A. E. Bennett, Psychiatry Papers
Title: A. E. Bennett,
Psychiatry Papers
Creator: Bennett, Abram Elting, 1898-
Dates: 1926-1978
Quantity: 5 boxes (2.5 linear
feet)
Collection Number: RG 20-11-01
Language: English
Restrictions: None
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Historical Records Statement: Please see our statement on historical records and materials.
Preferred Citation: A. E. Bennett, Psychiatry Papers (RG 20-11-01). Archives & Special
Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
Biography:
A.E. Bennett was born on 12 January 1898 in Alliance, Nebraska. He graduated from the
University of Nebraska with a bachelor's of science degree in 1919, and from the
University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1921. He interned from 1920-1921 at
the University of Nebraska Hospital, and from 1922-1923 at the Philadelphia General
Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His residency was at the Philadelphia
Orthopedic Hospital and Nervous Infirmary and at Johns Hopkins' Phipps Psychiatric
Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland.
Bennett practiced medicine at Clarkson Memorial Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska from
1924-1948, specializing in neurology and psychiatry. He was also on the University
of Nebraska College of Medicine faculty from 1928-1947. In 1945, he began the A.E.
Bennett Neuropsychiatric Research Foundation. When Clarkson's psychiatry department
closed, Bennett moved to Berkeley, California, working at the Herrick Memorial
Hospital and as a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Berkeley.
The tragic death of Foster Bennett, one of Bennett's three children, inspired the
Foster Bennett Memorial Lecture Series. Bennett died March 7, 1985.
A.E. Bennett was a member of the American Psychiatrists Association (APA), American
Medical Association (AMA), American Neurological Association, and was an AMA
National Board Medical Examiner. He received AMA awards for science exhibits in
1940, 1946, and 1958, and developed medical uses of curare, a tribal poison and
curative. Bennett pioneered modern therapy for the mentally ill and researched
effects of alchoholism on the brain.
Scope and Content:
The Bennett papers document roughly the fifty years of Bennett's academic career and
his research and publications related to his interests in neuropsychiatry,
alcoholism and it's effects on the brain, and the use of curare as medicine.
Documents include correspondence, exhibit photographs, articles written by Bennett
and materials associated with his professional activities.
Subjects:
Bennett, Abram Elting, 1898-
Alcoholism
Alcohol -- Physiological effect
Brain damage
Curare
Neuropsychiatry -- History
Psychiatry
Psychiatric nursing
Hospitals
Series Description:
Series 1: Professional Research and Correspondence, Box 1This series includes professional research and correspondence. The overall
content relates to Bennett's professional work on psychiatry and neurology,
with supplemental personal correspondence to and from his colleagues. The
correspondence is arranged chronologically, though related letters or
letters of reply do not follow chronological order.
Series 2: Publications, Exhibits, and Presentations, Box 2-Box 3, F6, Box 4This series includes a copy of a "Who's Who in the
World" application letter, with a detailed sketch of Bennett's
life through 1978. Photographs related to Bennett's exhibit entitled "The History and Development of Modern Psychiatric
Nursing," provide historical pictorial views of psychiatry from
the primitive period to modern times. All photographs relating to this
exhibit are housed in Box 4. Selected presentations were captured on
reel-to-reel tapes. These tapes are housed in Box 4 of the collection and
listed by title. A biography of Foster Bennett, M.D., written by Bennett, is
a poignant two-page illumination of his son's life and the rationale for the
Foster Bennett Memorial Lectures founded in 1969. This is located with the
A.E. Bennett Neuropsychiatric Research Foundation materials in the
professional research and correspondence.
Series 3: Personal Materials, Box 3In addition to practicing medicine, Bennett wrote letters to celebrities who
demonstrated opinions discordant with his own. There are letters to
presidents Richard M. Nixon, regarding his proposed deficit spending
program, and Jimmy Carter about his "Marxist
administrative policies." Also included is a heated letter to Merv
Griffin about a program on the death penalty. The collection also includes a
response letter from Ronald Reagan, which states: "I must confess, it is impossible for me to recall the circumstances in
the signing of that bill." All of these letters are located with
the correspondence found within Bennett's personal materials.
Container List:
Series 1: Professional Research and CorrespondenceBox 1. Folder 1. Research, "Fifty Years in Neurology and
Psychiatry," 1926-1975, undated
Box 1. Folder 2. Research, Charles "Boss" Kettering, 1933, 1943, 1956, 1958, undated
Box 1. Folder 3. Research, fever therapy, 1935-1938, 1940-1941, undated
Box 1. Folder 4. Research, Clarkson Memorial Hospital Psychiatric Department
closing, 1936, 1938-1939, 1942, 1945-1948, 1956-1957,
undated
Box 1. Folder 5. Research, curare-metrazol therapy, 1939-1940
Box 1. Folder 6. Research, curare, 1939-1940, 1943, 1945, 1947-1948, 1953,
undated (see also photographs in box 4)
Box 1. Folder 7. Research, muscular dystrophy, 1940-1941
Box 1. Folder 8. Research, Bennett Neuropsychiatric Research
Foundation, 1947, 1953, 1958-1959, 1966-1967, 1970,
1973-1974, 1979, undated
Box 1. Folder 9. Research, cortisone, 1950, undated
Box 1. Folder 10. Research, "alcoholism and the
brain," 1953, 1956, 1958, 1977, undated (see also photographs in box 4)
Box 1. Folder 11. Research, Foundation for Research and Education on Eugenics and
Dysgenics (FREED), 1969-1974, 1977, undated
Box 1. Folder 12. Correspondence, meetings, presentations, circa 1929-1978
Box 1. Folder 13. Correspondence, AMA, 1934, 1936, 1938-1939
Box 1. Folder 14. Correspondence, fever therapy conferences, 1935-1938, 1940-1941, 1943
Box 1. Folder 15. Correspondence, APA, various, 1940-1943, 1963, 1967-1968, 1977
Box 1. Folder 16. Correspondence, papers, APA reorganization, 1948-1949, undated
Box 1. Folder 17. Correspondence, lists, APA breakfast, 1968, undated
Box 1. Folder 18. Correspondence, reprint requests, 1927-1959
Series 2: Publications, Exhibits, and PresentationsBox 2. Folder 1. Publications, reprint requests, 1927-1959
Box 2. Folder 2. Publications, newspaper articles, 1922-1978
Box 2. Folder 3. Publications, paper and article responses, 1933-1978
Box 2. Folder 4. Publications, paper, "fever
therapy," 1922-1947, undated
Box 2. Folder 5. Publications, unpublished papers, 1950-1978
Box 2. Folder 6. Publications, unpublished papers, undated
Box 2. Folder 7. Publications, books and article announcements, 1955, 1972, 1977, undated
Box 2. Folder 8. Publications, preliminary papers, drafts, circa 1967-1970, undated
Box 2. Folder 9. Publications, reprints, 1923-1939, undated
Box 2. Folder 10. Publications, reprints, 1939-1948, undated
Box 2. Folder 11. Publications, reprints, 1948-1951
Box 2. Folder 12. Publications, reprints, 1952-1959
Box 3. Folder 1. Publications, reprints, 1960-1965
Box 3. Folder 2. Publications, reprints, 1965-1969, undated
Box 3. Folder 3. Publications, reprints, 1970-1976, undated
Box 3. Folder 4. Exhibit, Modern Psychiatric Nursing, 1937-1939, undated (see also photographs in box 4)
Box 3. Folder 5. Publications, "Letters to the
Editor," 1965, 1967-1973, undated
Box 3. Folder 6. Publications, other writers, 1939, 1943, 1945-47, 1961, 1971, 1973,
undated
Series 3: Personal MaterialsBox 3. Folder 7. Correspondence, practice offers, 1920, 1928, 1933, 1938, 1940,
undated
Box 3. Folder 8. Correspondence, Musser, J. H., 1922-1941
Box 3. Folder 9. Correspondence, Morgan, A.C., 1926-1940
Box 3. Folder 10. Correspondence, Ziegler, Lloyd, 1930-1945
Box 3. Folder 11. Correspondence, Simpson, Walter M., 1934-1973
Box 3. Folder 12. Correspondence, Alvarez, Walter, 1940-1978
Box 3. Folder 13. Correspondence, personal, 1925-1953
Box 3. Folder 14. Correspondence, personal, 1961-1977
Box 3. Folder 15. Correspondence, "important
events," 1932, 1934-36, 1943, 1970-1974
Box 3. Folder 16. Correspondence, "important
people," 1935-1975
Box 3. Folder 17. Correspondence, "important
people," 1966-1977
Box 3. Folder 18. Medical newsletters, misc., 1947-1978
Box 4. Folder 1. Photographs, Ecuador (see related material in Box 1, Folder
6)
Box 4. Folder 2. Photographs, "alcoholism and the
brain" (see related material in Box 1, Folder
10)
Box 4. Folder 3. Photographs, psychiatry, primitive period (see related material in Box 3, Folder
4)
Box 4. Folder 4. Photographs, psychiatry, classical period (see related material in Box 3, Folder
4)
Box 4. Folder 5. Photographs, psychiatry, transitional period (see related material in Box 3, Folder
4)
Box 4. Folder 6. Photographs, psychiatry, modern period (see related material in Box 3, Folder
4)
Box 4. Folder 7. Photographs, modern hospital (see related material in Box 3, Folder
4)
Box 5 . Audio-visual materials, presentations, reel-to-reel
recordings, 1959-1970Item 1. Recording, Berkeley City Commons Club, "Repressive Sex Laws," 1959, Feb.
Item 2. Recording, Berkeley City Commons Club, "Alcoholism," 1962, Nov. 16
Item 3. Recording, APA, "Alcoholism and the
Brain," 1964
Item 4. Recording, Berkeley City Commons Club, 1969, June 15
Item 6. Recording, Berkeley City Commons Club, "Behind the Iron Curtain," 1970, Nov. 8
Related Material and Resources: Bennett, A.E. and Avis B. Purdy. Psychiatric Nursing
Technic. Philadelphia, F. A. Davis Company, 1940.______________, Eugene A. Hargrove, and Bernice Engle. The
Practice of Psychiatry in General Hospitals. Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1956.______________. Fifty Years in Neurology and Psychiatry.
New York, Intercontinental Medical Book Corp. [1972]_______________. Alcoholism and the Brain. New York:
Stratton Intercontinental Medical Book Corp., c1977.Additional material on Bennett's curare research may be found at the Arthur E. Guedel
Memorial Anesthesia Center and Archives in San Francisco, California. This
collection includes Bennett's fifteen minute black and white silent film of the Gill
Merrill expedition to Ecuador for curare. It also includes photographs and
correspondence from and to Bennett about curare techniques. |