HAMBURG 245Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior
I. G. Farreras, C. Hannaway and V. A. Harden (Eds.)
IOS Press, 2004
Adult Psychiatry Research at
the NIMH in the 1950s
David A. Hamburg
The review of research at the NIMH and the NINDS in the 1950s pro
vides insight into a crucially formative phase of biomedical research,
not only with respect to the nervous system and behavior, but more
broadly than that. The 1950s in the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
intramural program, most broadly conceived, were extremely significant.
What an extraordinary group of scientists was gathered there.
How lucky we were to be at the NIH in the 1950s. The facilities
and equipment were superb. It hurt me when I read in the newspapers
in recent years about the so-called decrepit NIH Clinical Center. My
template is the brand new, magnificent Clinical Center of the 1950s.
Not only was it a wonderful facility and wonderfully supported, but
the planners also wisely provided for physical proximity between basic
scientists and clinical investigators, and I always thought that was one
of our greatest advantages. And the NIH leadership foresaw that. Since
the clinical investigators and the basic scientists were nearby, there was
a great deal of incidental, informal contact, from which I learned an
enormous amount, and I think the same was true for many others. We
had a dynamic interplay between clinical and basic scientists. We learn
ed so much from each other in a very hopeful atmosphere in which
everything seemed possible, an open-minded atmosphere of intellec
tual curiosity and social responsibility. These are some of the reasons
for the extraordinarily seminal influence of the NIH in that era.
No one contributed more to that atmosphere than Robert A. Cohen.
He had an M.D. and a Ph.D. at a time when hardly anybody had such
a broad background. He had very wide-ranging interests, was utterly