Milton Wexler

Milton Wexler (August 24, 1908 – March 16, 2007) was a Los Angeles psychoanalyst who was responsible for the creation of the Hereditary Disease Foundation.

He was born in San Francisco and moved to New York, where he spent his remaining childhood years. He studied first at Syracuse University and then earned a law degree from New York University. Initially, he worked as a lawyer but became interested in psychology. In 1939 he began a PhD at Columbia University where his supervisor was Theodor Reik, a disciple of Sigmund Freud. After graduation he became one of the first non-physicians in the United States to practice as a psychoanalyst.

Wexler married Leonore Sabin (1913 – May 14, 1978) another Columbia University graduate (Master's in Zoology, 1936). They met in the mid 1930s while he was working as a lawyer and she as a teacher. Together they had two daughters – Nancy and Alice.

Wexler served in the US Navy during the Second World War. In 1946 he worked at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas. He became known for his success in treating schizophrenics.

In 1950 his wife's three brothers (Paul, Seymour and Jesse) were diagnosed with Huntington's disease. His wife's father Abraham Sabin (1879–1926) had earlier died of this disease. She believed on the basis of what was known about this disease at the time when her father had died that this disease only affected men. It is curious that the textbook she consulted stated that only men suffered from this disease given that the original description by George Huntington in 1872 described it in a mother and daughter. Wexler moved to Los Angeles in 1951 to establish a more lucrative private practice so that he could support them.

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