Papers

Abstract: Includes biographical information and a commencement program from Cholden's undergraduate degree, reprints and books with articles by or edited by Cholden, news clippings, and other related materials. Topics include working with and providing therapy and rehabilitation for blind people and others with physical disabilities, the use of lysergic acid diethylamide and mescaline in medicinal and therapeutic practice, and other professional interests Cholden had.

Biog. Sketch (Full): Louis S. Cholden was born 9 November 1918 in Chicago, Illinois. His father died when he was young, and his uncle David Cholden moved in with the family to help raise the children. He showed an early disposition for music, playing with professional orchestras to help finance his education.

After studying for a couple years at junior college in Chicago, Cholden graduated with a bachelors of science in bacteriology from the University of Illinois. He received his medical degree from the Chicago Medical School in 1946. Thereafter he interned at various Chicago hospitals and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, instructing in the Chicago Medical School Psychiatry Department.

In 1950 Cholden came to Topeka as a resident with the Menninger School of Psychiatry, working in the Topeka State Hospital. During this time he served as a consulting psychiatrist with the blind for the state of Kansas, and in 1953 he was briefly a staff psychiatrist with the Menninger Foundation.

Cholden moved on to work as a consulting psychiatrist and lecturer for various institutions in the Washington, D.C. area, and he was an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry for the University of California - Los Angeles. In 1955 he was featured in a CBS documentary film "Out of Darkness," in which he helped a patient overcome schizophrenia.

Dr. Louis Cholden died in a car crash in 1956, leaving behind his wife Myra and three children.