Earle, Pliny, 1809-1892

Quaker physician and alienist of Northhampton, Mass.

Pliny Earle (1809-1892) was born in Leicester, Mass., the son of Patience Buffum Earle and Pliny Earle (1762-1832), who invented and patented a machine for making wool and cotton cards. The younger Pliny attended Leicester Academy, the Friends' School in Providence, R.I., and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1837. A physician and psychiatrist, he was a co-founder of the American Medical Association and led his contemporaries in the study of psychiatric institutions and in the treatment of the insane. He served as superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital in Northampton, Mass., from 1864-1885. He was very interested in the genealogy of his family and in 1888 published _The Earle Family: Ralph Earle and His Descendants_ (Worcester: Press of Charles Hamilton).

Superintendent of Bloomingdale Asylum.

Earle helped introduce humane methods and attitudes into the work of mental asylums.