View source for Heinz Lehmann

{{Short description|Canadian psychiatrist (1911–1999)}}
{{about||the German chess player|Heinz Lehmann (chess player)|the German swimmer|Heinz-Günther Lehmann}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Heinz Edgar Lehmann
| image             = Dr Heinz Edgar Lehmann.jpg
| image_size        = 
| alt               = 
| caption           = 
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1911|07|17}}
| birth_place       = [[Berlin]], [[German Empire]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1999|04|07|1911|07|17}}
| death_place       = 
| citizenship       = 
| nationality       = 
| ethnicity         = 
| fields            = [[psychiatrist]]
| workplaces        = [[McGill University]]
| alma_mater        = 
| doctoral_advisor  = 
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = 
| notable_students  = 
| known_for         = 
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| awards            = [[Lasker Award]], [[Order of Canada]]
| footnotes         = 
}}

'''Heinz Edgar Lehmann''' {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|FRSC}} (July 17, 1911 – April 7, 1999) was a German-born [[Canadians|Canadian]] psychiatrist best known for his use of [[chlorpromazine]] for the treatment of [[schizophrenia]] in 1950s and "truly the father of modern [[psychopharmacology]]."<ref>Goldbloom, R (2013). ''A Lucky Life''. Formac Publishing Company Limited, p. 116. {{ISBN|1459502841}}</ref>

==Early life==
Born in [[Berlin]], [[Germany]], he was educated at the [[University of Freiburg]], the [[University of Marburg]], the [[University of Vienna]], and the [[University of Berlin]]. He emigrated to Canada in 1937. 
Beginning his new life working at the [[Montreal Children's Hospital]] in Montreal where he improved his English until he was appointed junior psychiatrist at then Verdun Protestant Hospital, now called [[Douglas Mental Health University Institute]], on the eve of the Second World War. He lived on the grounds of this hospital where he met his future wife Annette, a nurse, and their son François was born in 1944.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://inhn.org/index.php?id=3599&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=lehmannban&sword_list%5B1%5D=era/
|title=Thomas A. Ban Neuropsychopharmacology in Historical Perspective. Lehmann Collection 3:Heinz Edgar Lehmann
|last=Blackwell
|first=Barry
|date=3 September 2020
|website=inhn.org
|access-date=7 June 2022}}
</ref>

==Hospital work in Canada==
In 1947, he was appointed the clinical director of Montreal's [[Douglas Hospital]]. From 1971 to 1975, he was the chair of the [[McGill University]] Department of Psychiatry. He was also a humane lecturer in psychiatry in 1952, and was able to give empathetic lectures on the plight of people suffering from anxiety, depression obsessions, paranoia etc. No one at that time had been able to understand or help psychotic and depressed patients, who filled mental hospitals around the world, so when the first big breakthrough chlorpromazine(Largactil) arrived from France in 1953 and then imipramine (Tofranil), which came from German-speaking Switzerland in 1958, they both showed promise. He helped to promote them in North America which ignited the drug revolution.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://inhn.org/index.php?id=3607&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=le&sword_list%5B1%5D=dain&sword_list%5B2%5D=commission/|title=Thomas A. Ban Neuropsychopharmacology in Historical Perspective. Lehmann Collection 3:Heinz Lehmann and Douglas Hospital|last=Cahn|first=Charles|date=10 September 2010|website=inhn.org|access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref> He was ahead of his time in that he supported research in the use of the active ingredient [[psilocybin]] to alleviate anxiety.

== Early Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (ECDEU) ==
In 1961 Dr. Lehmann became involved in a new [[United States Public Health Service|US Public Health Service]] Program initiative which met to exchange observations and findings on new psychotropics. Although based in Montreal, Canada, it became one of the first units in this network. He invited [[Thomas A. Ban]], his senior psychiatrist and chief of the clinical research service at the hospital, to become his co-principal investigator.  This began a close collaboration over an 18-year period that researched most of the psychotropic drugs marketed in North America during the 1960s and 70s.<ref>{{cite book |author1-link=Thomas A. Ban |last1=Ban |first1=Thomas A. |title=Reflections of Twentieth Century Psychiatry |date=2004 |publisher=Animula Publishing House |location=Budapest |page=715}}</ref> Their findings and observations were shared internationally in articles and at conferences and had a profound impact on the evolution of psychopharmacology as a discipline.

==Le Dain Commission==
From 1969 to 1972, he was one of the five members of the [[Le Dain Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs|Le Dain Commission]], a royal commission appointed in Canada to study the non-medical use of drugs. He was an advocate for decriminalization of marijuana.

==DSM work==
In 1973, he was a member of the Nomenclature Committee of the [[American Psychiatric Association]] that decided to drop [[homosexuality]] from the [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]], i.e. to depathologize it.<ref>Bayer, R. (1987). ''Homosexuality and American psychiatry: the politics of diagnosis''. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, p. 120 (footnote 41). {{ISBN|0691028370}}</ref>

==Honors and awards==
In acknowledgment of his important contributions, he received the [[Lasker Award]] in 1957 and the Stratton Award of the American Psychopathological Association in 1962. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://inhn.org/index.php?id=2045&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=heinz&sword_list%5B1%5D=lehmann/|title= Heinz E. Lehmann BPRS Videotapes|last=Court|first=John|date=17 April 2014|website=inhn.org|access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref> In 1970 he was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Canada]] and, in 1976, he was made an Officer of the [[Order of Canada]]. He was inducted into the [[Canadian Medical Hall of Fame]] in 1998.

==Heinz Lehmann Award==
In 1999, the [[Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology]] established the Heinz Lehmann Award in his honor, given in recognition of outstanding contributions to research in [[neuropsychopharmacology]] in Canada. There are also several other awards including the Heinz Lehmann Award of Excellence of the Quebec Psychiatric Association; and the Heinz E. Lehmann Research Award, which was established by the New York State Office of Mental Health.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://inhn.org/index.php?id=567&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=heinz&sword_list%5B1%5D=lehmann/|title=Heinz Edgar Lehmann|last=Nardi|first=Antonio|website=inhn.org|access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

==References==

<references />
* {{cite web|url=http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/1999/June/obit-lehman.htm |title=Heinz Lehmann: A Pioneer of Modern Psychiatry |publisher=Canadian Psychiatric Association |last=Paris |first=Joel |access-date=April 26, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060926161235/http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/1999/June/obit-lehman.htm |archive-date=September 26, 2006 |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/cw2w3.cgi?p=leech&t=71590&d=2711 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20070811213617/http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/cw2w3.cgi?p=leech&t=71590&d=2711 |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 11, 2007 |title=Canadian Who's Who 1997 entry |access-date=April 26, 2006 }}

{{Canadian Medical Hall of Fame}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehmann, Heinz}}
[[Category:1911 births]]
[[Category:1999 deaths]]
[[Category:Canadian psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada]]
[[Category:German emigrants to Canada]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of Canada]]
[[Category:Academic staff of McGill University]]
[[Category:Physicians from Berlin]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian physicians]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award]]


{{Canada-med-bio-stub}}
{{psychiatrist-stub}}