Obituary: Dr Jack Kahn.
A cure for Job:.
ONE of the luminaries of child psychiatry has left us.
Jack Kahn graduated with honours at the University of Leeds in 1928 and achieved an MD from the same university.
Influential in child psychiatry for over thirty years, Kahn moved into that field from the excellent springboard of general practice.
He served with distinction in the child psychiatry section of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and was a Founder Fellow of that body.
His monument in clinical practice was the model child guidance service in the then Borough of West Ham.
To involve related professions as closely as he did was an innovation at that time.
So was his emphasis on the preventive aspects of psychiatry.
A phenomenon that tried clinicians was absenteeism from school.
Kahn's study of the subject was a landmark.
It resulted in a widely read book ' Unwillingly to School. '
His father was a rabbi and a biblical text was to create another well known work by the son, ' Job's Illness  Loss, Grief and Integration. '
His interest in child development led to his book ' Human Growth and Development ' which is in its third edition.
He also wrote extensively in the scientific literature.
With marked philosophical leanings, he was an erudite conversationalist  often with a historical flavouring.
He felt keenly about social issues, national and international.
To all he gave of himself  warmly, considerately, and empathically.
John Howells Jack Harold Kahn, born March 2, 1904; died December 4, 1989.
