Person

Ludwig, Alfred Oscar

1906–1986

Biographical Note: Alfred Oscar Ludwig was born on March 30, 1906 in New York City. He graduated from Harvard in 1926, with honors, and then from Harvard Medical School, magna cum laude, in 1930. In 1932, Dr. Ludwig went to study abroad at a medical clinic in Leipzig where he personally experienced the Nazi takeover as Jewish physicians were barred from clinics. Dr. Ludwig also served during WWII as a medical officer, and served in North Africa, Italy, and Belgium, where he also became the psychiatric consultant to the 7th Army. In 1933, he was a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for three years, and he also began his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Dr. Ludwig’s main focus was to integrate medicine and psychoanalysis. He is most famous for his work with Rheumatoid arthritis during the 1950s, but in 1956 he left MGH to become the director of the Psychiatric-Gynecological Clinic at Massachusetts Mental Health Center. During this time, he also became president of BPSI from 1966-1968. Dr. Ludwig continued practicing in Boston as a psychoanalyst until 1984 when he developed progressive Alzheimer’s disease, which led to his death in 1986.