Dr. Eugen Kahn was born in Stuttgart, Germany, on May 20, 1887. He was educated at Heidelberg, Berlin, and then at Munich, receiving his MD in 1911. He spent the next 18 years in Munich as an assistant and associate on the staff of the Psychiatric Clinic, in close association with Dr. Emil Kraepelin.
In 1930 Dr. Kahn went to Yale University, where he served not only as Sterling Professor of Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene but as Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry until 1946. He also served as Psychiatrist-in-Chief of the New Haven Hospital.
Dr. Kahn then moved to Switzerland, where he remained until 1951. In that year he returned to America, coming to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas to serve on the full-time staff of the Department of Psychiatry as a Professor until 1962; for one of those years he served as Acting Chairman of the Department. After 1962 he was Professor Emeritus at Baylor. During his 22 years in Houston, Dr. Kahn was a research associate in psychiatry at the Houston State Psychiatric Institute (Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences/ University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute) and a consultant in psychiatry at the Veterans Administration Hospital.
Dr. Kahn's entire career was spent in teaching, research, and scholarly activities. He read and wrote on a broad range of topics. He published at least 120 papers, hundreds of book reviews, and four books, the best know of which is Psychopathic Personalities. The last book, The Past Is Not Past, was published in 1962.
Adapted from American Journal of Psychiatry 130:7, 822, July 1973.