Author: George Hughes Kirby

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-07-08

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9781330961674

Excerpt from The Health Bulletin, Vol. 51: January, 1936 In this our first issue of the New Year we are doing two unusual things. First, we are dedicating the issue to the memory of the late Dr. George H. Kirby, who perhaps scaled the scientific heights to a point never before reached by a physician born, reared and educated in North Carolina. Second, we are devoting the whole issue to a republication of an article written by Dr. Andrew H. Woods, who is now doing a great work in Iowa. Dr. Woods' article was first published in the Iowa State Department of Health Bulletin for June, 1935. Dr. Bierring, Iowa State Health Commissioner, and Dr. Woods grant us permission to republish. Our readers will find the information interesting and helpful. Our friend Dr. James K. Hall of Richmond, himself a successful and widely known authority on mental diseases and beloved by his fellow North Carolinians, in a personal letter soon after Dr. Kirby's death, said: "I feel like urging you to republish in your Bulletin every word of Dr. Woods' pamphlet. The problems cannot be talked about too frankly. I believe that if you would send that material out widely throughout the State that you would shake the folks up. Why not make the issue a Mental Hygiene issue as a tribute to Dr. Kirby?" Dr. Treadway of the U. S. P. H. Service told the Southern Medical Association at St. Louis a few weeks ago that "More people are hospitalized right at this moment in the United States on account of mental sickness than on account of any other single cause." And further that "We are dealing with mental sickness as a public health problem about as we did with physical disease eighty years ago." We pass along the challenge to the only group who can accept it. Dr. Hall wrote further about Dr. Kirby: "George Kirby was in my opinion one of the very best, if not the best, psychiatrist in this country. He was deeply and broadly educated; he was first and for a long time a profound student of the structure of the human body, and later became specifically interested in the function of the nervous system. I know of no other man who was better prepared in his latter years to practice psychiatry and to teach it. And with it all he remained the quiet, modest, self-effacing, Southern gentleman." High praise indeed from a competent authority, but every word deserved. Dr. Kirby was born in Goldsboro, N. C., February 9, 1875, and died in Portsmouth. N. H., August 11, 1935. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1896. He completed his medical education in New York and on graduation became associated with the celebrated Dr. Adolph Meyer at a New York State Hospital. He spent many years as Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He was president of the American Psychiatric Association and editor of its journal. Perhaps his greatest contribution was the planning and carrying through to a successful conclusion the New York State Psychiatric Institute as a unit of the joint Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Centre. He was the recipient of many honorary degrees, one from the University of North Carolina, conferred in 1929. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.