OBITUARY

West testified at their Louis Jolyon West, MD (1924-1999) courtmartial hearings that they were not traitors but that the confessions had n January 2, 1999, Louis Jolyon (“Jolly”) West, been wrung from them by former chair of the Department of Psychiatry solitary confinement, tor- O and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of ture, threats, and sleep , (UCLA), died of a rapidly ad- deprivation. These proce- vancing malignant tumor. dures induced “debility, Born in 1924 in , NY, of immigrant dread and dependency” in Russian-Jewish parents, he grew up in poverty in Madi- them. Later, during the son, Wis. Characteristic of children of recent immi- height of the apartheid grants, he strove to obtain an education. Entering the Louis Jolyon West, MD policies, West went to University of Wisconsin, Madison, at the age of 17 years, South Africa to testify he was determined to fight against fascism in World against the imprison- War II. He enlisted in the US Army and was sent to the ment and torture of black and white Africans who op- University of Iowa, Iowa City, in the Army Specialized posed the repressive government. Training Program, and then to the University of Minne- It should come as no surprise that his own clinical sota School of Medicine, Minneapolis, from which he and research contributions focused on the effects of in- graduated in 1948. After a year of internship in internal humanity, sleep deprivation, and mind-altering and hal- medicine, he served a 3-year residency in psychiatry at lucinogenic drugs. He studied the psychophysiology of the Payne Whitney Clinic at Hospital–Cornell hypnosis and suggestibility (including their effects on pain University School of Medicine, New York, NY. In 1948, perception), meditation, and the emotions. He pub- he had transferred to the US Air Force Medical Corps, lished theories of dissociative reactions, hallucinations, and in 1952 he was appointed as chief of the Psychiatry and dreams. Throughout his career he concerned him- Service at the Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, self with alcoholism and its treatment. Later he exten- Tex. While holding this position, he was also appointed sively studied the social phenomena of the 1960s—the professor and head of the Department of Psychiatry, , the culture, and the green Neurology and Behavioral Sciences at the University of rebellion—and the pervasive violence in our society. Oklahoma School of Medicine in Oklahoma City—the He put some of his ideas of the origins of violence youngest person ever to have held a chairship in psy- to the test by studying the Tarahumara Indians in the chiatry in the United States until, or since, that time. In Mexican Sierra Madre with his collaborators, Professors 1969, he moved to UCLA to head its department and Alfonso Paredes and Charles Snow. This isolated tribe direct the Neuropsychiatric Institute. held nonviolence as its supreme value. Its members never This is the outline of an American success story— physically punished their children, who grew up never the poor immigrant son who by dint of his intelligence expressing rage, anger, or violence, and violent crimes and energy makes the best of freedom and the opportu- were virtually unknown in this society. West concluded nity offered to him to realize his goals. What is not so that violence begets violence. usual in this familiar American story is that from an early By his interest in the origins and consequences of age and throughout his life, West fought for the equal social pathology, West extended the scope of psychiatry rights of others so that they might have similar oppor- beyond its usual concerns. Following his retirement as tunities for self-realization. Always larger than life, he was chair, he thought deeply and developed programs in the bold and courageous. He led the way toward the inte- prevention of mental illness, addiction, and crime. gration of medical fraternities and the civil rights changes His interests and his vision led him to create 2 de- in the South. He battled ceaselessly for individual free- partments of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at a time dom and dignity, opposing prejudice, bias, bigotry, vio- when the 2 predominant underpinnings of American aca- lence, torture, and the subjugation, punishment, and mis- demic psychiatry were psychoanalytic concepts, or the treat- treatment of others by governments, the judiciary, the ment of the seriously mentally ill by lobotomy, metrazol military, kidnappers, leaders, and phony prophets. or insulin injections, and electroconvulsive therapy. He took the side of the poor, minorities, children, the dis- He defined the biobehavioral sciences in a multidis- enfranchised, the mentally ill, the uneducated, and the ciplinary and multifunctional manner as the basic sci- weak. ences of psychiatry. This definition spanned the spec- During and after the Korean War, 36 American pris- trum from epidemiology to cultural anthropology, the oners of war had been forced to confess to war crimes. study of primate behavior, pharmacology, neurochem-

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©1999 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/27/2021 istry, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, psychoendo- many medical school committees. He also received crinology, psychoneuroimmunology, cognitive neuro- many honors and awards, including an honorary doctor- physiology, neuroanatomy, and computer modeling of ate of humane letters from Hebrew Union College, Los psychotherapy and human and brain development. While Angeles, Calif. During his career he gave numerous pres- building an all-embracing department, he was also one tigious endowed lectures, both in the United States and of the first chairs in the 1950s to introduce behavioral abroad. science content into the undergraduate medical curricu- The egalitarian principles that guided Jolly West’s lum in order to expand the students’ horizons about the life were exercised in the way he ran his department. He roles of socioecological, political, and psychosocial fac- had a fierce loyalty to the department and its members tors in health, disease, and patient care, against the firm and to UCLA. He ran the department with a light hand, opposition of many of the most influential medical edu- encouraging and supporting his young colleagues, at- cators in the United States. tracting many senior, distinguished colleagues, and al- Jolly West served his country and his profession lowing members the optimal degree of freedom to pur- well. He was a consultant for the US Air Force, the Vet- sue their interests. erans Administration, the US Information Agency, US He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Kathryn, a National Academy of Sciences, the Peace Corps, the distinguished clinical psychologist, by 2 daughters, Anne National Institute of Mental Health, the Department of and Mary, and by a son, John. Health and Human Services, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Herbert Weiner, MD Americanspecialty boards, and private foundations. He Joe Yamamoto, MD served on the editorial boards of 12 publications and on Los Angeles, Calif

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©1999 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/27/2021