James Jackson Putnam

Born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1866, Putnam went to Europe to study in the company of Baron Carl von Rokitansky, Theodor Meynert and John Hughlings Jackson.

[1] On his return to the Massachusetts General Hospital he opened a clinic which became the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

[3] In 1900 he was one of the signatories of the “Protest of the Friends of the Present Management of the New York Pathological Institute” together with S. Weir Mitchell, Percival Bailey, Ira Van Gieson, Morton Prince, Frederick Peterson and many others.

Putnam was one of those instrumental in bringing Sigmund Freud to the United States in 1909 and became increasingly interested in psychoneurosis and the use of psychotherapy contributing to The Encyclopedia of the Self, writing papers on the necessity of metaphysics and human motives, both later published as books.

(1852–1935) he also described the Putnam-Dana syndrome which is a form of generalized subacute neurological degeneration caused by Vit.B12 deficiency.