Director, Pathological Institute
Centurion, 1906–1950
Born 13 September 1866 in Niederweningen, Switzerland
Died 17 March 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland
Buried Druid Ridge Cemetery
, Pikesville, Maryland
Proposed by Frederick Peterson and William Church Osborn
Elected 2 June 1906 at age thirty-nine
Century Memorial
Adolph Meyer was elected to the Century in 1906. He died on March 17, 1950.
He was one of the most eminent psychiatrists of the time, and one of the great figures who brought world-wide honor and distinction to the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Although small in stature and kindly in manner, he had an intensity of conviction and a passion for facts which, in combination with his breadth of view, gave him great power of leadership among his associates. He worked out a pattern of case study in clinical psychiatry which became the accepted model for case records.
When he received an honorary degree from Yale in 1934 the citation referred to him as “the beloved physician of the ailing mind.” At a testimonial dinner in 1937—when he was seventy—he was acclaimed as “a great humanist” and “the architect of the cathedral of psychiatry.”
At Johns Hopkins he was once visited at the Phipps Institute by the Queen of Belgium. After waiting for some time to see Dr. Meyer, she recognized him at a distance, walked up to him, and introduced herself as the Queen. “Yes,” replied Dr. Meyer; “How long have you been Queen? Many of my patients have had similar ideas.”
Among psychiatrists he became a legendary figure—the idealized combination of immense erudition and practical common-sense. Among his friends the sadness at the termination of his life and work is tempered with pride in his achievements and gratitude for the experience of his friendship.
George W. Martin
1951/1952 Century Association Yearbook
