William Alanson White

William Alanson White (January 24, 1870 – March 7, 1937) was an American neurologist and psychiatrist.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, studied at Cornell from 1885 to 1889, and in 1891 graduated with an M.D. from the Long Island College Hospital. After serving as an intern for a year, for nine years he was an assistant physician at the Binghamton (New York) State Hospital. There he collaborated with Boris Sidis. From 1903, he was superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a government psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C.. There he spent the rest of his career. Also in 1903, he accepted the post of professor of nervous and mental diseases at Georgetown University, and in 1904 a similar chair at George Washington University, lecturing besides at the Army Medical School.

White was president of the American Psychopathological Society in 1922, of the American Psychiatric Association in 1924-25, and of the American Psychoanalytical Society in 1928. He took an interest in forensic psychology, and worked for better cooperation between the American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association. He testified for the defense in the Leopold and Loeb trial.