Letter from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Jones, May 5, 1920

Notes from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Jones, May 5, 1920

• The complicated issue of Ferenczi's expulsion from the Budapest Royal Medical Association is dealt with in Károly Kapronczay and György Kiss, “Adatok Ferenczi Sándor Egyetemi Tanári Müködésével Kapcsolatban,”  Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle,  43 (1986):  111-118. This article is based on data contained in the Semmelweiss Medical Historical Museum and Special Archives, Budapest. After receiving his professorship in psychoanalysis on 12 May 1919, Ferenczi was asked by the dean of medicine to take over the Batizfalvy Sanatorium, which, like all similar institutions, had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks during their brief reign under Béla Kun from the end of March to the beginning of August 1919. In early 1920 Ferenczi was under investigation by the medical profession, the implication being that he had collaborated with the communists in accepting the professorship and taking over the sanatorium. Although Ferenczi denied the charges, the investigative committee in the end recommended his exclusion from the medical society. Moreover, between September 1919 and May 1920, the physicians deliberated on the expulsion of various members who were critical of the medical association. At a meeting of 24 April 1920, it was moved that 22 members be expelled. A final decision was postponed, but at a subsequent meeting of 28 May 1920 these members were indeed expelled. Ferenczi was treated as a special case, and a separate vote was t