01 November in the History of Psychology

On November 1:

1478 — Pope Sixtus IV issued a papal bull extending the power of the Inquisition to Spain. The Inquisition, established in some countries in the thirteenth century, was responsible for the torture and execution of many people with mental illness. In Seville, inquisitors Miguel de Morcillo and Juan de San Martin burned about 500 people in three years. In Aragon, inquisitor Thomas de Torquemada was said to be especially ruthless in the pursuit of deviance.

1842 — The Asylum Journal became the first regular newspaper printed in and issued from a mental hospital, the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, in Brattleboro. It was begun by a 17-year-old printer admitted as a patient on July 15, 1842. The paper's motto was "Semel insanivimus omnes," or "We have all, at some time, been mad." Publication ended in 1847 with the printer's discharge.

1899 — John F. Fulton was born. Fulton was a neurophysiologist who discovered the receptors that are the source of the muscle senses. His careful studies of the effects of prefrontal lobotomy on affective behavior was of interest to psychologists.

1918 — J. Wilbert Edgerton was born. Edgerton's research and advocacy efforts have improved rural mental health services, public mental health services, and community action organizations concerned with mental health. He was pivotal in securing passage of North Carolina's psychologist licensure law in 1967. APA Award for Distinguished Professional Service, 1992.

1919 — Eliot Stellar was born. Stellar was a physiological psychologist with special interests in the roles of the brain in emotion and motivation. His Physiological Psychology (1950, with Clifford T. Morgan) was a standard text in the field. Stellar invented the drinkometer and the first rat stereotaxic apparatus. American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal, 1993.

1922 — Charles B. Ferster was born. Ferster's work with B. F. Skinner on the key-pecking responses of pigeons led to the book Schedules of Reinforcement (1957). His interests in learning expanded to applied work with autistic children, institutional populations, and depressed and self-injurious individuals. He helped found the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (1958).

1922 — W. Grant Dahlstrom was born. Dahlstrom has specialized in applied research in empirical personality assessment, focusing on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). His two-volume An MMPI Handbook (1972, 1975, with George S. Welsh and Leona Dahlstrom) is a standard reference work in the field. APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions, 1991.

1941 — The newsletter of the Educational Psychology Division of the American Association for Applied Psychology was first published. This later became the APA Division 15's Educational Psychologist. William Clark Trow established the newsletter.

1946 — John T. Monahan was born. Monahan is a forensic psychologist with a special interest in violent behavior and the legal treatment of people with mental illness. He coordinated the drive for acceptance of the American Psychology-Law Society as APA Division 41 and was the first president of the new division. APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy, 1990.

1965 — Joseph J. Schildkraut's article "The Catecholamine Hypothesis of Affective Disorders: A Review of Supporting Evidence" was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.