A History of
The American College of Neuropsychiatrists
(An Osteopathic Institution)

By
Floyd E. Dunn, D.O., F.A.C.N., F.A.A.M.D

Although formally incorporated under the laws of the state of Missouri in 1939, the beginnings of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists go back much earlier. It could be said that the organization of Osteopathic neurologists and psychiatrists began with the opening of the Still-Hildreth Osteopathic Hospital at Macon, Missouri, prior to the start of World War I. In the early years, Dr. L. VanHorn Gerdine did the psychiatric evaluations on the patients admitted, at the same time that that he taught Psychiatry at the Des Moines and the Kirksville osteopathic colleges. He was the neuropsychiatrist who oriented Dr. Arthur Hildreth and Dr. Harry Still (the founders of the hospital which was first called the Still-Hildreth Sanatorium) in the discipline, and he was also the mentor of Dr. Herman P. Hoyle who became Still Hildreth’s Chief Psychiatrist. Gerdine, himself had been psychiatrist-in-chief for the first nine years of the institution’s growth. In 1923, Dr. Gerdine moved to California where he became professor of Neuropsychiatry at the College of Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons in Los Angeles. This man, who had received his M.D. degree from Rush Medical College, and his D.O. degree from the old Massachusetts College of Osteopathy, did more than any other D.O. to initiate into the disciplines of neurology and psychiatry those people who, in the mid-thirties began the foundation work, which resulted in the founding of our College.

In addition to Still-Hildreth Hospital in Mid-America, the profession was fortunate to have an Osteopathic Psychiatric Hospital on each coast. In California there was the Merrill Sanatorium under the direction of Dr. Edward S. Merrill, in the seaside town of Venice. In Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia suburb of Willow Grove, there was a small private osteopathic hospital operated by Drs. Dufur and Fuller.

It was the summer of 1936 that the real foundations, of what was to become the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, were laid. On their way to the A.O.A. Convention in New York City, a small group of people who were then recognized as neuropsychiatrists gathered to discuss items of mutual interest and submitted to the Attorney General of the state together with a petition for incorporation as a not-for-profit organization. At this time the Board of Trustees of the American Osteopathic Association was again petitioned to officially recognize the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, and at the Annual Meeting of the American Osteopathic Association in Dallas, Texas June 26-30, 1936 recognition was accorded. The Board also granted to the A.C.N. the authority to set standards for specialists in Neurology and Psychiatry within the profession, and granted recognition of the Degree of Fellow when bestowed properly upon doctors who had filled the minimum requirements for that Degree. Letters of invitation were sent to every physician in our profession who was known to be practicing neurology and/or psychiatry, offering them the opportunity to submit their credentials and applications for charter membership in this new College, which was to become, by official A.O.A. Board action, the standard-bearer and the standard-setter for physicians practicing those two related disciplines.

The following seventeen Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons met the requirements and were made Charter Fellows of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists:

Almost immediately it was decided to establish a medium of communication among this small group and under the Editorship of “Tommy” Meyers, the Bulletin of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists was founded as a quarterly mimeographed publication. The first edition is reported to have consisted of two mimeographed pages. Unfortunately this author has been unable to locate any of these early issues: many things originally preserved in our Archives was lost in one of three cross-country moves of the “Central Office” of our American College of Neuropsychiatrists. The earliest issue in my possession is that of October 1946, the year that I was accepted into “Associate” membership (as it was then termed) along with seven other people who were then in graduate training programs, either Fellowships of Residencies. The others were Robert Cross, Donald Littlefield, Ralph McRae, Anthony Di Nolfo, Sherwood Nye, Charles Norton, Donald Pinder, and Robert Thomas. That year I was also appointed editor of the Bulletin.

Until that year procedures for examination of candidates who desired recognition, as specialists in neurology and/or psychiatry had been somewhat informal, and had largely amounted therefore to certifying “on record” those who were known to have been practicing neurology and/or psychiatry as a specialty for at least five years. At the New York City Annual Meeting, a Committee was appointed consisting of Chairman K.G. Bailey, J.L. Fuller, and J.F. Smith with the task of revising the procedures for examination. At this same meeting, Dr. Grover N. Gillum was appointed Chairman of the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry, with Thomas J. Meyers as Secretary-Treasurer. It is presumed (and I know I met with them when I took my own certifying exams in Neurology and Psychiatry) that Drs. K.G. Bailey, J.L. Fuller, and J. Francis Smith were the other members of the Board.

Dr. “Tommy” Meyers was being recognized at the A.O.A. levels during this period, as representative from the A.O.B.N.&P. to the Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists, and in 1955 that Board recognized his abilities by making him its Chairman: a position he held for a number of years. Meanwhile as A.O.B.N.&P. Secretary-Treasurer he was an important assistant to the Committee appointed in 1946 to redraft and revise the certifying procedures.

It should be pointed out at this time that when the College was founded, everyone who was accepted into full membership was automatically certified in neurology, or in psychiatry, or in neuropsychiatry (later altered to read neurology and psychiatry at the option of the certificant) according to the documented type of the applicants’ specialty practices. With certification, the recipient was considered for the Honor of the Degree of “Fellow”; and the Degree was bestowed upon each of the original Charter members with the provision that within five years they present to the College an original paper suitable for publication of at least 15,000 words dealing with some area in the fields of neurology and/or psychiatry. It should be remembered that at least up until the mid-forties the practice of certifying physicians in neurology and/or psychiatry “on record” was continued by our allopathic colleagues. It is to the eternal credit of out College that the Charter members recognized so early that we would have to establish more rigid standards than the “old school” practice if we expected the public and governmental agencies to recognize our certification in neurology and in psychiatry. After that meeting no D.O.’s were certified on record. I believe that the first D.O. to be certified by examination (there is a possibility that Dr. “Randy” was also examined but he is deceased, so I can’t ask him, but I do know that he became a “Charter” Fellow).

Which brings us to another point of early changes in rules and procedures of the college. It was decided that the title “Fellow” ought not be merely equivalent to certification, but rather should be reserved as an Honor to be accorded by those who were already Fellows to those certified men and women of the college who had initially made outstanding and continued contributions to this College and/or specialties of neurology and/or psychiatry. Consequently, the Committee appointed at this historic meeting in New York City revised the section on “Fellows” to incorporate the concept that Fellowship in this College (and recommendation to the Board) in recognition of outstanding and continued contribution to the college and the fields of neurology and/or psychiatry. This change was made not only as a result of mature reflection on the part of the Founders of the College, but also because A.O.A. officialdom had questioned the propriety of making Fellowship synonymous with certification: they felt we should, as had the College of Surgeons, reserve the Degree “Fellow’ as the signal honor to be bestowed by those who were already Fellows only upon those who had made themselves outstanding in their profession through their achievements and service after they had achieved certification.

During the years of World War II the young American College of Neuropsychiatrists had survival problems: travel was difficult; everyone was preoccupied with the War and efforts to win it; college enrollment was down, hence there were fewer new graduates to be considered for graduate training; our osteopathic colleges went on an “accelerated schedule” (four years of osteopathic medical education compressed into three) which was as exhausting for those who were teaching as for those who were students, and left little time for outside organizational activities; in 1946 there was no A.O.A. National Annual meeting, consequently no Annual Meeting (except by telephone) of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists; the diminished number of graduates, after a nine-month internship tended to get into family practices where they were fairly sure of deferment because of being “an essential occupation.” Fortunately my own local Draft Board saw fit to defer me as being “essential,” although this also resulted in being thrust into heavy responsibilities immediately upon being certified, in 1946.

Actually, I was given a teaching load before I was examined for certification. In 1945 my chief, Dr. Fred M. Still called me into his office one day and said, “Floyd, I want you to teach Psychiatry at Kirksville next semester”. He was then Professor of Psychiatry at that Osteopathic College, but said candidly that he wanted to unload some of his responsibilities. Well, he was my chief—how could I say “No”? So I was thrust into an academic career before I know how great the burden was and how small would be the reward. But I truly welcomed the opportunity to be a voice in a teaching faculty and I used that opportunity—especially when, the next term my chief said, “They want you to teach Neurology, too”.

So by the beginning of the 1946-1947 year class term at Kirksville, I had persuaded the President and the faculty to allow me to revise and enlarge the teaching of Neurology and Psychiatry at that institution. According to a News item in the October 1946 issue of the Bulletin of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, “the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry has been greatly reorganized. We are maintaining two courses of 36 hours each in clinical psychiatry and clinical neurology. We have added 36 hours of neuropsychiatric presentation clinics at which we review clinical cases having a neurological and/or psychiatric aspect and present the patient wherever feasible. Two new courses are planned for the pre-clinical years. The first is an 18-hour course of lectures and recitations dealing with the Principles of Neuropsychiatry. –The second course will be concerned with psychosomatic medicine. —We also plan to include during the clinical service of our senior students three weeks of neuropsychiatric externship (clinical clerkship) at Still-Hildreth Osteopathic Sanatorium. The College Hospital is adding to its Intern Training Program six weeks’ neuropsychiatric service at S.H.O.S.”

“In the field of Graduate Training we are planning the following program:

1. The creation of a Fellowship in Neuropsychiatry for the first year of Post-graduate Training. At the end of the first year, if he has fulfilled the requirements of the fellowship and receives approval of the Department he becomes eligible for Junior Residency.

2. The creation of a Junior Residency in Neurology or Psychiatry (as the graduate student elects and with the approval of the Department) which will continue training in the specialty self selected, with the object of qualifying the trainee for a third year of residency and eventual qualification for certification.

3. The creation of a Senior Residency in Neurology of Psychiatry (conditions as above) during which the graduate student will complete his specialty training and become eligible for examination for certification in his chosen specialty.”

With the completion of this reorganization, it will provide training in neurology and psychiatry which will compare favorably with that afforded by some of the best medical schools. The idea of a neuropsychiatric externship is somewhat on the experimental side but has been successfully tried, I believe, in one or two medical schools.”

This was the first time that osteopathic students anywhere had been given an opportunity to study and work with in-patients in a Psychiatric Hospital. And by the following year, Medical Psychology had been added to the curriculum, so that the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine was the first osteopathic college to teach a course under the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry in each of the four years of the curriculum. I am certain that it was the success of these teaching innovations that led to my being honored so relatively early with the Degree, “Fellow,” by the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

The October 1946 issue of the Bulletin also carried an editorial by Thomas J. Meyers, D.O. F.A.C.N., which is reproduced below. Note that “Tommy” wrote of ‘future Fellows’ and the importance of keeping them free from criticism. He wrote of the ‘prejudice’ against psychiatry, and of the need for ‘mastery of self beyond that of any (other) channel of human behavior’. He wrote of the need for every prospective psychiatrist to have a personal analysis ‘or at least have his personality thoroughly inventoried’. And lastly he wrote that the responsibility of this ‘teaching program rests upon the shoulders of the Fellows of this College. It is a matter of personal efficiency to see that it is well handled and to demand that poor training be corrected’.

 

Editorial

The American College of Neuropsychiatrists is the bulwark within the Osteopathic profession against inadequate and poorly prepared service in neurology and psychiatry. The honor coincident with fellowship is a distinctive one and must be earned. In a world population of approximately 10,000 osteopathic physicians only seventeen have been so honored. There may be criticism of some of these seventeen, largely because they were recognized on a charter basis, but there must never be a route for criticism of any future fellows. It is the duty of every fellow and associate of the A.C.N. to work unceasingly to maintain the high requirement level of professional knowledge and skill that prevails at the present time. In none of the specialties of our profession has as much thought, planning, and sacrifice gone to make available the best at our command for the training of candidates for recognition, as in ours. Everyone can do something to help keep this standard. No one should try to lower or exempt any of the requirements, for to do so would reflect directly on that one. Most of all, however, we can do our bit by the excellence of our publications. Whenever any studies are submitted for print they should bear evidence of thorough knowledge and study of the subject and if possible add some bit of information to the store of data on the subject.

The teaching of neuropsychiatry is a responsibility that must not be taken lightly. This applies to undergraduate as well as graduate teaching. The groundwork for a respect and appreciation of these specialties is laid in the undergraduate years. Much of the prejudice against psychiatry that is widespread among physicians today is a result of the impression left with the medical student before graduation. Modern teaching requires clinical facilities. This is especially true of graduate study, but also applies to the undergraduate year. The acumen that is necessary in the specialist can be acquired only by long months of tedious drill and by a constant parade of clinical entities before the student. Psychiatry especially requires a change in mental attitude and its skills involve a mastery of self beyond that of any channel of human endeavor. It is usually advised that the prospective psychiatrist be psychoanalyzed or at least have his personality thoroughly inventoried. But this is not enough, for the mechanics of successful treatment are based upon the acquisition of a passive attitude toward the therapeutic situation, coupled with enough aggressiveness to move when the opportune moment presents itself. These are aspects that cannot be learned from books, or by just seeing patients. They require prolonged practice and a ready ability to recognize one’s own shortcomings and errors. Neurology, perhaps as much as any field of medicine, is a science of exact diagnosis that can be mastered only by a perfection of detail. In many instances this is acquired only by long painful application to elementary principles.

The responsibility of this teaching program rests upon the shoulders of the fellows of this college. It is a matter of personal efficiency to see that it is well handled, and to demand poor training be corrected.

Thomas J. Meyers, D.O.

 

Other colleges of osteopathic medicine soon began to revise, modernize, and expand their departments of neurology and psychiatry. The next to report change was the Kansas City College, where Grover N. Gillum headed the department. An item in the January 1947 Bulletin reported that the department there had been “expanded and brought into line with the recommendations of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.” The first Fellow in the department, Dr. Ralph I. McRae had begun his graduate training program. Ralph was destined to head the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry at the Des Moines College following his certification, and later to become President of the A.C.N.

By 1948, recognition and respect for the American College of Neuropsychiatrists by those in the official family of the American Osteopathic Association had grown to the degree that we were invited to present, at the A.O.A. Annual Sessions in Boston, “the most ambitious program yet attempted, under the Chairmanship of Dr. Floyd E. Dunn”, according to the June 1948 issue of the Bulletin. The program consisted of a one-day symposium on neurology and a three-day symposium on psychosomatic medicine.

Of great interest, especially in retrospect, is a short item by Editor Thomas J. Meyers in the same June 1948 issue of the Bulletin, quoted here in part:

“One of the most discussed books of the day is Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”. The consensus seems to be that it is not suitable for general reading by layman. The publishers, W.B. Saunders are criticized for their departure from advertising in medical and scientific journals and, through general advertising, creating a “best-seller”. Quoting from Good Housekeeping, May 1948- “The Book, as stated in the publisher’s foreword, ‘is intended primarily for workers in the field of medicine, biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology and for teachers, social workers, personnel officers, law enforcement, and others concerned with the direction of behavior…’ This book had as little right to be freely available to adolescents as the use of alcoholic beverages… As they have not reached the age of discretion, why should minors be permitted easy access to a report the real significance and intention of which will escape them and only the astonishing revelations of which will register an impression?” It is announced that a companion book on female sex behavior by the same author is in preparation. The writer in Good Housekeeping, authorized by the editors, ask that persons who feel that such a book should not be advertised and made available to the general public, write their opinions or protests and send them to Good Housekeeping.”

The Editor of our Bulletin wisely refrained from any personal comment either pro or con, but merely reported the controversy and the (then) consensus.

The March 1949 issue of the Bulletin contains the announcement that “the Annual Convention of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists will be held at Macon Missouri on Friday and Saturday, July 8th and 9th.” All sessions were to be held at the Still-Hildreth Sanatorium.

The same issue reported that a letter prepared by the secretary-treasurer of the A.C.N., Dr. Floyd E. Dunn, and be sent to a carefully selected list of D.O.’s who might be interested in becoming Junior Members of the College, resulted in receiving completed applications from the D.O.’s listed here: Frederick A. Long, George H. Guest, Andrew T. Still III, Russell J. Lynch, Frank J. Gasperich, Wilbur V. Cole, Elsa L. Johnson, and Fleda M. Brigham. Most of these Junior members (the designation was later changed to Associate, and still later, the term ‘candidate’ would have been properly applied to most of the doctors on the list) later became important organizational workers in the growing young American College of Neuropsychiatrists; in fact, this author sees four on the list who are now Past Presidents of the College.

It was in this early period of development that our College experienced its initial difficulty with the governing body of the American Osteopathic Association: the AOA Board of Trustees. By action of the Board at its July 1949 meeting, the American College of Neuropsychiatrists was placed on probation. We had not followed their dictum (this author was not able to find minutes of the A.O.A. Board to determine whether it was a request, an order, or a demand) to change our name to the AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC COLLEGE OF NEUROPSYCHIATRISTS, or some similar title, which would include an Osteopathic designation. Several of the Fellows of the College, most particularly, Kenneth Grosvenor Bailey, made a masterful defense of our position before the A.O.A. Board of Trustees, pointing out (among other reasons) that our name, as incorporated under the laws of the state of Missouri in 1939 and accepted by the A.O.A. at that time, had been written into the Mental Health Laws of several states (California and Texas in particular); for a decade we had been accepted as an affiliate of the A.O.A. without question under our incorporated title; and that other Osteopathic Institutions (Lakeside Hospital in Kansas City for example) were Osteopathic without having that descriptive adjective in their corporate title. After much correspondence and probably some rethinking on the part of the A.O.A. Board of Trustees, we received, following their next Board meeting, a letter from R.M. Tilley stating, “The Board of the Trustees of the American Osteopathic Association restores the American College of Neuropsychiatrists ‘an Osteopathic Institution’ to full affiliate status.” There was, of course, the stipulation that our letterheads, publications, and any other use of our legal title be accompanied by the additional designation “an Osteopathic Institution,” and that we work toward incorporating the adjective ‘Osteopathic’ into our legal title ‘when feasible’. Worthy of passing mention is the fact that one of our two chief “Founding Fathers” Thomas J. Myers received his Ph.D. degree in Psychology (Clinical) from Claremont College of California in June 1949, becoming the first person in American College of Neuropsychiatrists to achieve this distinction. In those early years of our college’s existence, it was helpful for the public to learn that our secretary-treasurer of our certifying board (The American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry) was not only a certified Osteopathic Psychiatrist, but that he also held a doctorate in clinical psychology.

It was about this same period that our college had its second run-in with A.O.A. officialdom. At that time, the Executive Secretary of the Association was Russell McCaughan, D.O. who in many ways was as demagogic and dictatorial in the A.O.A. as Morris Fishbein M.D. was in the A.M.A. The Bureau of Hospitals has been delegated the responsibility of inspecting (recommending approval or rejection) all hospital-based residency training programs in A.O.A. hospitals. Of course, this included psychiatric residencies, so we at Still-Hildreth Hospital were treated to the spectacle of having the Hospital inspection team come to S.H.O.H., having the chief of the inspection team put his feet on Fred Still’s desk (Dr. Fred was then president of the S.H.O.H Corporation) and saying, “Well Fred, you know more about this neurology and psychiatry business (the inspector was a surgeon) than I do.” And that constituted his inspection. The Hospital was approved, actually, then, without an adequate on-site inspection. Your author wrote a letter of protest (and request) to R.C. McCaughan protesting the inappropriateness of having a surgeon inspect a residency training program in neurology and psychiatry, and requesting that at least there be a certified neuropsychiatrist added to the team when a residency in either of the specialties of neurology or psychiatry were being inspected. McCaughan refused, wrote in effect that the A.O.A. Board had given the responsibility of residency inspection to the Bureau of Hospitals and that’s how it was going to be and we could like it or lump it. As a result, we moved out of the Residency Training programs, and proceeded to set up “Full-Time Fellowship Training Programs” which were under our own jurisdiction, and through our Evaluation Committee to the Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists and the Committee on Accreditation of Post-Graduate Training, and hence to approval by the A.O.A. Board of Trustees. This by-passed the Bureau of Hospitals completely and got us out from under suppressive domination by the surgeons. We learned that some of the other colleges were doing the same thing—especially those who (as for example, the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat specialists) wanted to do a large portion of their training of candidates in an office, rather than a hospital.

The first decade of the life of our College also saw our struggles to achieve recognition by suppliers of clinical psychological materials. It was this writers task, for one important instance, to establish with the PSYCHOLOGICAL CORPORATION of the New York City our stature and credibility as psychiatrists—and additionally to establish to their satisfaction the amount of training which schools of osteopathic medicine required of their students before admitting them to the study of psychiatry. My order for the Minnesota Multiphasic had been held up “because your name does not appear in our file of qualified purchasers and since we cannot tell from your letter the nature of your work”. When I replied that I was a Staff Psychiatrist at Still- Hildreth and Chairman of the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry at the Kirksville College of Osteopathy & Surgery, they replied that “First of all, neither we nor the American Psychiatric Association’s office here in New York are acquainted with the American College of Neuropsychiatrists. (This sham was to be expected of the A.P.A. in 1947) Would you be good enough to request that body to send us some formal statement of their standards for certification or for issuing diploma so that we may have a basis on which to decide whether members of this group should automatically be approved --- or not “. Believe me, I spelled it out for them, chapter and verse; my letter is on file, but it is sufficient to report here that I was able to establish that Doctors of Osteopathy were sufficiently trained in psychology and psychiatry to be approved for the purchase of psychological test materials. How we worked in those early days to smooth the way for you who are sitting so easily in the drivers seats today!

After the success of the program put on by the A.C.N. at the Convention of the American Osteopathic Association in Boston (which was the 11th annual meeting of the College), the Executive Committee decided to hold the next A.C.N. annual meeting at the Still-Hildreth Hospital in Macon, Missouri. The A.O.A. annual convention that year was scheduled for St. Louis, and it was agreed that the facilities at Macon (which the Hospital offered without charge) with its lake and its tennis courts would provide a resort- type setting for a leisurely, relaxed meeting, from which those who wished could easily reach the A.O.A. meeting immediately afterward. The dates chosen were Friday and Saturday, July 8th & 9th, 1949, leaving Sunday to travel to St. Louis for the opening of the A.O.A. convention on Monday, the tenth.

The climate and atmosphere of warm interpersonal relationships fostered by our 12th Annual Meeting at Still- Hildreth were so persuasive that the members and the Executive Committee agreed upon Macon as to locus for the Thirteenth Annual Convention, which was schedule for July 7th & 8th, again allowing Sunday for travel to Chicago by those who planned to attend that year’s A.O.A. Convention in the windy city. It was at this Twelfth annual session that the membership received the report by the secretary- treasurer of the letter From R.M. Tilley, D.O., Chairman of the Bureau of Professional Education an Colleges indicating action taken by the A.O.A. Board of Trustees at their July 1949 meeting: “That the College be accepted this year on probation with a statement that they must comply with the request of the Board before full recognition will be given” and “the Board of Trustees of the A.O.A., realizing the difficulties which would be caused by changing the name at this time, recommend to the American College of Neuropsychiatrists that they incorporate into all of their published material, including letterheads, etc., the designation ‘an osteopathic institution’, and work toward creating the possibility of changing the name to include the designation of ‘osteopathic school of practice’ in the corporate name as soon as that can be, or when it can be practical.”

In the midst of preparations for the Atlantic City Meeting, the members of the College were saddened to learn of the death of Edward Strong Merrill, D.O., A.C.N., who had been head of the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry at the College of Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons in Los Angeles until his retirement in 1948. He was a charter Fellow of the A.C.N., and with Drs. Dufour & Fuller in the east, and Drs. Hildreth and Gerding in mid- America made up the group of early D.O.’s who founded and operated neuropsychiatric hospitals. He owned and operated the Merrill Sanitarium in the 1920’s and remained its chief of staff until his death. Several of our California D.O. psychiatrists, notably Tommy Meyers, received their training under Dr. Merrill’s tutelage. He died peacefully on March 29th, 1951 after a long illness, which had forced him to give up his active participation in the A.C.N. almost a year earlier.

Then the secretary reported the subsequent letter from Dr. Tilley, dated Feb. 7, 1950 advising of the following action be the A.O.A. Board of Trustees (and following some masterful justification by several of the founding fathers of the A.C.N. – mentioned earlier in this history) “That the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, and osteopathic institution, be restored to full affiliate status”.

It was at this annual session that the first revision of the Constitution & By- laws of the A.C.N. were adopted by the vote of the members, and then voted to serve as the “interim rules of the organization” until written notice should be received of their official approval by the Board of Trustees of A.O.A., as required by the Basis Documents of the A.O.A. It was also voted to provide each member with a copy of the new documents and of the Articles of Incorporation in the State of Missouri, during the coming year, along with a directory of membership.

With the 1951 Annual Convention of the American Osteopathic Association slated for July 16th to 20th in Milwaukee, it was decided to hold our Fourteenth Annual A.C.N. sessions at Macon again. Where else could we get the free use of such admirable facilities, and such gracious treatment? And it was relatively easy to go to Milwaukee via Macon Missouri on the Burlington, or the Santo Fe (we still had good trains in those days) or by automobile. Additionally, it was convenient for our trainees to take their clinical exams in neurology or in psychiatry using Still- Hildreth patients as subjects. Those of us in the first generation of the A.C.N. Family will never forget those sessions in Macon with the picnics at the Pavillion, the complimentary lunches in the dining room, the Italian Dinners at “Johnny & Mary’s”, out “on the gravel”; and above all, the sense of integration and unity we came to feel as a result of those sessions in the relative seclusion of the Still- Hildreth “campus”.

For our Fifteenth Annual Meeting, it was agree to go to Atlantic City and have our sessions just prior to those of the A.O.A., which had scheduled its convention in that city July 14th to 18th. This convention was notable for the action taken by the college in face of the refusal of the Bureau of Hospitals to have neuropsychiatric representation on its residency inspection team when evaluating neurological or psychiatric residency training process. As mentioned earlier in this history, the college solved the problem by taking all training programs under jurisdiction by the mechanism of calling them “Full- time Fellowship Graduate Training Programs”. The College also set up formal Requirements for Approval of Graduate Training Programs in Neurology, in Psychiatry, and in Neurosurgery. Previously there had been some variation in training at the different osteopathic centers; in some the training was not well organized, with little direction being given to the trainees who were often left to find for themselves what knowledge they ought to acquire in order to become well- organized and truly proficient in their chosen specialty. Now the College decided that the day had passed when the mere fact that a physician had spent three years of apprenticeship in a psychiatric hospital or on a neurological service should be evaluated as adequate training to make him “Board- eligible”. We had this conclusion brought sharply in focus for us when several of our candidates who had presumably passed through a three- year “residency” failed their oral & written examinations and seemed not to know what they really should have been learning during their training years.

Also in this phase of our colleges growth, other specialty colleges were being developed by specialists in the various osteopathic medical disciplines; our Specialty Examination Boards were coming to realize that their proper function was not to set up, or to pass on the adequacy of, graduate training programs, but ONLY to examine qualified candidates; it was agreed that it was a proper function of the Specialty Colleges to set up standards for graduate training, and to register and guide physicians through that training toward their “Boards”.

Our Sixteenth Annual Meeting was a memorable one. It was held at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago, July 10th & 11th, 1953, just prior to the annual A.O.A. Convention at the same old famous hotel. At our sessions, Dr. Cecil Harris announced the opening of what was to become the Philadelphia Mental Health Institute (and which was destined to play a leading role in the training of D.O. psychiatrists in the east for the next three decades); Dr. Floyd E. Dunn announced the inauguration of a Full- Time Fellowship Graduate Training Program at the Kansas City College Hospital and the Human Relations Clinic of the college; the membership formally adopted Certification Requirements (which had been proposed in Atlantic City a year earlier and had been put into final draft by our Evaluating Committee working in close cooperation with members of the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry). The requirements called for 6000 clock hours for either neurology or psychiatry training and 10,000 hours (over a five year period) for neurology and Psychiatry; the requirements gave specific details much, as they do at the present time, as to the subject matter to be provided (with clinical/bedside and lecture/seminar teaching in clinically oriented disciplines only).

We conformed to the A.O.A. ruling that the responsibility for setting up and for evaluating graduate training programs would henceforth be the duty of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists rather than the A.O.B.N.P. and the Evaluating Committee was enlarge to five members (usually with two of the people selected from the A.O.B.N. P. so the right hand would know what the left hand was doing). This required setting up a training register, with a complete full file on each trainee, with a mandatory annual report on each trainee to be filed with the secretary of the college—a copy in the trainee’s file and a copy to go thence to the proper A.O.A. Committee (that body came to be known as the Committee on Post- doctoral Training, although at first, all these reports plus annual reports from every training center were sent to and evaluated & approved/disapproved by the Advisory Board for osteopathic Specialists).

October 1953 saw the appearance of the first professionally printed issue of our College Bulletin, still under the direction of our first Bulletin editor; Thomas J. Meyers D.O., Ph.D., F.A.C.N. At this time, Tommy also served on the A.O.B.N. P., and on the Evaluating Committee and the Membership Committee of the A.C.N. Only whose who were officers in the A.C.N. during those early years know how much time this Founding Father devoted voluntarily to osteopathic neurology & psychiatry. He achieved considerable renown on the west coast in other somewhat related areas as well (notably psychology and forensic medicine) and during his active career was listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who on the Pacific Coast, Who’s Who in California, Who’s Who in Los Angeles County, Who’s Who in American Education, and World Biography. He was also a persistent worker at A.O.A. levels and perhaps more than any other single D.O. was responsible for the early growth and development of the Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists. It is a shame that his death went unannounced and un-honored by a profession to which he has given so much.

At the Atlantic City meeting, the Executive Committee set up a central Screening Bureau for Applicants for Graduate Training, and charged the committee with the task of devising methods to assure that only well- qualified trainees were accepted into our programs at neurological and psychiatric training centers in the osteopathic profession. The Committee presented its proposals in the February 1954 issue of the Bulletin of A.C.N. The essential features were: A Central Screening Bureau would be established at the official address of the A.C.N. All D.O.’s wishing to enter training programs in A.C.N.- approved centers would first apply to the Central Screening Bureau which would then evaluate the applicant on the basis of criteria which would establish his potential for adequate adaptability to the specialty which he wished to enter. The first criterion was an intelligence level high enough to make it possible for him to grasp the material (an I.Q. of at least 125). The second criterion was emotional stability. This would be evaluated by a personal interview with a skilled interviewer, plus a psycho-diagnostic battery (to be administered and interpreted by a qualified clinical psychologist) consisting of Rorschach, the T.A.T., the Machover Draw-a-Person, the Thematic Apperception and Minnesota Multiphasic (plus any additional tests which the psychologist felt needed or desirable for his evaluation). The third criterion was his adaptability and aptitude for work in the specialty as determined my a personal interview with a training psychiatrist (preferably one from the center at which the candidates desired to train). Through the use of the Central Screening Bureau, candidates would have the opportunity to have their credentials and test results sent to any training center having a vacancy if there was none that year at the center of the candidates’ first choice. This report was presented to the membership of the College at the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the A.C.N. in Toronto, July 10th, 1954.

There was a hiatus in publication of the Bulletin form October 1954 to February 1956. The October issue in 1954 was labeled Vol. VIII, No. 1; the February 1956 issue was labeled Vol. IX, No.1. Consequently this historian must rely on his personal recollections and preserved correspondence for the events of that period. Since I moved from president-elect to president at the Toronto Meeting, I know that Ralph I. McRae of Dallas, Texas was elected President-elect, Oscar Janiger of Los Angeles California became vice- president and Don C. Littlefield continued as Secretary- treasurer. Thomas J. Meyers of Pasadena California continued as our Editor, and was largely responsible for the appearance of a “Neuropsychiatric Supplement” (consisting of six scientific papers and some book reviews) in the November 1954 issue (vol.54, No.3) of the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

The Toronto meeting was memorable in that it was the place where the responsibility of the Register of Training Programs, Fellows & Residents, and Preceptors and Osteopathic Training Centers in Neurology & Psychiatry all were transferred from the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry to the Evaluating Committee of our American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

The members of this Evaluating Committee were Drs. K. G. Bailey, F. E. Dunn, Cecil Harris, D.C. Littlefield, T.J. Meyers, and R. I. McRae. These men accomplished the task of transferring records and responsibility for setting up requirements and standards of graduate training within the American College of Neuropsychiatrists through their Committee, and at a meeting with the A.O.A. Committee on Accreditation of Postgraduate Training July 15, 1954 submitted for approval training programs at the Meyers Clinic at Los Angeles (Five fellowships for three-year programs in psychiatry), Philadelphia Mental Health Clinic (Three Fellowships for three- year programs in psychiatry, Kansas City College of Osteopathy & Surgery ( One Fellowship for a two- year program in Neurology and One Fellowship for a one- year program in psychiatry), Still- Hildreth Osteopathic Sanatorium at Tulsa Oklahoma (One Fellowship for a one-year program in psychiatry). They submitted the names of these Preceptors for approval; Drs. Floyd E. Dunn, Cecil Harris, Thomas J Meyers and A.T. Still III. They reported approval of the training programs of the following: Drs. Wilmer Bath, E.I. Bell, Leonard Gluckson, George H. Guest, Harold Higley, J. B. Joye, William Martin, Henry Nemerof, Selma Stoll and Edythe Varner.

The establishment of full- time Fellowship training programs rather than hospital based ‘residency’ training programs began to create a bit of difficulty for the trainees because the membership bureau of the A.O.A. had no rule by which reduced dues could be granted to them. After considered correspondence, a formal request was made through the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry to the A.O.A. Board of trustees (on behalf of all people in full- time fellowship training in whatever discipline) that A.O.A. members in full- time training in a training center approved by one of the specialty colleges and not engaged in any private practice should be granted the same consideration regarding modification of the dues that was granted the same consideration regarding modification of their dues that was granted members in approved residencies. With pressure from all the specialty groups that had established full- time ‘Fellowships’, the Board of Trustees of the A.O.A. made this change in the dues structure.

At the same time, we formally requested that there be a consultant from the specialty involved on the team when residency programs were being given on-site inspections and evaluations, and that the specialty consultant’s approval must be obtained before the residency could be approved by the A.O.A. We met more resistance against this request, but we finally won the controversy and at present, as all in our disciplines know, our College provides the A.O.A. with a list of qualified volunteer on-site examiners from which the people in the Office of Education can select an inspector in the area when a program in neurology or psychiatry needs an on-site inspection and evaluation.

The Evaluating Committee was also given the task of preparing a standard set of Basic Requirements for Approved Graduate Training Programs in Neurology and in Psychiatry. This set Basic Documents was drafted and sent to the various training centers for their evaluation and comments prior to the next Annual Meeting of the College, which was to be held in Los Angeles, July 15 & 16, 1955. It was particularly important to have these requirements standardized and adopted and approved by the A.O.A. Office of Education because that year two residency training programs were being opened up in the east in State Hospitals through a working alliance with the Philadelphia Mental Health Clinic.

At the Los Angeles sessions, the Basic Requirements were approved by the membership and sent on to the A.O.A. Board of Trustees via the Committee of Accreditation of Postgraduate Training and the Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists. The College voted to organize into active operation the Screening Bureau for graduate Training in approved Osteopathic Centers, which had been approved three years earlier in Atlantic City at our Fifteenth Annual Meeting. This activation consisted of establishing a routine procedure, a standard application form, a psycho-diagnostic procedure, an interview & evaluation procedure, correlation and integration of data at Central Office, and Submission of results to the Centers and assignment of appointments. The complete plan was to be submitted in New York at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the College.

Also at the Eighteenth Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, the membership of the college accepted with regret the resignation of Dr. Thomas J. Meyers as Editor of the Bulletin of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists. Tommy had been editor of the Bulletin since its inception in the late thirties and on motion by Chapman, seconded by McRae, the members voted to put on record our sincere appreciation for the many hours of work and sincere interest he had expended on our behalf during his editorship. The Editorial Board appointed Dr. Don C. Littlefield to succeed Dr. Meyers as Editor of the Bulletin.

An editorial in the Volume II, Number 2 issue of the Bulletin (the second issue under Dr. Littlefield’s editorship) appears to this author worthy of direct reproduction in this history because it accurately reflects the important directive influence which the Fellows of this College used to have (and still ought to have) on the course and progress of osteopathic Neurology & psychiatry and of this College. The pertinent paragraph of the editorial follows:

“The Annual Conclave of Fellows of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists will, as always, be one of the high points of the convention. To those neurologists and psychiatrists who have organized, advised, and where necessary restrained the youthful fervor of the less mature among the A.C.N. members, our sincere and heartfelt gratitude. Although young in years the American College of Neuropsychiatrists may look with pride to these men responsible in a very great degree for the successful growth of neurology & psychiatry in the osteopathic profession.”

In the last decade, the Conclave of Fellows seems to have been accorded a progressively diminishing place in the programs of our Annual Meetings. We used to have a “set- up” Luncheon Meeting listed on the program as The Conclave of Fellows. At our last annual session in New Orleans there was not any conclave scheduled and no meeting held. This author hopes that our eight new Fellows will more appropriately recognize the significance of the honor accorded them, and the degree of continued service expected of them.

That same Volume IX, Number 2 of the Bulletin contained a news item of considerable significance; the Kansas City College of Osteopathy & Surgery announced that its Department of Neurology & Psychiatry under the Chairmanship of Dr. Floyd E. Dunn was the recipient of a Grant in Undergraduate Psychiatry from the National Institute of Mental Health, a Division of the U.S. Public Health Service under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. This was the first time such a grant had been made to an Osteopathic College. Dr. Dunn was named Director of the Grant, and with the funds supplied by the grant was able increase the teaching staff at the Kansas City College, and to open the Human Relations Clinic as one of the teaching clinics of that school, where under the guidance of the staff of the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry, senior students of the college would work directly in diagnosis and therapy of clinic patients with emotional and/or life adjustment problems. The Grant became effective September 1,1955.

The Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the College, held at the Statler in New York City, July 13-15, 1956, was notable for its adoption and activation of the screening bureau’s recommendations, on which they had been working since the bureau had been set up by the Executive Committee of the College, and membership of that committee was increased to seven (as a minimum) with at least two persons from the A.O.B.N. P. and two from approved Training Centers; the secretary of the College would be the fifth member, a certified neurologist to represent preceptor training in neurology, and one member “without portfolio” completed the minimum of seven; they were to serve two- year terms on a rotation basis with no limitation on number might serve.

The Committee on Evaluation of Neurosurgical Training recommended that the A.O.B.N. P. examine the competency in neurology of those surgeons going into the field of Neurosurgery, and that these examination should be done by qualified neurosurgeons who were members of that Board. It was also recommended that training programs in neurosurgery be approved by the Evaluating Committee of our College that they indicate approved programs to the A.O.B.N.P. and to the appropriate A.O.A. Bureaus. This action resulted from observations by some of our certified neurologists and neurosurgeons that people were starting to get training in neurosurgery under the aegis of the College of Surgeons who according to those reporting were receiving too much teaching in surgical techniques with less than adequate teaching and training in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and clinical neurology.

It was at this New York meeting that the College approved the Crest and Shield design submitted by the Crest & Shield Committee, and authorized preparation of a 3’ x 5’ bronze College Crest on an 11” x 13” walnut plaque for the Fellows of the College, with the cost of the dies to be borne by the college, and the cost of each plaque to be paid by the Fellow who wished to have one; his Fellowship certificate would as previously be given by the college with the conferring of the degree; ‘Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists’. The Crest, of course, became the college “logo” and is still seen on the masthead of the Bulletin, on the stationery and on all other official publications of the college.

Growth of the College had been slow during these first two decades since the first inseminating session was held at Still- Hildreth in Macon in 1936 by that little group on their way to the A.O.A. Convention in New York City. The World War II years and the Korean ‘Police Action’ hampered the enrollment in our schools of Osteopathic Medicine and consequently diminished the number of graduates who might choose to enter the disciplines of neurology or psychiatry. By the date of the 1956 New York meeting, out roster numbered only seventy. Certainly not many, but it represents a growth of over 410% in spite of the difficulties of those twenty years. Greater troubles were ahead, but our college has continued to grow in spite of (or maybe partly because of) the rocks of adversity.

It is historically worthy of note at this point that the new Mental Health Laws of both Texas and California specifically indicate that certificates of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and/ or the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry would be equally recognized as psychiatrists in those states. The pertinent sections of the state statutes can be found as news items in the College Bulletins for July 1957 (Texas) and March 1958 (California).

The membership of the College, and the entire osteopathic profession were grieved to learn of the sudden death, on the evening of December 22, 1957, of Dr. Linn Van Horn Gerdine, professor of neurology & psychiatry and president emeritus of the College of Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons at Los Angeles. Dr. Gerdine had been psychiatrist-in-chief for the first nine years of the existence of the Still- Hildreth institution at Macon Missouri, and had taught neurology & psychiatry at Kirksville, Des Moines and Kansas City prior to migrating to California in 1923, where he became head of the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry and president of the Los Angeles College. No other one person had been so influential in the teaching and training of osteopathic neurologists and psychiatrists in the second, third and fourth decades of this century. He, therefore, more than any other person deserves the title “Father of Osteopathic Neuropsychiatry.”

In the light of the subsequent history of the College, it is interesting to note that Vol. XI, No.2 (July 1958) issue of the Bulletin records that one Dr. Sydney Mark Kanev had applied for Affiliate membership in the College. Syd was one of the speakers on the Annual Meeting programs at the Sheraton in Washington, D.C. July 11-13 that year, and had just been certified in psychiatry by the A.O.B.N.P. that year. Because of his capabilities, and his willingness to accept organizational positions of responsibility, Syd rose rapidly in the ranks of A.C.N. leadership. He was destined to sacrifice his chance at a term as our College’s president in order to accept the office of Executive Secretary- treasurer when the infamous California Defection caused us to lose our then ‘Exec- Sec’ Don C. Littlefield. But this development will be presented in proper chronological sequence.

During the 21st Annual Meeting of the College, held in Washington, D.C., as indicated above, we were invited to visit the famed St. Elizabeth Hospital by Superintendent Winfred Overholser, M.D., who was also at that time the Editor of the Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry. We spent an interesting afternoon July 11, 1958 on an inspection tour of that facility and at the close of our visit we all posed with Dr. Overholzer on the front steps of the Hospital while our ‘Ken’ Bailey took some color shots of us, one of which reposes among my memorabilia, sent to me as a “TOKEN OF MY APPRECIATION” later by Ken.

The 23rd Annual Meeting of the College was held at the old Hotel Muehlbach in Kansas City, Mo., July 15-16, 1960, just prior to and in conjunction with the Annual Convention of American Osteopathic Association, which had selected that city as a convention site for the first time since 1916. Historical highlights of that meeting were the convivial banquet at the Golden Ox next door to the Kansas City Stock Yards (with real Kansas City steaks) and the charted bus trip to Menninger Foundation’s facility at Topeka, Kansas where we toured the campus and enjoyed a colloquium with Dr. Karl Menninger. Dr. Karl made reference to what he termed “ the coming rapproachment” between D.O.’s and M.D.’s, thus confirming rumors of the coming California Defection—which California D.O.’s at that very time were denying.

Details of the development and the consequences of “the California Situation” are available at the A.O.A. office in Chicago, and in the personal files of this historian (since I was, during those years, a Missouri representative to the A.O.A. House of Delegates) but it is pertinent in this history only to report the repercussions and disastrous effects of the California Merger upon our College. When the A.O.A. received positive confirmation from the American Medical Association and the California Medical Association that a merger was indeed being negotiated between the California Osteopathic Association and the California Medical Association, by an 18 to 1 vote on November 20, 1960, its Board of Trustees revoked the charter of the C.O.A. This meant that unless our certified specialists in California refused to accept the $65.00 “little m.d. degree” (as it came to be called in D.O. circles) or repudiated it and sent it to the A.O.A. to be placed in escrow, and then joined the new Physicians & Surgeons of California state osteopathic association comprised of the people in that state who retained their osteopathic identification, they would lose their A.O.A. specialty accreditation. A.O.A. officialdom took the legally correct stand that they could not (and would not) accredit non- members as specialists. Also our California members could not continue as members of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists because all members of affiliated societies had to maintain membership in the A.O.A. and their proper Divisional Society or Association. The result was the loss to the College of one third of our membership, although we endeavored for as long as we dared to find a way to allow those who so desired to continue their A.C.N. affiliations. We did keep on our rolls those Californians whom we had honored by making them Fellows of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, since that is an honorary degree and honorary degrees are not ordinarily rescinded. But we lost some of our leaders in organizational activity, and the chain of progression up through posts of increasing responsibility in the college was seriously disrupted.

Because of the shift of the A.O.A. Annual Convention away from the former custom of meeting with its House of Delegates, our College had to solve the problem of our own place and time for our Annual Meeting. Because of our small numbers, the idea of separate meeting received little support; the possibility of meeting at the time and place of the A.O.A. House of delegates was favored only by the few of us who also had some official A.O.A. position that required our going to Chicago at or just before the time of the House of Delegates sessions. So most of us took the pragmatic position that we had best meet at the A.O.A.’s chosen city for their Annual Scientific Sessions, either conjointly or just prior to the dates of the parent organization’s meeting. This meant shifting from our summer- time meetings (usually sometime in July) to the time selected by the A.O.A.: January 24-25 at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach.

The Miami Beach sessions (our Twenty-fourth ‘Annual Meeting’) was memorable for being numerically our largest gathering up to that date; for our Resolution that “the continued identity of our organization be a matter of established policy, and that the College shall raise its voice against any move that would threaten the position and status of osteopathic Neurologists and Psychiatrists”; and for the fact that is was the last time our California members would be able to meet with us except as guests. Our two most active “Founding Fathers”, Ken Bailey and Tommy Myers, although they would be honored by the College at our “Silver Jubilee,” were forced to give up their active membership (although never their interest and good-will) in our group. We had to begin planning for the future of out college without our leaders from California and with only two-thirds of our former membership. We solved the financial pinch by raising our dues, and we found new leaders, chiefly among some of our new Senior members from the metropolitan Philadelphia-New York axis. Dr. George Guest, who had only recently become a Senior Member (though we knew of his record of leadership at the Philadelphia College) became our President-elect, and Dr. Sydney Kanev, another recently-elected Senior member (whose ‘track record’ in New York City and State organizational affairs was known to us) was elected Vice-president. Don C. Littlefield was continued as Secretary-treasurer in the hope that he might join the new California Association and thus retain his osteopathic identity, his A.O.A. certification and his eligibility for active membership in our College.

Alas, we found that Don had been one of the active supporters of the California Merger; he accepted his “sixty-five pieces of silver” little m.d. degree, and resigned both his position as Editor of the Bulletin, and his post as Secretary-Treasurer of the College. There had been no Bulletin’s, consequently, until Dr. Sydney Kanev agreed to fill the double-post of Editor Pro-tem and Secretary-Treasurer Pro-tem, and we were able to have a Bulletin published under his capable editorship in September 1961 as Volume XIV, Numbers 2 and 3.

In addition to the two “Pro-tem” functions of Bulletin editor and Secretary-Treasurer, our intrepid “Syd”, as we all came to fondly call him, was (by the constitution through his election as Vice-president) also Program Chairman for what was to be the biggest celebration of our College’s history thus far: our Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting, publicized of course, as our “SILVER JUBILEE”. How Syd did it all, and still remained in active practice, kept out of the divorce courts and maintained his sanity is still a source of wonder to this author.

The College elected to meet again at the time and place chosen by the A.O.A. for its sessions: Las Vegas, Nevada. This was the first time either organization had met in what was beginning to be known as the entertainment capital of the world. This meeting was our Twenty-fifth Convention and Scientific Session and was publicized as our “SILVER JUBILEE,” as stated above. The four “Founding Fathers” who were still living (Drs. K.G. Bailey, G.N. Gillum, T.J. Myers, and F.M. Still) were invited to attend our Annual Banquet as honored guests. They were presented with Silver Memorial Platters attesting to the gratitude of the College for their years of effort, dedication, and counsel. Only Doctors Bailey and Meyers were able to be present, so the platters for Doctors Gillum and Still had to be presented in absentia and then sent to the by mail.

The Lecture Sessions at Las Vegas undoubtedly were the finest College members had heard at any of their annual meetings, an accomplishment effected by a combination of three factors: a grant-in-aid from Hoffman La Roche (plus the ‘loan’ of a capable member of their staff, Lee Gordon, Ph.D.), the persuasive activity of our Program Chairman, ‘Syd’, and the teaching talents of the program participants. This program, January 15-17, 1962, provided the scientific educational material which made possible the realization of one of the goals toward which those of us who were active in College affairs had long been striving toward: the publication of a Scientific Journal by the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

Previously, we had had to content ourselves with publishing occasional monographs in our Bulletin (which was really designed to serve as a news and communication medium for our own membership, and which had a small circulation) and persuading our A.O.A. Journal to occasionally run a “Neuropsychiatric Supplement” mad up of monographs presented by our members at our annual meetings. Now, as a result of the efforts of Paul Harbor, D.O., and Sydney Kanev, D.O., F.A.C.N., the Hoffman-La Roche Company of Nutley New Jersey was persuaded to financially underwrite an Annual Volume: A publication of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists (an Osteopathic Institution), title the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF NEUROPSYCHIATRISTS. Volume I, Number 1. was published in June 1962. The Hoffman-La Roche company not only absorbed the publication costs of the Journal, but they helpfully supplied us with important editorial technology by loaning us the services of Sarah R. Gustafson, Ph.D. as our Managing Editor, plus continued behind-the-scenes guidance and advice by their Lee Gordon, Ph.D. The Journal was destined to survive only three issues. Its subsequent demise was due not to lack of good material, or lack of good editorial people, or lack of response of A.C.N membership and the scientific world at large, but due to interference of the United States Internal Revenue Service. In effect, the I.R.S. told Hoffman-La Roche that they could not continue to underwrite the cost of printing and distributing our Journal as a tax-free contribution to education and science. Since our own treasury could not afford these printing and distribution costs, journal publication had to be suspended. Though many of us have tried, and still are trying, to find ways to again subsidize publication of our Journal, efforts to date have been fruitless.

Our Silver Jubilee meeting in Las Vegas was memorable not merely because it marked the twenty-fifth year of growth and progress; not just because it was the year we obtained financial support of our Journal (although both of these were great accomplishments); it was significant because it was at this session that we set up the reorganization plan for our College that not only guaranteed its continued existence as an Osteopathic institution, but provided us with experienced capable leaders from the loyal two-thirds of our “pre-defection” membership who were able to steer us through the difficult re-adjustment years and on the new heights as a viable specialty organization. To accomplish this, Dr. Sydney Kanev agreed to progress from ‘Secretary-treasurer Pro-tem’ to Executive Secretary-treasurer (in fact, although there was necessarily a short intervening period before the constitutional changes could be made changing the title officially), and to accept the title of Editor in place of ‘editor pro-tem’. The conclave of Fellows thought that a person with considerable knowledge of the College and its modus operandi was needed at the helm and prevailed upon this historian to take a second turn at the wheel. The result was a panel of officers with George Guest as president, Floyd E. Dunn as president-elect, Irwin Rothman as vice-president (and program chairman for the 26th annual meeting) and Sydney Kanev as Secretary-treasurer, Harold Higley, and Cecil Harris, as ‘old China Hands’ were members of the Board of Governors. Drs. Higley and Harris “doubled in brass” by serving as Editor and Assistant Editor, respectively, of our new Journal of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

It often happens that the strengths of an organization are brought out in and through adversity, and this was certainly true for our College in the trying years of 1960, 1961, and 1962, during and following the California Merger in which we not only lost one-third of our membership, but were faced with the resignation of our Secretary-treasurer (a Californian) and the resultant chaos in our records and archives which were incompletely and in a disorganized fashion sent to “Syd” Kanev, who was uninitiated in the ways of A.O.A. officialdom and its interfaces with A.C.N. affairs as well as naïve regarding the ways A.C.N. was set up to operate. With the help of some of the “Old China Hands” in our ranks he was able to bring order our of chaos and by the next set of meetings with the A.O.A. committees on Post-Graduate Training and Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists, most of the problems were unsnarled. Meanwhile, as was reported above, the College launched its scientific journal, being the first osteopathic specialty college to be able to publish an independent periodical in which the literary-scientific endeavors of its members might be exposed to the world. This same year, though the efforts of many of our Philadelphia area members, Embryville State Hospital, a 1300-bed psychiatric facility of the Pennsylvania state hospital system, applied for inspection and approval of its residency by the American College of Neuropsychiatrists (their program was already approved by the A.M.A. through the American Psychiatric Association). This was the first time an allopathic Medical facility had officially requested approval of an Osteopathic institution for training at the graduate level (two state psychiatric hospitals in Missouri were officially offering undergraduate experience to senior students from our Kansas City College, and would later figure in a combined program set up by Dr. Ulett, Missouri State Director of Mental Health, and the Kirksville College). Some of the leaders of our American College of Neuropsychiatrists received all or part of their residency training at Embryville.

This same year (1962) it was reported that Dr. Irving Perlstein was entering graduate training in child psychiatry, after completing his training in psychiatry at the Philadelphia Mental Health Clinic: he was to become our first certified Child Psychiatrist. This event necessitated alterations in our Basic documents to include requirements and standards of graduate training in Child Psychiatry, and considerable discussion with out osteopathic pediatricians concerning the amount of credit that could be allowed for training in an approved residency in pediatrics. It was finally decided that not more than one year of credit could be allowed and still leave time for the trainee to be adequately trained in those matters which were more psychiatric than pediatric. And then it became necessary to set up examinations specifically in the areas of psychiatry in which the candidate for certification as a child psychiatrist could be expected to demonstrate his expertise.

A final historical note before leaving our Silver Jubilee year of 1962: It was at the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting that P.B. Davis, D.O., F.A.C.N. was given the signal honor of presenting the first Gerdine Memorial Lecture, titled “The Aging Intervertebral Disk.” The Gerdine Lecture was originally intended to be an annual event (as is the A.T. Still Memorial Lecture at A.O.A. annual clinical sessions) to simultaneously honor the memory of Linn Van Horn Gerdine, M.D., D.O., F.A.C.N and the osteopathic neuropsychiatrist selected to present the lecture. Somehow, in the chaos of the California Merger, the resignation of Secretary Littlefield and the transfer of our records, archives and traditions form California to New York City, the Gerdine Memorial Lecture fell through the cracks.

During this readjustment period of 1962, after conferring with the proper A.O.A. authorities and obtaining their sanction, the College decided to give all D.O.’s who had received un-approved or undocumented training in Neurology or in Psychiatry an opportunity to take a qualifying exam in the specialty in which they had been trained, by applying to the secretary of the College (under whose authority the examination would be given), submitting a dossier of his/her graduate training and paying an examination fee. The examination committee would determine, on the basis of the person’s performance of written and clinical nature, whether his/her training was equivalent to one, two, or three years of training in a regular full-time graduate fellowship or residency. This opportunity was to be a one-time-only event; those who entered non-approved training subsequently would do so at their own risk. Henceforth it would be the obligation of anyone who wished to enter a graduate training program in neurology or psychiatry to be sure the program was approved before he/she entered it. About ten people responded to this offer; they were duly examined, evaluated on their performance, given equivalent credit for one, two, or even three years of training on the strength of their performance, and in those cases where the equivalent was less than three years, were given a program to follow under a preceptor in order to bring their training up to a three-year-equivalent level. Those whose performance was judged to be the equivalent of a three-year full-time resident were informed that the date of their notification that they were performing at the level of a resident who had completed a three-year program would be considered the date of completion of their required graduate training. They were then eligible to take their clinical/practical examination, assuming no ethical problems in the interim.

It was hoped that publicizing this “Blue Sky” Operation would do two things:

(1) It would “clear the slate” of all those people who were clamoring for admission to examination by the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry (and even some who wanted to be certified “on record” because they had been doing ‘some’ neurology or psychiatry for three or more years) who had received undocumented training, or unapproved training, often good training under medical auspices, but not in an organized or recognized training program.

(2) It would give notice anew that henceforth if one wanted A.O.A. credit for a graduate training program in neurology or psychiatry, that one should be certain that his training program was approved before entering the residency or fellowship.

The one-time operation did help people who had genuine but not-officially-approved graduate training and wanted to have that training officially verified. But the A.O.A., the A.O.B.N.P. and the officials of the A.C.N. still have to deal with those occasional mavericks who apparently think that they can make their own rules.

At the Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting of the College at the Fontainbleau in Miami Beach, January 26-30, Dr. Floyd E. Dunn, our “Second-time-around” president, set up a “Development and Organization” Committee to work with the Study and Planning Committee, the Public & Professional Relations Committee, and the Membership Committee, giving his committee a two-fold charge: (1) To design and implement ideas and projects through which we can help both physicians and the laity better to understand our specialty, its needs, its aims and its limitations; (2) To provide ideas and methods of strengthening our ranks quantitatively and qualitatively. The first effort of this committee was to set up in joint sponsorship with the Kansas City College what would now be called a Continuing Medical Education Project: a Symposium on Clinical Hypnosis open to all licensed physicians, scheduled for March 22, 23, and 24, at the Kansas City College with a faculty which included Leslie M. LeCron (psychologist), Eric Wright, M.D., James Rowland, D.O., and Floyd E. Dunn, D.O.

The second event sponsored by this new committee on Development and Organization was to set up for the state convention in Iowa, March 23, 24, and 25, a program on ‘Neurology for the Family Physician.’ This program comprised almost the entire continuing education sessions of that meeting, and the ‘faculty’ was composed of members of our College of Neuropsychiatrists. These two efforts were the beginning of what has grown into our “mid-year” continuing medical education session, and as Fleda Brigham later wrote to this author during her presidential year, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the committee. But the committee also did the groundwork that resulted in the joint sessions with the College of Pediatricians and with the College of General Practitioners, which were features of the Twenty-seventh Meeting of the College in New Orleans September 30 through October 3, 1963, where our headquarters were the gracious old Hotel Monteleone.

Since that time, the College has tended to follow this precedent and whenever we can arrange joint sessions with out fellow D.O.’s in other disciplines. Our closest interrelationships have been, through the years, with the Family Physicians, with the Pediatricians, and with the Internists. Although the Committee on Development and Organization faded away after three years of active functioning its seeds in interdisciplinary sessions took root and our College, more than any of the other specialty disciplines, continues to welcome opportunities “to develop projects through which we can help both physicians and laity better to understand our specialty, its needs, its aims, and its limitations.”

There needs to be a short notice in our history at this point to summarize our conflict with the Internal Revenue Service anent our existence as a tax-exempt organization. Not to bore readers with details (anyone interested in learning about the pettifogging, narrow minded and often stupid attitudes of certain of the officials in the I.R.S. just phone the author for a detailed fill-in), it is enough to write here that through the efforts of this author, plus those of our hard-working beloved “Syd” and his attorney with a few bits of advice from the A.O.A., we were able to satisfy the Internal Revenue people. We altered the wording of our articles of incorporation so that they state: (a) This Corporation is organized and will be operated exclusively for Educational and Scientific purposes and in furtherance of these purposes and not for other purposes. (b) Notwithstanding any of the aforementioned purposes and powers, the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, after payments of all debts and obligations will be distributed for Educational, Scientific, and Charitable purposes or to organizations organized for those purposes and exempt from Federal Income Tax as Organizations described in Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. This is exactly how we had to spell it out even though that is how we had been operating since our incorporation in 1938 and they knew it. Oh well, that was twenty years ago; now it is 1984 and Big Brother is really watching us!!

Shortly before our twenty-eighth Annual Meeting, scheduled for October 5, 6, and 7, 1964, at Las Vegas, with our College Headquarters at the Riveria Hotel, the membership was shocked and saddened to learn through the September issue of the Bulletin of the sudden, untimely death of our President-elect, Paul B. Harbour, D.O. He had been a vital force in teaching psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the Philadelphia area (at the Psychoanalytic Studies Institute, a section of the Philadelphia Mental Health Clinic) from the time he moved to that city in 1955. He was only fifty years old, and had just begun to use his talents and capabilities on a national scale. As our A.C.N. program chairman he had excellently executed his responsibilities in setting up a joint graduate educational program with the College of General Practitioners for our Las Vegas Meeting on the last two days of our sessions. He was posthumously elected to Fellowship in the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, not so much as a memorial tribute as it was rather a deserved honor which death had cheated him from living to accept.

Dr. Fleda Brigham, our first woman president, valiantly stepped into the vacancy and with graceful, poetic accolades to Paul’s memory, was able to gather together the somewhat disrupted affairs of the A.C.N., carry us through our Las Vegas sessions with the Family Physicians, and lead us on toward our 29th meeting, scheduled for Philadelphia, where our headquarters were to be the Warwick Hotel. It is worth noting in passing that at our Las Vegas Meeting, the name of the Executive Committee of the College was changed to the Board of Governors, and enlarged to have one member-at-large to be elected by the Board. The College membership also voted to have prepared (for Senior Members and Fellows) a new engraved wall certificate in two-tone light blue and gray superimposed upon the logo-shield of the college. The secretary was instructed to proceed with the printing of the certificate.

Also noteworthy was the organization of the A.C.N. Speakers Bureau, largely by the efforts of Fleda Brigham, D.O., through her chairmanship of the Committee on Development and Organization. This was perhaps the last function of that committee before its demise, and while the idea was excellent (as was the idea and purposes of the D. & O. Committee) succeeding officers did not follow through with keeping it viable, up-to-date and (most importantly) repeatedly doing the proper “public relations” job with and for it. So it is dead, and through lack of appointment of a chairperson and official continuation by A.C.N. presidents, so is the D. & O. Committee.

The Las Vegas Meeting had the greatest attendance of any meeting up to that date. We had survived the California Defection and both our College and our parent American Osteopathic Association were headed toward new heights. At that meeting, on a motion by Harris, seconded by Higley, the College voted to set up a Permanent Special Awards Committee. Unfortunately through improper keeping of minutes and transfer of such actions to a rules and procedures book, this committee also has somewhere fallen through the cracks. Also, on a motion by Harris, seconded by Honig, a Paul B. Harbour Memorial Lecture was set up for our next annual meeting in Philadelphia.

We met at the Warwick-Sheraton for our 29th Annual Meeting. The Harbour Memorial Lecture had been expanded to a Symposium on Depression for General Practitioners and Non-Psychiatric Specialists, utilizing the talents of eighteen speakers and it was the highlight of our lecture program. It received great coverage in a subsequent issue of Osteopathic News, with pictures of the lecturers. Our Banquet that year was at the Union League Club. It needs mentioning here that our A.C.N. annual banquets had by this time come to be regarded by all A.O.A. Officialdom as not-to-be-missed-if-invited affairs. They were held at elite places, always negotiated by our “Syd” (sometimes with help of others), always with epicurean menus served to perfection, always with special memento gifts for the ladies in attendance.

Once again we surpassed all previous meetings in attendance, and it was the opinion of the majority of long-time members that the 29th lecture sessions topped earlier meetings in excellence. Dr. Fred M. Still, one of the Founders of the College, became its First Life Member by unanimous action of the members. At the business meeting it was announced that Cecil Harris, D.O., F.A.C.N. had retired from Chairmanship of the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry, along with Floyd E. Dunn, D.O., F.A.C.N., F.A.A.M.D, who had been Secretary-treasurer of the Board for some years. These men retired as a protest against a “Star Chamber” proceeding by the then Chairman of the Advisory Board for Osteopathic Specialists, in which, without producing any specific or definite evidence for the same, or even naming any persons making charges, he accused the A.O.B.N.P. of malfeasance. No frank evidence of improper activity was ever produced, nor did any Board candidate ever make any charges of unfair or discriminatory treatment (which had been the substance of the accusations in the “Star Chamber” affair). Dr. Sydney Kanev and Dr. Fleda Brigham were recommended to the Trustees of the A.O.A. as replacements in the vacancies created by the resignations of Harris & Dunn.

As a final note on the Philadelphia meeting of the A.C.N: Fleda Brigham was made a Fellow, and Eleanore Wright, M.D. was made Honorary Fellow. This put our total of Fellows to twenty-nine, with the total membership numbering ninety-one.

Our Thirtieth Annual Meeting, held at the Royal Orleans Hotel in New Orleans was notable in being our first convention at which our business activities were broken into two sessions (in order to provide adequate time for the many necessary transactions), and for the presence of the First Lady of Arkansas, Mrs. Winthrop Rockefeller as the distinguished speaker at our Annual Banquet. Mrs. Rockefeller was at the time President of the National Association for Mental Health (which was holding its Annual Convention at the Hotel Roosevelt in New Orleans at the time) and had long been interested in Mental Health and Child Health problems.

At long last, due largely to the efforts of R. Kenneth Riland, D.O., and our own “Syd” Kanev, D.O., F.A.C.N., New York’s Governor Rockefeller signed into law the legislature’s amended Mental Health Act included certificants of the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry together with certificants of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as physicians qualified for the practice of their designated specialty in the Sovereign State of New York.

A new program of great significance to our College, and to the entire Osteopathic profession, was announced in the Bulletin of September 1967 (Vol. XX, No. 3). In a joint venture between the Missouri Division of Mental Diseases, and the Department of Neurology & Psychiatry of the Kirksville College of Osteopathy & Surgery, Dr. George Ulett, Director of the Division of Mental Diseases established a five-year in-service training program in psychiatry to be located at the State Hospital at Nevada, Missouri. The program furnished five years of combined training and experience in all of the areas as outlined by both the A.M.A. and the A.O.A. specialty boards in psychiatry, and consisted of three years of training and two subsequent years of service. Two months per year were to be spent in residence at the Kirksville College Hospital by each trainee. This program had first been offered to the Division of Neurology & Psychiatry at the Kansas City College, where your author was then Professor and Chairman of the Division. President Peach and I rejected it because it was obviously providing a way for the Missouri Division of Mental Health to get their hospitals staffed by good English-speaking D.O. psychiatrists (in place of the foreign graduates they were then-and are still-forced to use to fill vacancies) with complete A.O.A. sanction, but without adequate opportunity for the trainee to receive Osteopathic psychiatric training and experience. We tried to persuade Kirksville and Dr. Brigham to likewise “hold off” so that we could provide a untied front, and request a program in which the trainee spent a full year all at one time at one or the other osteopathic colleges of Missouri. I knew Dr. Ulett well, personally, and knew of his concern over the necessity of hiring foreign graduates with poor command of English (and no knowledge of American customs or culture) for a discipline in which good communication was the sine-qua-non for good rapport and success in therapy. He needed us worse than we needed him!! But the president of the Kirksville College saw this through the eyes of a political opportunist, and made the alliance as originally offered by Dr. Ulett. Despite its defects as an osteopathic psychiatric graduate training program, it was important in that in opened to osteopathic graduates all the state-supported allopathic medical psychiatric facilities in the state of Missouri.

The Thirty-first Annual Meeting of the College, held October 30-November 1, 1967 in San Francisco, with headquarters at the Sheraton-Palace, produced a revision of our Constitution & By-Laws in final draft for presentation at our 32nd Session in Miami Beach in 1968. By vote of the membership, on motion by Floyd E. Dunn seconded by Philip Katz, the new basic documents were made to serve as rules of procedure for the College pending their formal adoption and subsequent approval by the A.O.A. Board of Trustees. At this Meeting, the College awarded its Distinguished Service Certificate to Cecil Harris, D.O., F.A.C.N, and to Floyd E. Dunn, D.O., F.A.C.N., F.A.A.M.D.; and honored Groven N. Gillum, D.O., F.A.C.N. with a Life Membership. Dr. Gillum was the second “Founding Father” to thus be honored by the A.C.N.

The October 1968 issue of the Bulletin of the A.C.N. (Vol. XXII, No. 4) carried the news item of Floyd E. Dunn’s resignation from his long-held (two decades) post as Chairman of the Division of Neurology & Psychiatry at the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine and his acceptance of a position as Unit Chief of Psychiatry at the Wadsworth V.A. Center in Leavenworth Kansas. He was the first D.O. to be hired as a ‘psychiatrist’ by the Veterans Administration Hospital system, and the first D.O. to be hired in a hospital that cooperates with the “Dean’s Committee” of an allopathic medical school (in this instance, the University of Kansas Medical School).

The same issue of the Bulletin carried the news of the suspension of operation of the Still-Hildreth Osteopathic Hospital, in Macon Missouri. The hospital was the first osteopathic neuropsychiatric institution to be established in the world (1914) and for over half a century had not only provided excellent clinical care for neurological and psychiatric patients, but also had been influential in the progress of osteopathic neurologists and psychiatrists, and of the A.C.N.

The Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the College was held October 11-17, 1968 with our headquarters in the Hotel Americana. Most notable accomplishment was the final adoptive vote on the revised constitution and bylaws. The members also voted to place the selection of future Council on Educational Evaluation members in the hands of the Board of Governors of the A.C.N. The American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry, following decisions made at the A.O.A. levels, announced the following policy with regard to ‘Board Eligibility’ status in the disciplines of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Child Psychiatry: (1) Formally trained persons may remain board eligible only five years after the date of official notification of board eligibility. (2) If board eligibility under the ‘grandfather clause, began prior to October 10, 1968, such eligibility would terminate three years from that date. (3) Annual re-registration fees would be levied of all ‘Board Eligible’ candidates, $25.00 for the first and second years, $50.00 for the third, fourth, and fifth years in the case of candidates who had completed formal training programs, and $50.00 for each year of continuation in the case of candidates under the ‘grandfather clause’. This decision was made to clarify the term ‘Board Eligible’ as to meaning and duration, and to terminate the practice of a few candidates who, for prolonged periods, publicly label themselves “Board Eligible” without ever passing the certifying examinations.

Worthy of note in passing was the decision of the Pennsylvania Civil Service Department finally to approve specialty rating for D.O. psychiatrists as “Psychiatrists I, II, or III”, depending on credentials and merit. The same year (1969) in Kansas City Missouri, at the Menorah Medical Center’s Psychoanalytic Studies Group sessions, and at Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy program at Unity Village, the doors were opened for the first time to D.O. psychiatric residents of the area.

The January (1970) Bulletin (Vol. XXIII, No. 1) announced the inauguration of the first official program for training of D.O. Child Psychiatrists, under the direction of the Philadelphia Mental Health Clinic, utilizing the facilities of the Eastern State School Hospital at Trevose, Pennsylvania.

The same issue of the Bulletin (Vol. XXIII) reported on our Thirty-third Annual meeting, held October 6-9, 1969 at the New York Hilton Hotel in New York City. We had our largest attendance in history—this fact had by now become practically a routine annual annotation and is recorded here only as an attestation to the fact of our continued growth and our complete recovery from the loss of one-third of our membership through the “California Defection”. The meeting was notable for the visit of A.O.A. President Scott Heatherington at our Business meeting where he spent over an hour discussing with us mutual A.O.A.-A.C.N. problems and items of interest. Also noteworthy was the first morning of our lecture program, which was presented entirely by graduate trainees and was the inaugural episode of what was designed to be an annual competition for a cash prize for the best paper written by a resident. The prize of $100.00 each year was to come from a newly created discretionary fund, which was donated to the College by Mrs. Frances L. Wilson (formerly treasurer of the New York Osteopathic Hospital, and for many years a donor to osteopathic institutions and causes). Not to be forgotten in chronicling important items of our Thirty-third Meeting was our gala banquet the evening of October 8th, high atop the Life & Time Building, in the South Room on the 48th Floor in the Tower Suite, where we had as our guests many of the great and near-great of the Osteopathic profession, including A.O.A. president Heatherington and his wife.

The April 1970 Bulletin (Vol. XXIII, No. 2) brought news of an important, but double-faced nature: The A.M.A. Council on Education had sanctioned internships and residencies for D.O. graduates in A.M.A.-approved hospital training programs. Our College was fearful that (a) this might lead to a repetition of the unfortunate situation that occurred in California where after surrendering their degrees and specialty practice rights in the osteopathic profession, the people in that state found their little $65-m.d. degrees did not carry any recognition as specialists among their new Allopathic “brothers; (b) our new graduates would be tempted to jump headlong into the A.M.A. programs without waiting for them to be approved by the A.O.A. and A.C.N.—which approval was mandatory and, by A.O.A. regulations, had to be obtained prior to entering the training program. This second fear proved prophetic: at least a dozen of our brash non-heeding young graduates committed themselves prematurely to A.M.A.-sponsored programs in neurology or psychiatry (several of them leaving A.O.A.-sponsored programs where they were under contract), and then wrote to our College Secretary “requesting approval and/or inspection” of their programs “to insure their eligibility to examinations for certification” before the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry. One cannot help speculating about the basic moral-ethical makeup of people who ignore laid-down boundaries of social or of professional groups and seem to think that they can make their own rules. Never-the-less, the officials of the A.O.A. and of the A.C.N. and the A.O.B.N.P., after several sessions of conference and discussion, formulated plans through which any such ‘lost sheep’ might seek re-entry into the osteopathic fold. The A.O.A. required that each such person be considered entirely separately on its own merits, and that no blanket special formulae be set up.

Our Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting, held in San Francisco, October 1-7, 1970, with headquarters at the Fairmont Hotel devoted many hours to the problem of training of our D.O. graduates in non-A.O.A. approved (Allopathic) programs and centers. We were beginning to find that the larger and better Allopathic training centers were willing to have A.O.A. inspection team visit their facility for an on-site inspection, but still too many of our young “eager beavers” were jumping the gun and contracting for training at non-A.O.A.-approved centers, hoping that somehow, by-hook-or-by-crook, they could get under the A.O.A. umbrella retroactively. And the fact of the matter is that, because we believed that it was wiser to “fence them in than to fence them out” our Council on Educational Evaluation did tend to bend over backwards to help these errant graduates find ways to get their programs approved if they could be completely documented and if they represented training of an acceptable standard.

The chairman of the Council on Educational Evaluation reported that there were forty-one trainees in graduate training programs in Osteopathic Centers; The largest group in our College history to that date. The A.O.B.N.P. reported that nine candidates had successfully passed the written portion of their boards: again a record number.

The membership voted Life Membership awards to R.H. Still, D.O., and Sydney M. Kanev, D.O. (both Fellows of the College), and voted Louis E. Rentz, D.O. the degree of Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

The senior members voted to hold our thirty-fifth annual meeting in London and Paris, and John Cox, D.O., as president-elect and program chairman was given the arduous task of organizing and coordinating not only the travel arrangements, but also the educational elements of this projected foreign jaunt.

The January 1971 (Vol. XXIV, No. 1) Bulletin reported the election of Harry S. Still, D.O. to the presidency of the Missouri State Board of the Healing Arts, Jan. 10th 1971. Dr. Still was Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, a diplomat in psychiatry of the A.O.B.N.&P. and a senior member of the A.C.N. He had just completed his second term as Secretary of the Healing Arts Board and was the first D.O. to serve as president.

The biggest historical event of 1971 for our College was our Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting, which was enclosed in a package trip to London, Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon. Some sixty of us made the trip, with its planned Continuing Medical Education sessions and its cross-cultural evaluations. One is tempted to report more detail of this experience than its real place in our College’s total history genuinely merits. We listened to famed British psychiatrists W.D. Wadsworth and Eliot Slater (genetics research director of the historic Maudsley Hospital); to French psychiatrists Serge Lebovici, Professor Baruk, and L. Traimer. We visited the “Maudsley” in London, and the “Maison Blanc” in Paris. The College conferred upon Harry Stanley Still, D.O. the degree: Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists, October 3, 1971. We left Kennedy October 1, 1971 and those who continued with the seminar to Madrid and Lisbon wound up their learning adventure with a gala Bon Voyage celebration October 18 before their next-day trip to the Lisbon airport to board the J.F. Kennedy-bound jet. The trip had been a unifying event for the body of the college, and the resulting camaraderie and friendship created cohesion among the members that lasted for the next decade.

This European jaunt also gave birth to our Auxiliary to the American College of Neuropsychiatrists. Our spouses had a highly successful organization meeting, and they have been a valuable aid in our continuing progress ever since. The officers of the new Auxiliary were Sylvia Kanev, President; Helen Thompson, Vice President; Wilda Dunn, Treasurer; Gloria Joye, Secretary.

Since those who had made the trip (although there was an official quorum) did not constitute a majority of the members of all categories in the College, it was decided to re-elect the incumbent officers, except that the office of treasurer was separated from that of secretary, and Burton T. Mark was elected to fill the newly created post. Edythe Varner continued as President; Fred Marshall as Vice President; and Sydney Kanev as Executive Secretary.

The A.C.N. Bulletin of April 1972 (Vol 1. XXV. No. 2) carried the news of the death of former secretary-treasurer of the College, Don. C. Littlefield, while in Alaska on a boat trip, July 30, 1971. Don was a Fellow of the College, and had been one of its Presidents before agreeing to accept the office of secretary-treasurer.

Two situations of importance to the college were reported in the Bulletin of July 1972: A.O.A.-approved training centers were beginning to feel the competition to fill vacancies with so many M.D. centers opening their programs to D.O. applicants; and P.C.O.M. administration still was not accepting the need for a full specialty department of Psychiatry and Neurology despite the persuasive efforts of many of our certified members of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists. The A.C.N’s Council on Educational Evaluation reported that they had reviewed the programs of fifty-five trainees in full-time residency or fellowship programs during their 1972 summer meeting, and the Secretary of the A.O.B.NP. reported that nine candidates had received their specialty certificates, making seventy-three people who had been certified since the creation of our specialty board.

Also of historical importance in 1972 was the announcement of the acceptance by the Menninger School of Psychiatry of their first two full-time Fellows with D.O. degrees, in the persons of Kenneth Kobes and Donald Curran.

By the time of our Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting, which was held October 6th thru 11th 1972 at Bal Harbor’s Hotel Americana, our College had 160 active members. It was at this meeting that a procedural rule was voted requiring that Senior members attend at least one of three annual sessions in order to maintain their active membership status with the full privileges there unto appertaining.

Fourteen candidates in neurology and seventeen candidates in psychiatry were given their examinations before the A.O.B.N.P. December 1st, 2nd, & 3rd, 1972; this was the largest number of candidates the board had examined in a single “class”, up to that time. The July 1973 issue of the Bulletin listed eighteen of this “class” as having received notification of their certification: a good record considering that the M.D. Board was failing about fifty percent of their candidates during this period.

The October 1973 Bulletin (Vol. XXVI, No. 4) reported that the former requirement of the Committee on Postdoctoral Training (of the A.O.A.) for D.O. sponsorship of candidates in allopathic training centers was rescinded, and that the requirement to spend the first year of residency in an approved osteopathic training center was changed to apply only when there is a comparable training program within our profession. The same issue reported that the College had two hundred members in various categories and nearly ninety-five men & women in full-time residency or fellowship training programs.

Our Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting, held October 26-November 1, 1973 at the Rivergate Exhibition Center in New Orleans honored Fleda Brigham and Edyth Varner with Distinguished Service Certificates. At this meeting reports were made on forty-four institutions in which our D.O. graduates were receiving training in Neurology and/of Psychiatry.

On February 12, 1974, the Board of Trustees of the A.O.A. acceded to the recommendation of the A.O.B.N.P. that nine candidates who had successfully taken their oral, written, and clinical examinations in neurology or psychiatry be granted their specialty certificates. This made a total of one hundred certificants of the A.O.B.N.&P., which represented a growth of 550% since this historian became a diplomat in Neurology & Psychiatry #19, twenty-eight years earlier.

The Thirty-eighth Annual Meeting, held September 7-13, 1974 at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland Oregon surpassed the previous years sessions both in peak attendance and program excellence, according to Bulletin Editor Sydney Kanev. The session was notable for the presentation of a new revision of the Constitution & By-Laws by Floyd E. Dunn, Chairman of the C & B-L Committee, which was unanimously adopted, and on a motion by Dunn, voted to become the standing rules of procedure pending approval by the A.O.A. Board of Trustees. One of the important changes in the new basic documents was the creation of a Board of Governors consisting of the President, immediate Past President, President-elect, Vice President, Executive Secretary, Treasurer and four members, nominated by the board, and elected by the College to serve (in staggered terms) for four years. This change served spread the responsibility of running the business of the College at the same time that it provided an opportunity for more members to actively contribute their time and talents to the welfare of their college. A second important change was to provide that the Executive Secretary and the Treasurer “shall be selected by the Board of Governors at their discretion.”

In the College Bulletin (Vol. XXVIII, No. 2) of April 1975, A.C.N. President Fred Marshall reported the birth of a Mid-year Continuing Medical Education Program whose gestation period dated back to the second term as A.C.N. President by your author, when the Committee on Development and Organization, which he originated, began the sponsorship of interim scientific and educational programs. The D. & O. Committee died after three years through lack of support by either members or the A.C.N. governing body; in the intervening years there was a gradual ground swell of interest and discussion about developing a mid-year scientific and educational seminar under A.C.N. sponsorship, but it took the drive of Fred Marshall and his Board of Governors to push the ‘ground swell’ into a flood of action. He met with his Board at Westchester, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1974 and organized our first officially titled Mid-year Continuing Medical Education Program; the program has been an important part of the activities of the College since its inception a decade ago.

At the Thirty-ninth Annual Meeting of the College, November 9-13, 1975 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, our major concern was the shrinking of teaching hours for neurology and psychiatry (especially psychiatry) being proposed and put into effect by the curriculum committees of most of our Osteopathic Medical Schools. The consensus was that a physician who went into family practice without a good indoctrination in personality growth and development and the ways in which that personality might show aberration of function would be ill-prepared to function in the holistic approach to medicine which osteopathic theory, philosophy and practice had championed as one of its chief “raisons de etre” since its birth a century earlier. Much heat and fervor were generated in the discussions but little was accomplished in the terms of effective corrective action. In the current vernacular, we did not have “clout” on college curricular committees. Almost a decade later, most of us still feel that the family physician needs much more savoir faire in matters neurologic and psychiatric than he/she was given in medical school and internship, and most polls show that the majority of people in family practice agree with us.

The American College of Neuropsychiatrists held its Fortieth Annual Meeting in conjunction with the Convention of the American Osteopathic Association, November 12-18, 1976, at the Civic Center in San Francisco. The College members awarded the Distinguished Service Certificate to Edward Francis Xavier Lawler (executive Director of the National Association of Private Psychiatric Hospitals) and to Ms. Irene Lump (Manager, National Health Affairs for Smith, Kline, & French) both of who had voluntarily lent their services and influence to the college for many years. Bernice Harker, one of our early diplomats in Psychiatry, and the only D.O. California psychiatrist who maintained her osteopathic affiliation at the time of the infamous California Defection, was awarded a Lifetime Membership.

The members of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists were individually shocked and grieved (and the college as an institution suffered shock and partial disruption) at the sudden death of it long-time Executive Secretary and indefatigable worker, Sydney M. Kanev, on January 25, 1977 at his home. Syd was a Fellow of the College, and a Life Member of both the College and the American Osteopathic Association. As your author wrote for the “D.O.” of August 1977: “No one knows better than I the amount of work he did for the profession in his capacities of secretary of the A.C.N, and secretary-treasurer of the AOBNP since I am the only other current ember of the profession who ever held both positions. Syd was one of a vanishing strain of Homo Sapiens: a kind of endangered species. He seemed to put devotion to duty and to his profession above all else. He looked after the welfare of all members of the A.C.N., and all candidates in or out of training even when some of them were in effect fighting him tooth and nail. The profession and osteopathic neurology & psychiatry are poorer now that he has gone, even though they seldom gave him due honor while he was here. Ave Sydney,” Edythe Varner, a Fellow and a past president of the College wrote of him in the September issue of the Bulletin: “For many people who had the privilege of working with and knowing this gentle man, it is nearly impossible to separate his name from the college he served. … Dr. Kanev never lost his enthusiasm nor his faith in his desire to see growth and development of the A.C.N.”

A test of the viability of an institution is its capacity to survive and reintegrate following a disrupting crisis. Our College demonstrated (again) its ability to reintegrate after a crisis almost as devastating as that which it had survived in the earlier years of the sixties following the California Defection. The new crisis was, of course, the break-up of communication, integration, continuity, and record keeping in our College followed the sudden death of our stalwart Executive Secretary and Editor: our beloved Syd Kanev. Unfortunately, we had selfishly “ridden the willing horse to death”. Syd had been willing-and capable-so we all just “let Syd do it”. We had given him no younger assistants to “break in”, learn the ropes”, and share the load. When we suddenly found ourselves without our center-pole, our tent began to collapse. But fortunately we were able to shore it up: at a special meeting of the Board of Governors on February 6, 1977, John Cox, D.O., F.A.C.N., took over the duties of Secretary-treasurer of the A.O.B.N.P., and Ned Baron, D.O., accepted the post of Editor of the Bulletin. The crisis was handled, but things were shaky during the early months while the three willing volunteers were learning the intricacies of the positions they assumed. Many things involved throughout the operation of those three positions had never been written down in “Manuals of Procedure”. Syd knew how to do them all because he had helped them grow and develop over more than a decade and a half, but now, each of the three neophytes had to start “from scratch”, and learn by experience how things were done in each of the areas of their individual responsibility. It is a testament to their talents that each of them succeeded well—that the three new poles nicely held up the circus tent that is the A.C.N. and the AOBNP. And the show went on!

The Forty-first Annual Business and Scientific Sessions of the College were held in Atlanta, Georgia in the World Congress Center, November 6-12, 1977. The members recognized a decade of inflation by finally doubling dues in all categories of membership and increasing charges for annual evaluations of trainees’ programs. Otherwise, this meeting was notable chiefly for the poor attendance at our scientific lecture sessions. The real reason for this was not immediately apparent; perhaps it was a reaction to the success of the Mid-year Sessions earlier at Philadelphia under Dr. Arthur Greenfield’s chairmanship; or perhaps the growing frequency of continuing medical education programs was beginning to dampen interest in our particular annual sessions. In the business sessions, the members awarded life memberships to Wilbur Cole and George Guest; and the conclave of Fellows added Ned Baron and Fred Marshall to their number.

The College went to the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Honolulu Hawaii for its Forty-second Annual Meeting, held in conjunction with the Annual A.O.A. Convention October 29-November 2, 1978. At this meeting, pursuant to earlier-adopted changes in the constitution, the Board of Governors was enlarged by the election (in staggered four-year terms) of four members-at-large. Dr. Floyd E. Dunn, as Chairman of the Constitution & By-Laws Committee presented a proposal to provide for the section of “Honorary Fellows” of the College: “in recognition of significant contribution to this College, to the Osteopathic Profession, or in the broad field of Humanities, upon recommendation of the Conclave of Fellows and approval of the Board of Governors;” and a proposal to change the mechanism of becoming a member of the college to agree with that of the A.O.A., so that new applicants could be enrolled thirty days after publication of the applicant’s name in one of the official Osteopathic Journals if no objections was made in that interim. The college members adopted both proposals.

The Board of Governors announced their decision to combine the office of Treasurer with that of Executive Secretary for convenience of carrying on business, and to be able to use the treasurer’s stipend in paying honoraria to our annual lecture program participants. Also, the Program Committee was restructured into a Standing Committee of five members.

It was reported that the A.O.A. had ratified a recommendation for a change in the Basic Documents to allow a credit of one or more years of residency training in Internal Medicine for one year of resident training in Neurology. The President also reported that the Board of Governors had met with similar officers of the College of Pediatricians and drawn up basic guidelines for the training in the sub-specialty of Child Neurology.

Floyd E. Dunn, D.O., F.A.C.N proposed by motion, the creation of a Gerdine-Kanev Memorial Lecture as the Keynote address for our Scientific Sessions. A Gerdine-Kanev Memorial plaque would be designed for presentation to each Memorial Lecture. The motion was carried.

Donald Siehl, D.O., then president of the A.O.A., was made an honorary member of the College and became the second Honorary Fellow of the A.C.N. at the annual Banquet of the College.

The Forty-third Annual Meeting of the College, which was at the Fairmount Hotel in Dallas, November 4-8, 1979, was historically notable chiefly because it was brought to our attention that our physical growth as an organization had so increased the amount of “college business” involved in serving all our needs that it was no longer feasible for one of our members to carry the load of being our Executive Secretary Treasurer as a kind of hobby or avocation in addition to carrying a full-time practice. Our capable and long-suffering “Exec-Sec” John W. Cox, D.O., F.A.C.N, brought us squarely face-to-face with this truth when he made his annual report and submitted his resignation. Dr. Cox recommended that the Board of Governors select Mr. G. Joseph Strickler as a lay Executive Secretary Treasurer for the College. The members voted to approve this recommendation for one year, with a search committee to be appointed by the Board of Governors to consider alternatives should the contract with Mr. Strickler not be renewed by mutual agreement. Mr. Strickler and his staff were already involved with the osteopathic profession, serving as the business offices of the Dayton District Academy of Osteopathic Medicine, the Osteopathic College of Ophthalmology and Otorhinolaryngology, the Ohio Society of E.E.N.T., and the Medical Staff of Grandview Hospital.

There was considerable discussion at the Forty-third Annual Business Sessions concerning the trend to return psychiatry to the Medical model (from which, in the opinion of this author, it never really strayed except in the wishful thinking and over ambitious power-seeking fantasy of many Ph.D. and Ed.D. clinical psychologists most of whom have always reminded this neuropsychiatrist of the old saw about the new army recruit who, as soon as he learned to march thought he was ready to be a general), and the members voted to appoint a reference committee to develop a policy statement from our College to be presented to A.O.A.-Federal Representatives relative to the position of Psychiatrists (of our College) in relation to psychologists, social workers and other (psychiatric) paraprofessionals. Barry Goldstein, D.O., Chairman of this Reference Committee submitted the two following resolutions as a result of his committee’s deliberations, for action at the next meeting of the Board of Governors:

Resolution No. 1: It is the opinion that the practice of psychiatric medicine is a discipline solely under the province of the osteopathic psychiatrist, and furthermore, that the psychiatrist physician be the sole director of all paraprofessional disciplines necessary in treating the full scope of psychiatric problems, i.e., psychology, social work, and physiotherapy.

Resolution No. 2: It is the concern of this committee that the rights of osteopathic psychiatrists and their patients are in jeopardy, and we recommend to the Board of Governors of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists that they appoint a representative to meet with the Executive Secretary of the American Osteopathic Association and his legislative lobbyist in order to seek understanding and assistance in dealing with these issues on both a state and national level.

This college decided to waive the standing rule requiring that a senior member attend at least one our of three annual meetings to maintain his active standing, on motion by Dr. Stiles, seconded by Dr. Curran.

The disruption in college affairs occasioned by the resignation of Dr. John Cox was more serious than was initially apparent. We knew that there was a hiatus somewhere when we did not receive any Bulletins after the January 1980 issue—until, finally, there arrived Vol. XXXI, Issue 1, dated January 1981. But when we read in that issue that, “Mr. Strickler gave a report on the conversation with Carl Cahoon regarding the A.C.N. Incorporation suggestion for the attorneys as requested by the Board at the Mid-Year Meeting. Mr. Stickler was then instructed to talk with Ed Borman to learn if he would handle the incorporation report on behalf of the A.C.N. and to report back at the Mid-year Meeting”, we knew that things were really in a snafu; for the A.C.N. had been incorporated under the laws of the state of Missouri “in perpetuum” in the year 1939. So what had gone wrong with our “Incorporation”? The Bulletin report didn’t tell us.

When we read in the same issue, under the “Report of the A.C.N. Board of Governors” that “Four proposed Fellows received from the AOBN&P include Arthur Greenfield, D.O., John Raymond D.O., Edgar Rennoe, D.O. and Fred Still, D.O. who is deceased”, we began to feel that the whole organization had fallen apart. First of all, the AOBNP has no function in A.C.N. business. Its sole function is to examine qualified candidates in neurology and/or psychiatry. Secondly, only the Conclave of Fellows refers proposed Fellows to the Board of Governors. And thirdly, deceased or not, Fred Still was one of the Founders of, and a Charter Fellow of, the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

Even the people who were discussing the ‘Draft Copy’ of a Model Program in Psychiatry were in error when “it stated that the current requirement in two years of each for dual certification in Neurology and Psychiatry. That requirement originally stated that the first year of training in neurology or psychiatry would be quite similar, with considerable time being spent studying the basic sciences and learning techniques of interviewing and learning how to take histories and conduct proper examinations on neurological and psychiatric patients. The following two years were differentiated, and the trainee could wait until his first year of training completed before deciding whether he wanted neurology or psychiatry—or whether he wanted two years of each, as your author elected. But when you add these years together, it comes out FIVE years, so to say “two years of each” without paying attention to the all-important BASIC year totally distorts the facts. Unfortunately, practically no one today wants to spend the extra years and additional mind-draining learning effort needed to master the expertise required for certification in both disciplines. The result is that the typical neurologist knows too little psychiatry and the typical psychiatrist knows even less neurology. Our school of medicine is fortunate in having (in this author’s biased opinion) fewer of these ‘typical’ specialists than we see in the dominant school of the healing arts. But to return to the point: here was more evidence of lack of organization: people who were “in charge” evidently did not know their facts.

Volume XXXI, Issue 1, of the Bulletin of the College contained the report of the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting, which was held at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, November 9-13, 1980. It was decided that the Executive Director would be responsible for the completion, printing and distribution of the College Bulletin, based on the cooperation of the Editors within agreed-on time schedules set on a regular basis.

Drs. John E. Raymond and Arthur Greenfield were awarded the Degree: Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists.

Our Forty-fifth Annual Meeting was held in Los Angeles November 15-19, 1981, at the Bonaventure Hotel. The members adopted minor alterations of the constitution, consequent upon having hired a lay executive director. There is no record of any further action relative to the A.C.N. Corporate Documents at either the Forty-fourth or the Forty-fifth Meetings. Presumably, then, our corporate status is still intact and its status satisfactorily to both the state of Missouri, and the Internal Revenue Service.

The Educational Evaluating Committee reported that fifty-six D.O. candidates were in graduate training programs approved by the A.O.A., with most of the programs being in M.D.-controlled facilities.

The College met with the A.O.A. in Chicago for our Forty-sixth Annual Meeting, held October 3-7, 1982 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Our total membership now stood at 226, but the report stated that there were fifty D.O.’s in training programs who were not members of the College.

After almost a decade of discussion and altercation, a revision of the constitution provision for awarding the Degree: Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists was adopted by voting members. A guideline sheet had been devised by which members could gauge accomplishments in the pathways of “continued and unselfish interest in, and contribution to the field of neuropsychiatry and this College”, which had been the original reasons for the awarding of this honor to a Senior member of the College, certified by the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology & Psychiatry, upon selection the constitution allows nominations of proposed Fellows to be made by any Senior member of the College, subject to majority vote of the Fellows and approval by the Board of Governors. Apparently the old tradition of a year of ‘sponsorship’ of the proposed acolyte by two Fellows, and the formal recitation of accomplishments which have resulted in his/her being chosen for this honor by his/her peers has fallen through the cracks, for it was not done at the last (1983) Annual Banquet at which eight members of this College were awarded this high honorary degree. Alas, it appears to this Fellow that some of the symbolic meaning of the Degree: Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychiatrists” has been lost.

The Rivergate Center in New Orleans served as the locus of our Forty-seventh Annual Meeting in which was held October 23-26, 1983. This meeting was historically notable chiefly in bringing to a head growing dissatisfaction with both the cost and quality of service provided to the College by the Dayton Academy Office (through the person of Joseph Strickler) in its function as central office of the A.C.N., together with providing part-time services of some of its staff for A.C.N. business operations (under the direction of Joseph Strickler, who has been designated as Executive Director of the A.C.N. by its Board of Governors). By vote without dissent, the membership supported the decision of the Board of Governors to terminate the Academy’s service in its present form, and to seek a new Executive Director. Subsequent to our Annual Meeting applications were considered by the Board of Governors, and a new Executive Director was chosen in the person of Louis Rentz, D.O., F.A.C.N., who has been elected Secretary-treasurer at the 47th Annual Business Meeting.

At this point, history begins to merge with news of current events. There must be a time-distance separation factor involved before events can be properly seen with that perspective that allows them to be designated “History”. Events since the selection of a new Executive Director have not yet acquired that time-distance perspective, so this historian’s assignment has been completed. Not only that, but I remember that in the set of by-laws under which my membership in this college began, the ‘historian’ of the college during his term of office was to be the vice-president, with the cooperation of the secretary. This is another traditional function, which seems to have fallen through the cracks. In fact I know of no vice president who has so functioned since my short history of our early beginnings was presented at an Annual Meeting in Macon, Missouri, and later quoted by K. Grosvenor Bailey, D.O., F.A.C.N., F.A.O.C.S. in the January 1959 issue of the California Clinician. I have a reprint of Ken Bailey’s article, but unfortunately I had sent him the last copy of my own “History”, and the original sources for my monograph (the archives of the old Still-Hildreth Osteopathic Hospital) were no longer available. This made my task in writing this work incredibly more difficult. It has taken four times as much work as I anticipated and has unwound into three times more pages. And now that the history is compiled in one piece, I must face the realistic truth that probably no one will ever read it.

Certainly no one helped me put it together by responding to the twice-repeated call for material in issues of the Bulletin. But I promised the Board of Governors I would do it, so here it is—and I am thankful it is finished!!