Gerald N. Grob, a dear friend, colleague, and scholar, the Henry E. Sigerist Professor of the History of Medicine (Emeritus), and a founding member of the Rutgers University Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research sadly passed on December 16, 2015. A prodigious scholar of medicine, and particularly the history of mental health policy and the psychiatric profession, Grob had, in collaboration with Allan V. Horwitz, contributed his last essay to this special issue. He was the most distinguished and productive historian of the treatment of persons with mental illness and the evolution of psychiatry in America.
Grob grew up in New York City. His parents, who emigrated from Poland to escape anti-Semitism, struggled economically for most of their lives. Although they had little formal education, he recalled that “they instilled in my sister and me an almost naive faith in the redemptive authority of education” (Grob 2012...
