210 ELKES
that it was hard going at first. We started, in 1957, with a secretary (Mrs.
Anne Gibson) and myself in a large, dark, “Continued Care” building
accommodating some 300 patients. However, time, energy, persistence,
and support prevailed, and it became a research institute within two
years. Again, the plan was the same: laboratories below, clinic above, and
patients all around. The facilities grew and grew. Colleagues joined:
Floyd Bloom, R. Byck, Richard Chase, R. Gjessing, R. Gumnit, Max
Hamilton, Eliot Hearst, Tony Hordern, Sheppard Kellam, Donald Lipsitt,
John Lofft, Richard Michael, Herbert Posner, Gian Carlo Salmoiraghi,
Stephen Szara, R. von Baumgarten, Neil Waldrop, Hans Weil-Malherbe,
Harold Weiner, Paul Wender, R. Whalen, and many others. In 1961,
Fritz Freyhan arrived as the Center’s director of clinical studies.
Again, some of the same themes (in variation) reappeared, though I
cannot mention them all: microelectrophysiology, which, in Gian Carlo
Salmoiraghi’s hands mapped the pharmacology of respiratory neurons^13
and later with Floyd Bloom, became a pioneering technique for the
study of the pharmacology of individual neurons in the central nervous
system;^14 amine metabolism, under Hans Weil-Malherbe,^15 which also
initiated a collaboration with Julius Axelrod,^16 the metabolism of psycho
dysleptic tryptamine derivates, under Szara;^17 animal behavioral studies,
combining Skinnerian avoidance training with metabolic experiments
under Eliot Hearst;^18 the effect of locally and isotopically labeled im
planted hormones on behavior, under Richard Michael;^19 human
behavior analysis studies under Harold Weiner;^20 the methodology of
clinical drug trials under Hordern and Lofft;^21 the quantification of
social interaction in a psychiatric ward under Shepherd Kellam;^22 Max
Hamilton, a visiting fellow, gave seminars on the methodology of
clinical research, and the conceptualization of comprehensive mental
health care in a given community by Fritz Freyhan;^23 and studies on
dependency, depression, and hospitalization by Donald Lipsitt.^24 Later,
with Overholser’s help, the Behavioral and Clinical Studies Center of
St. Elizabeths was created as a complementary entity, under the direc
tion of Neil Waldrop.
In 1963, I was invited to assume the chairmanship of the Department
of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University, vacated the previous year
by my friend Seymour S. Kety. Here again, fate was kind. The university