Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging - Time Line

The NIH Record  -- May 4, 1976, Page 1 Dr. Robert Butler 1st Director, National Institute on Aging

Dr. Robert N. Butler has been appointed the first Director of the National Institute on Aging. He will assume his new post on May 1. Previously, Dr. Butler was in private practice in Washington, D.C., as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He has also worked with and for the elderly for more than 20 years, and is the author and co-author of several books on aging including Aging and Mental Health (with Myrna I. Lewis), Human Aging (co-author), and Why Survive? Being Old in America. Dr. Butler received his undergraduate and medical training at Columbia University. He served in the U.S. PHS, and was stationed at NIH from 1955 to 1962. During this time, he collaborated with investigators of other disciplines in comprehensive studies of the normal process of aging. Dr. Butler, who was named one of the "Washingtonians of the Year" by "The Washingtonian" magazine, has actively participated in community and public affairs.

In addition to his private practice, Dr. Butler has been an active participant in community and public affairs. He was a psychiatrist and gerontologist at the Washington School of Psychiatry, and has been on the faculty of the Howard and George Washington Universities' Schools of Medicine as well as the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Butler also served as a consultant to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, to NIH, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute ofthe University of California, and the consumer-oriented Center for Law and Social Policy.

NIA was established in 1974 to conduct and support biomedical and behavioral research and training related to the aging process and to the diseases and other special problems and needs of the aged. Its goal is to enhance the quality of life by extending the healthy middle years.

NIH Work Questioned Myths

This work resulted in the book, Human Aging, which questioned many traditional stereotypes and myths concerning the aged such as the inevitability of "senility," the inability of the elderly to change, and the extent of age-connected physiological decline.

Dr. Butler is on the editorial boards of several gerontological publications, and is also a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, National Council on the Aging, National Caucus on the Black Aged, and the Washington School of Psychiatry.

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