Clarence B. Farrar

Who was Clarence B. Farrar?

Clarence B. Farrar was an influential psychiatrist, the first Director of the Toronto Psychiatric Hospital, and editor of The American Journal of Psychiatry for 34 years.

Born in Cattaraugus, New York, Farrar studied at Allegheny College and Harvard before earning his M.D. from Johns Hopkins Medical School. Farrar studied under William Osler at Hopkins followed by postgraduate study with Emil Kraepelin, Franz Nissl, and Alois Alzheimer.

As a chief psychiatrist for the Canadian Army, Captain Farrar researched psychiatric cases of soldiers with shell shock and published his findings with Charles Kirk Clarke.

Farrar worked at various times as an assistant physician and director of laboratories at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, associate in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, assistant physician at Trenton State Hospital, lecturer in abnormal psychology at Princeton University, head of Homewood Sanitarium in Guelph, medical director of Toronto Psychiatric Hospital and the head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Farrar retired as professor emeritus in 1947 from the University of Toronto.