John Launer is a GP educator and writer. He is on Bluesky: @johnlauner.bsky.social
Sometimes a name reverberates through your childhood. The name David Eder did so through mine. My parents met just before World War Two at a place in Kent called the David Eder Farm. It was founded to prepare young Jews for emigration to Palestine. It was named in honour of a man who had recently died and was possibly funded through a bequest from him. By the time my parents arrived as refugees from Europe, it had been adapted to accommodate people fleeing from Nazi persecution. Growing up, I knew nothing about Eder (pictured below) except that I associated his name with saving my parents’ lives and hence, in a sense, being responsible for mine.
Growing up, I knew nothing about Eder except that I associated his name with saving my parents’ lives and hence, in a sense, being responsible for mine.
Over the years I learned a few details of his life, including the fact that he had been a GP. Then a few weeks ago, a friend sent me a book about the attitudes of British doctors to psychology over the previous two centuries.1 Its first chapter opened with a dramatic account of Eder giving a presentation in 1911 to the neurological section of the BMA. Apparently, he described his treatment of a man with physical disability and muscular pain, using the new psychoanalytic techniques of word association and dream interpretation. The patient disclosed a strong sexual desire for his own sister. After he did so, his pain disappeared. Aghast at what Eder had described, the BMA audience walked out of the room. I found the anecdote fascinating. Eder’s account belongs to a genre of case histories, commonly written by Freud and his followers at the time, describing instant and total recovery from somatic symptoms through catharsis, and somewhat beggars belief for a reader nowadays
I followed up the references in the book and they took me to an article about Eder and a memoir published after the war by his colleagues.2,3 He clearly led an extraordinary life. Burly, brusque and courageous, Eder seems to have impressed people and inspired devotion widely. Qualifying after several attempts, he worked as a GP in South Africa but left after a scandal in his personal life. He then became an expedition doctor in the Andes. Returning to the UK, he was troubled by the poor health of the working class and was one of the pioneers of school health clinics, as well as founding the London Labour Party.
I sympathise with his beliefs to varying degrees, but not with all the ways he espoused them. Overall, his story causes me discomfort.
When the First World War came, Eder served as a military doctor in Egypt. He then lived in Palestine for four years and became one of the principals in laying the foundations of a Jewish state. He evidently espoused a form of Zionism that did not believe in assigning equal civil status to Palestinian Arabs. Returning to London, he became one of Britain’s leading psychoanalysts, while providing free GP care to the poor. He was a friend and confidant to many of the leading (mostly male) figures of the age including Sigmund Freud, DH Lawrence, Bernard Shaw, HG Wells and Chaim Weitzmann.
I am struck by how Eder pursued three passions – socialism, Zionism and psychoanalysis – that were all cutting edge causes for most progressive people in his time but have largely diverged from each other since then and become contested or marginalised. I have an inescapable sense of gratitude to him because of his association with rescuing my parents. I sympathise with his beliefs to varying degrees, but not with all the ways he espoused them. Overall, his story causes me discomfort. Inevitably, it raises questions about which popular and zealous forms of belief in our own age may lead to similarly complicated feelings in GPs of the future.
References
- Hayward R. The transformation of the psyche in British Primary Care 1870-1970. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
- Thomson, M. ‘ “ The Solution to his Own Enigma ”: Connecting the Life of Montague David Eder, (1865 – 1936): Socialist, Psychoanalyst, Zionist and Modern Saint.’ Medical History 55 (2011): 61 – 84.
- Hobman JB. David Eder: Memoirs of a Modern Pioneer. London: Victor Gollancz, 1945.
Featured Image by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
Credit for photograph of David Eder: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Montagu_Eder.jpg
