Dr. Albert Anderson
lie did a wonderful work in helping tlio.se
individuals who broke flown under mental
strain, and there are many citizens in all
parts of North Carolina who are indebted
to him for it.
WHEN I was at the Bar the»
used to call them '‘Alienist*’’
and the thing about them that
I best remember is the big fees they
charged and received. Since then they
have changed their name and have be¬
come psychiatrists — but it's the same
profession.
Carolina has done its full share in
producing men outstanding upon the
field of the healers of mental diseases.
There was I)r. P. L. Murphy, who
built the Morganton Hospital, a man
nationally known in his specialty.
There was Dr. George I.. Kirby of
Goldsboro, Confederate Surgeon and
Superintendent of our State Hospital.
His son, Dr. George
И.
Kirby, attained
an international reputation as a spe¬
cialist in psychiatry. This eminent son
of Carolina was associated with the
famous Dr. Adolph Meyer in Clinical
Psychiatry in the New York State
Psychiatric Institute; he served a*
clinical director of the Manhattan
State Hospital; he succeeded Dr. Au¬
gust Hooh ns Director of the Psychi¬
atric Institute in 1917. Dr. Kirby de¬
veloped what is known as the malarial
treatment for paresis, which was and
still is an outstanding contribution to
world psychiatry, and to mental suf¬
ferers. lie played an important part
in the planning and development of
the psychiatric unit of the Presbvte-
rian-Columbia Medical Center in New
York City, which is the last word in
that specialty.
Other Outstanding Leaders
Dr. Kirby served as Professor of
Psychiatry in New York University;
in Bellovue Medical School ; in the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Columbia University. He served not
only as President of the New York
Neurological Society, but also as
President of the American Psychiatric
Association, which is the accolade in
that field.
Then there is Dr. -I. K. Hall, who
came out of Burke County and mar¬
ried the -inter of Carolina’s Judge
Samuel J. Ervin, Jr., of Morganton.
Dr. Hall is the proprietor of West¬
brook Sanatorium at Richmond, and
By R. C. LAURENCE
is a nationally known figure when it
comes to a question of mental dis¬
ease.
Nor would our list lie complete
without mentioning Dr. J. W. Ashby,
who has been doing such splendid work
as the head of the State Hospital in
Raleigh for a number of years.
Now add to these big specialists the
name of Albert Anderson, who was
born in the red hills of Wake County
in 1859. He took his academic degree
from old Trinity College, and his
medical degree from the University of
Virginia; and he had postgraduate
courses at New York Polyclinic and
other institutions. Then he settled
down at Wilson to the practice of his
profession. Before he had been in Wil¬
son long he married Mis* Patlie
Woodard.
The doctor founded what is known
as Wilson Sanatorium. Ho was a man
of largo mental equipment; a tireless
and prodigious worker; and he soon
attracted statewide notice in the field
of medicine. He became n member of
the State Board of Medical Exam¬
iners; he served as a member of the
House of Delegates of the American
Medical Association (quite an honor
in the medical world); he served as
President of the Tri-State Medical
Association; and even of the Raleigh
Academy of Medicine.
To Raleigh in 1907
He moved to Raleigh in 1907 and
became the first Medical Director of
the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance
Co. He became so prominent in the
field of medicine, so outstanding for
the quality of his public service, so
Jefferson Standard Life
Insurance SALES over
$1,000,000 a week
conspicuous for hi* utility to both
church and state, that in 1913 the
Governor made him superintendent of
the State Hospital Dix Hill, if
you please, and there he remained un¬
til his death in 1932.
Now when Governor John M. More-
head, Dorothea Dix and James C.
Dobbin founded State Hospital, they
never dreamed of a work such as is
being carried on in Raleigh today:
they never visioned an institution with
scores of building*, thousands of pa¬
tients. And, inv masters, it would sur¬
prise you to rend the roster of some of
the big men of the state who have
“done time” in this institution and
received treatment from the specialist*
in psychiatry there to be found — men
eminent in the life of law. medicine,
education, the pulpit and other fields.
You may think all its patients are
forced to stay where they are, but
this is by no means true, for scores
have sufficient mentality to know that
they need mental treatment and go to
Dix Hill voluntarily and stay there
so long ns necessary.
I undertake no appraisal of the
achievement* of my subject on tin-
field of psychiatry, ns that is entirely
too technical for me. I will say. how¬
ever, that when I was at the
Ваг
I
used to represent a railroad, and some¬
times we had n flat tire. No. I do not
mean a rubber tire. I mean a flat spot
would develop on the driving wheel of
one of the big moguls or pacific
freight, engines on the Seaboard, they
would tako the tire to the machine
shops, put it on the lathe, ream it down
a trifle and put it. back. Tlu-n the
wheel would run true again, would not
pound on the rails.
Dr. Anderson’s Method
Now all I know about Dr. Ander¬
son’s service ns a psychiatrist is that
he would take hold of a man who had
allowed liquor to get the best of him;
or a man whose nerves had given way
to overwork, worry or other stress;
or who had developed a brainstorm in
his mental makeup. Such a man Dr.
Anderson would put on his lathe.
(Continued on page eighteen )
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