American College of Osteopathic Neurologists and Psychiatrists

The American College of Neuropsychiatrists

(An Osteopathic Institution)

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

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.