COHEN 183
Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior
I. G. Farreras, C. Hannaway and V. A. Harden (Eds.)
IOS Press, 2004
The Early Years of the
NIMH Intramural Clinical
Research Program
Robert A. Cohen
Late in the summer of 1952, Robert Hanna Felix, the first director of
the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), asked whether I would
be interested in developing the NIMH intramural clinical research
program. The NIH Clinical Center was scheduled to open in March
- There would be 100 beds on six wards, two on each of the three
floors designated to mental health, as well as associated laboratories
and offices. Patients and normal control volunteers would be admitted
without charge for the entire duration of the studies in which they
participated. When I asked what studies were planned, Felix replied
that the decision would be entirely up to me; there were no preliminary
conditions. The NIMH-NINDB basic research program would be
directed by Seymour S. Kety, appointed in 1951, who also served in that
capacity in the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blind
ness (NINDB).^1 The budget for the clinical research program would
be one million dollars; nurses or social workers would be hired out of
the hospital budget. My salary would be $15,000–the top of the Civil
Service scale. I would have complete freedom in the choice of a reason
able number of associates but all of them would be at a lower salary level.
Felix took me on a tour of the Clinical Center, which was still under
construction, flicked on the lights in the auditorium that had already
been completed and remarked prophetically, “Here’s where we will
introduce our Nobel Prize winner.” We went on to meet Norman
Topping, then associate director of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), John R. Heller (director of the National Cancer Institute),