Harold Alexander Abramson

Harold Alexander Abramson (November 27, 1899 – September 29, 1980) was an American physician (clinical allergist), remembered as a proponent of therapeutic LSD. He played a significant role in the CIA's MKULTRA program to investigate the possible applications for LSD.

Biography Abramson graduated from Columbia College in 1919, receiving an M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1923. As a medical student, he was awarded the Meyerhof Prize in 1921. He specialized in allergy medicine.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Abramson traveled widely, and was affiliated with laboratories at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, as well as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin.

In 1942, the Long Island Biological Laboratories research project, headed by Harold Abramson, was established in part with funds from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation and support from the War Department. Abramson was then a Major in the Technical Division, Chemical Warfare service of the United States Army.

He was on military leave from 1943 to August 1946, and during this period he earned the United States Army's Legion of Merit "for vital contributions to the Chemical Warfare Service and thus to the war effort" for work involving aerosol penicillin.

Abramson edited the proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism, published in 1967 as The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. The conference took place at the South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, May 8–10, 1965.

Together with M. Murray Peshkin, he founded the Journal of Asthma Research, and remained its editor for seventeen years until his death.

He also worked as director of research at South Oaks Psychiatric Hospital in Amityville, New York, and a consulting research psychiatrist at State Hospital in Central Islip.

Abramson died on September 29, 1980.

Selected works Reports "Preliminary Data on LSD Aerosols." (1958). Reprinted in Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten: A Personal Story of Medical Testing of Army Volunteers with Incapacitating Chemical Agents During the Cold War (1955-1975), by James S. Ketchum. Foreword by Alexander Shulgin, Ph.D. Santa Rosa, California: ChemBooks (2006), pp. 331–333. . .

Books Electrokinetic Phenomena and their Application to Biology and Medicine. American Chemical Society Monograph Series. New York: Chemical Catalog Co. (1934). The Patient Speaks: Mother Story Verbatim in Psychoanalysis of Allergic Illness. Foreword by Frank Fremont-Smith. Preface by M. Murray Peshkin. New York: Vantage Press (1956). .

Books (as editor) The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation (1960). Introduction by Frank Fremont-Smith. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. Introduction by Frank Fremont-Smith. Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill (1967). "Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism, at the South Oaks Hospital, in Amityville, New York, May 8–10, 1965."

Book contributions "Use of LSD as an Adjuvant to Psychotherapy: Fact and Fiction." In: LSD - A Total Study by D. V. Siva Sankar. Westbury, New York: PJD Publications (1975), pp. 687–700. .