Solomon, Harry C. (Harry Caesar), 1889-1982

Harry Caesar Solomon (1889-1982), B.S., 1910, University of California, Berkeley, and M.D., 1914, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, was an Assistant in Neuropathology at Harvard Medical School, an intern at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, Visiting Neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and Visiting Neuropsychiatrist at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston. Solomon was appointed Medical Director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1943 and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in 1944, a position he held until he retired from Harvard in 1959. In 1958, Solomon was appointed Mental Health Commissioner for Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he was a practicing psychiatrist and mental health reformer.

Harry C. Solomon was born in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1889, to Jacob and Lena (Fist) Solomon. The Solomons moved from Nebraska to Los Angeles, California, where Solomon attended high school. In 1910, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with honors. He subsequently attended Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1914. Upon graduation, Solomon took a position as an Assistant in Neuropathology at Harvard Medical School and an internship at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, under Elmer Ernest Southard (1876-1920). During World War I, Solomon served with the United States Army Medical Corps in 1918 and 1919. Upon his return to Boston, Solomon served as Visiting Neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Visiting Neuropsychiatrist at the Beth Israel Hospital, as well as taking a position at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital as Chief of Therapeutic Research. Solomon joined Harvard Medical School as an Instructor in Psychiatry and Neuropathology in 1919; he became the Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in 1944. In 1943, he was named Medical Director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. In 1958, Solomon was named as Commissioner of Mental Health for Massachusetts, a position which he held for eight years. He retired from Harvard in 1959.

Solomon was a psychiatrist and mental health reformer, working through his career to mitigate treatment of the institutionalized mentally ill and reform the treatment of mental illness in general. In his position at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital (renamed the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in 1967 and closed in 2003 with services transitioning to the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital) and other institutions, Solomon worked to eliminate the harsh treatment of patients and make the mental health hospital more of a therapeutic center and less of a restraint system. He introduced an open-door policy, allowed patients to wear their own clothing, and eliminated tub therapy, wet sheet packs, restraints, and excessive drug treatment. Solomon held the presidency of the New England Society of Psychiatry (1938-1939), the American Neurological Association (1941), the Society for Biological Psychiatry (1950-1951), the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease (1956), and the American Psychiatric Association (1957). He worked closely through his career with his wife, psychiatric social worker Maida Herman Solomon (1891-1988).

Solomon married Maida Herman in 1916. They had four children: Peter; Joseph; H. Eric; and Babette. Solomon died 23 May 1982 at the age of ninety-two. Maida Herman died in 1988 of a heart attack at age ninety-six.

From the guide to the Harry C. Solomon papers, 1916-1968 (inclusive), 1967-1968 (bulk)., (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.Center for the History of Medicine.)