author
Sanger Brown
1884–1968
A psychiatrist and public mental health leader, he wrote with a mix of medical curiosity and cultural interpretation. His best-known book explores how ancient societies expressed ideas about sexuality, ritual, and symbolism.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in White Plains, New York, on May 28, 1884, Sanger Brown II came from a family of psychiatrists and trained as a physician after attending the University of Toronto and earning his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1907.
He went on to build a long career in psychiatry and public service, including work with New York State's Department of Mental Hygiene, where he later served as an assistant commissioner. He died on March 19, 1968.
Brown is remembered by many readers for The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races, a book that brings together psychology, religion, and cultural history in an effort to explain how symbols and beliefs around sex appeared in early societies. Whatever one makes of its conclusions today, it remains an unusual window into early 20th-century thinking about mind, myth, and human behavior.