Glatt, Max Meier (1912-2002)

There was no apparent order to the material as received and therefore this arrangement is artificially imposed:

A. Correspondence, 1955-1987

B. Conferences, 1955-1987

C. Writings by Glatt, c. 1960-1992

D. Cuttings, c. 1960s-1980s

E. Personalia, n.d.

Max Meier Glatt was born in Berlin in 1912, and gained a doctorate in Neurological Medicine from Leipzig University in 1936. Two years later he tried to flee Germany with fellow Jewish refugees, but was caught near the border with Holland and sent to Dachau concentration camp. Following his release, he travelled to England in 1940, intending to return to Germany at the end of the war. However, he chose to remain in England after learning that both his parents had perished in the camps.

Having decided to remain in England, Max Glatt chose to dedicate himself to the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction. He identified with his patients, a group of people who had been stigmatised by society, much like the Jews. In 1952 he set up the first NHS unit for the treatment of alcoholism, at Warlingham Park Hospital, Surrey, using group therapy, then in its infancy, as a therapeutic tool. This unit became a blueprint for the NHS. Glatt himself went on to found a number of centres for the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction along similar lines, including at St Bernards Hospital, West London (now known as the Max Glatt Centre). He also set up the first treatment unit in a prison, at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, where he continued to run groups until his death.

Max Glatt was an advisor on alcohol and drug addiction to a number of bodies including the World Health Organisation, the British Medical Association, the Home Office, and the Royal Colleges. He was the co-founder of the Medical Council on Alcoholism and of the National Council on Alcoholism, and author of Alcoholism, a textbook first published in the 1960s. Additionally, he taught on the subject of addiction at four London teaching hospitals.

Obituaries can be found in The Guardian, The Telegraph, Alcohol and Alcoholism, Alcohol Alert , and there is an entry in Munk's Roll of Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians.