Max Schur, M.D., a distinguished member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and once the personal physician of Sigmund Freud, died at his home in New York on October 12, 1969. Death came unexpectedly as he seemed to be overcoming a bout of pneumonia. He was 72 years old.
Dr. Schur was born in Poland, studied medicine at the University of Vienna and had a well-established medical practice in that city. He had become interested in psychoanalysis after hearing Freud's lectures before World War I. In 1928, through the recommendation of Princess Marie Bonaparte, he became Freud's physician and attended him until Freud's death, in London, in 1939. In 1930 he married Helen Kraus, then a medical student at the University of Vienna.
Dr. Schur described his experience with Freud in a paper, “The Problem of Death in Freud's Writings and Life,” which he delivered as the Freud Anniversary Lecture of the N. Y. Psychoanalytic Institute in 1964. The paper included a very moving account of Freud's last days.
Having emigrated to the United States and settled in New York, Dr. Schur ultimately entered the practice of psychoanalysis and soon made important contributions to the psychoanalytic literature. He utilized his long experience in medicine in the study of psychosomatic problems and his paper “Comments on the Metapsychology of Somatization” (1955) became a landmark in the development of analytic theory in this area. Other papers dealt with a range of clinical and theoretical problems, including the application of ethological findings to human behavior, and in 1966 he published a major theoretical work, “The Id and the Regulatory Principle of Mental Functioning.” In the last years of his life he began a study of Freud's inner conflicts, utilizing biographical materials previously unavailable. This work was completed not long before his death, and will be published in a book to be entitled “Freud: Living and Dying.” His bibliography includes over 50 items in all.
Dr. Schur was a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He served on that Institute's Board of Trustees and chaired its Research Committee for several years. One of the founders of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York, he was its President from 1966 to 1968, and was a Training Analyst in its Institute (generally referred to as the “Downstate” Institute). His seventieth birthday was celebrated by a banquet tendered by his students and colleagues at “Downstate” and a Festschrift in his honor is in preparation. He also held an appointment as Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University and was an Associate Visiting Physician at Bellevue Hospital.
Dr. Schur was a member of the Vienna and London Psychoanalytic Societies and the International Psychoanalytical Association, in addition to his analytic affiliations in this country. In the American Psychoanalytic Association he was for many years a member of the Editorial Board of its Journal, and appeared frequently on the scientific programs at its national meetings.
Eulogists at Dr. Schur's funeral on October 15 spoke of his enormous energy and zest for work, which remained undiminished to the end of his life. They described his eager and unending search for new knowledge about human psychic functioning, and in his death they mourned the loss of a valued colleague who was also a warm and gentle friend. A memorial tribute to Dr. Schur will be read at a meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in January, 1970.
Dr. Schur is survived by his widow, Helen Schur, M.D., who practices psychiatry in New York; his son, Peter Schur, M.D., his daughter, Mrs. Eva Milofsky, and three grandchildren.