Robins, Eli

Psychiatrist, biochemist, and medical educator.

Eli Robins (1921-1994) received his medical degree from Harvard University University Medical School in 1943 and did his residency in psychiatry. In 1949-1951, he learned from Oliver Lowry about brain biochemistry at Washington University School of Medicine as a US Public Health Service fellow. He joined the faculty and administration of Washington University School of Medicine in 1951, serving as: instructor in neuropsychiatry (1951-1953), assistant professor (1953-1956), associate professor (1956-1958), professor of (1958-1966), Wallace Renard Professor of psychiatry (1966-), and head of the psychiatry department (1963-1975). Eli Robins was affiliated with Barnes Hospital from 1951-1994 and for many years psychiatrist in chief (1963-1975). He was at the forefront of American psychiatric medicine bringing scientific research from the Freudian approach that dominated the 1940s to an empirical scientific approach based on diagnostic criteria. Modern research into biomedical and social factors in psychiatric disorders followed the agreement of clinicians and researchers on diagnostic criteria. In training psychiatrists, he trained them to do empirical studies. Eli Robin's own research interest was in chemical aspects of brain function and psychiatric illness, specifically the causes of suicide and the neurochemistry of psychiatric disease such as manic depressive disorders, depression, schizophrenia, and multiple sclerosis. One example of a study on social factors in psychiatric illness was his statistical analysis of St. Louis coroner's records to determine any correlation between socioeconomic status and the cause of non-natural death. The skepticism of Robins and Marcel T. Saghir toward traditional social and psychiatric attitudes toward homosexuals led to "Male and Female Homosexuality," their 1973 book on a survey of a study group of 146 homosexuals and a control group of eighty heterosexuals. Their results indicated that homosexuality is not curable simply because homosexuals are not sick, merely different. Sources: Amer. Men & Women Sci, 13th ed. 1976 ; Bauer, Dale R., "A letter from the publisher," Medical World News, March 29, 1970; Washington University Record, January 19, 1975; "Eli and Lee Robins," Washington University Magazine, Fall 1973.