Obituary

It is particularly fitting that these exercises should be held in commemoration of our friend and colleague, Dr. Abraham Arden Brill, who died on March second of this year. His passing ended a career distinguished by exceptional daring and determination, unflagging application to his professional work and a conviction and devotion to the cause of dynamic psychiatry and psychoanalysis with which his name will be permanently associated. This very building was the scene of some of his most stirring, early defenses of psychoanalysis and some of the most significant honors which he received in later years.

Doctor Brill came to this country as a boy but his schooling and entire professional life are identified with this City—his home. With his frank and generous nature he became the intimate friend and often the mentor of practically all of the older psychoanalysts in this city and country. His influence, direct and indirect, has had a penetrating effect upon the development of American psychiatrists and the course of American psychiatry for the past forty years.

Born in Kanczuga, Austria, on October 12, 1874, he persuaded his parents to allow him to test the opportunities in the new world, arriving in New York when he was fifteen years old, alone, almost penniless, and without friends. This courageous and adventuresome youth entered the struggle for living in New York's crowded East side within a few hours after his arrival, and quickly proved himself to be exceptionally strong, industrious and alert. Compelled to work during the day at all sorts of jobs he nevertheless was soon able to enter the College of the City of New York by diligent application to study at night. He continued there for two years and then left because of poverty—a situation which repeatedly interrupted his formal education.

Occasionally Brill in a reminiscent mood would muse upon these days of hardship when he helped with chores about a saloon for the accommodation of sleeping there at night, taught t