DR. ARTHUR SWEENEY

In the death of Dr. Sweeney, the Minnesota Neurological Society has lost a charter member, a regular attendant, a frequent contributor to the program and a genial companion.

Dr. Sweeney was barn in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1858 and was educated at Fordham College and at Georgetown University, receiving the degrees of B.A. and M.A.  In 1886, he was graduated from Harvard Medical School with the degree of M.D. and he came to St. Paul in 1887, where he entered the practice of medicine.  Six years later, he undertook graduate work at Harvard and in Europe and, on his return to St. Paul, entered the special field of neurology and psychiatry which he followed to the time of his death in St. Paul, November 7, 1928.

Dr. Sweeney attained unusual distinction, not only as a specialist in nervous end mental diseases and as a teacher of medical jurisprudence but also as an eminent and useful citizen.  Besides carrying on a large private practice, he was an outstanding expert medical witness in which capacity his resonant voice, his ready wit, his clear statement of facts, his good judgment and his rugged honesty gave him rank quite above any of his contemporaries.

From 1897 on, Dr. Sweeney was instructor or professor of medical jurisprudence in the Medical School of the University of Minnesota.  Repeatedly of late years, he attempted to resign and to pass on the work to younger men but his reputation with the students was too we established and in response to their urgent requests he carried on to the end.

Unable to pass the medical examination for the regular service in the World War, Dr. Sweeney joined as a contract surgeon and soon demonstrated that, whatever his rank, he was easily the leader among his medical associates.

At the end of this article appears a list of Dr. Sweeney’s contributions on medical subjects, notable for its quality and its length.  He enjoyed writing.  His style was simple, clear and forcible.  His articles on the psychology of compensation neurosis, in particular, are probably unsurpassed in American medical literature.  Dr. Sweeney was a member of the Minnesota Academy of Medicine, of the Minnesota Neurological Society and of the Central Neuropsychiatric Association as well as of the county, state and national medical societies.  He was secretary of the Minnesota State Board of Medical Examiners from 1889 to 1892.

But, Dr. Sweeney services were not restricted to the medical profession. To a degree, unusual among medical men, he participated actively in the duties of a good citizen and St. Paul, in particular, owes much to him in the way of developing its artistic and cultural life.  With others, he was active in the formation of the Informal Club in St. Paul and was its president at the tine of his death.  Thirty-eight years ago, with Charlie Ames of St. Paul, he was the founder of the St. Paul Institute end was its secretary until 1921 and its president from that year to 1928.  Next to his hone and his medical associations, the St. Paul Institute was probably his dearest interest.  To it he gave unlimited time and his enthusiasm in developing a museum and an art institute was well known to his friends.

 
Fortunate in his marriage, the hospitality of his home will never be forgotten by those who had the privilege of enjoying it.  Perhaps, after all, We shall remember Dr. Sweeny best as one kindness; for his genial, kindly ways; his charm of manner; his inexhaustible fund of good stories and his honest friedship.  As a brilliant neurologist and psychiatrist, a delightful comrade and a much loved friend, he will long be remembered in the Minnesota Nerurological Society.

 

Arthur Hamilton