Abstract
Two psychiatrists have won the Nobel Prize for medicine—Julius Wagner-Jauregg for the malarial treatment of neurosyphilis, and Antonio Moniz for promoting lobotomy. More deserving than either, perhaps, was Gilbert V. Hamilton. As a young New York psychoanalyst in the mid 1920s, Hamilton converted America's greatest playwright from a ferocious alcoholic into a dedicated teetotaler, and did it all in six weeks. In the process he may also have transformed his patient, Eugene O'Neill, from a spectacularly productive playwright into a recluse who went 12 years without having a play on Broadway, but this cannot be proven. His cure of O'Neill's drinking problem, on the other hand, surely must represent one of the outstanding medical triumphs of the century. It all happened in a most peculiar manner. Hamilton had received a grant to survey the sexual practices of married people. His subjects included Mr. and Mrs. Eugene O'Neill. Hamilton later received
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