology. I'm not sure about that. He never said it to me. Let'/s say "one of the first American psychiatrists to study epidemiology" and leave it there.

His studies with Hollingshead were during a Yale affiliation. Then came a migration to the New York State Mental Health Commission; support for research, close relations, and employment during his affiliation with the Milbank Memorial Fund; a post with the New York Psychiatric Institute. Eventual professorship at Columbia University until 1975. While at Columbia, he was asked to serve as consultant for a department chair search at Johns Hopkins and let himself be recruited to become 2nd chairman of the Department of Mental Hygiene. [The first mental hygiene department chair was Paul Lemkau, another Hopkins colleague who deserves a biographical note some other day. I had lunch with Paul once a week early on when I was Assistant Professor. He was coming to Baltimore weekly but spending most of his time at his place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He generously agreed to talk with us about the history of psychiatric epidemiology, his studies as a psychiatrist with Adolph Meyer, founder of the Hopkins psychiatry department, and how his career shifted from psychiatric hospital administration in the direction of the classic Eastern Health District studies in Baltimore.  (See Lemkau, PV. Notes on the development of mental hygiene in the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Bulletin of the History of Medicine35 (Jan 1, 1961): 169ff. ]

[There is a 1960s chapter in EMG's life I don't know much about, which involved his work with Robert J. Slater and the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children. AACC was later re-named Foundation for Child Development after polio vaccine and other developments changed the concept of the 'crippled child' and required new directions.]

Notes for later follow up on Ernest M. Gruenberg's family:

Benjamin Charles Gruenberg, father of EMG, noted science educator.

Introduced science curriculum in NYC public schools.

Author: "Elementary Biology: An Introduction to the Science of Life."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.3730500123/abstract

Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg, mother of EMG, noted leader of Child Study Associaiton of America

Author: Your Child Today and Tomorrow (1912): concept of "an allowance" for child

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_07935.html

and

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gruenberg-sidonie-matzner

and

http://tinyurl.com/hk3e7o6

( I recall from a long time ago seeing correspondence letters between Hopkins' SHPH founder Popsy Welch and SMG in Welch's archives in the Chesney collection. I will have to track those letters down.)

This biography of EMG can be found on the Alan Mason Chesney Archives web page of the Welch Library at Hopkins: "Ernest M. Gruenberg was born in New York City. He received his A.B. in 1937 from Swarthmore College and his M.D. in 1941 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He served in the United States Army during World War II, spending seven months as a prisoner of war after the invasion of Normandy. After the war, Gruenberg was an assistant in the department of psychiatry and mental hygiene at Yale University, where he later earned additional graduate degrees in public health. From 1949 to 1954, Gruenberg was the executive director of the New York State Mental Health Commission. During the late 1950s, he was on the staff of the Milbank Memorial Fund and served with the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Gruenberg then joined the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and held that post until 1975, achieving the rank of professor. He then came to the Johns Hopkins University, where he was professor and chairman of the department of mental hygiene in the school of hygiene and public health until his retirement in 1981. He held a joint appointment in psychiatry in the school of medicine. Gruenberg distinguished himself as a mental health epidemiologist and a pioneer in community mental health."

 http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/papers/gruenberg.html 

#Gruenberg
#Yale
#schizophrenia