Obituary - Max Glatt 1912 - 2002

Max Glatt was one of the pioneers in the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts. Perhaps more than anyone else, he was responsible for a change in attitude from one that regarded alcoholics as nuisances, to one that saw them as patients requiring treatment.

Born in Berlin , he was intended for an academic career in medicine but Nazi racial laws made it practically impossible for Jews to gain a university appointment. Nevertheless, in 1936, Glatt was awarded a doctorate in neurological medicine at Leipzig. After Kristallnacht in 1938, he tried to escape to Holland, but was captured and sent to Dachau. He was later freed and made his way to England. Most of the rest of his family perished in the camps.

His work began in psychiatric hospitals where he specialised in the treatment of alcohol and drug addicts. He saw them as people who, like his own people, had been stigmatised and made to feel unwelcome.

In 1952, he set up the first NHS unit for the treatment of alcoholism at Warlingham Park Hospital in Croydon. In 1962 he set up a unit for the treatment of both alcoholism and drug addiction at St Bernard's Hospital, in Ealing, a unit that is now called the Max Glatt Centre. These were run on group lines based on the principles of the therapeutic community. He set up the first treatment unit in a prison - Wormwood Scrubs – which now also bears his name and where he continued to run groups almost until his death.

Max Glatt was on the honorary staff of four London teaching hospitals. He advised the BMA, 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.

He had the gift of inspiring universal affection and respect. He was a quiet, modest and gentle person with a dry sense of humour.

Countless addicts throughout the world owe their recovery to the pioneering work of Max Glatt, whose own humanity was strengthened by suffering and founded on a profound religious faith.