TWO TYPED LETTERS TO PSYCHIATRIST AND CRIMINOLOGIST DR. ARTHUR N. FOXE SIGNED BY PSYCHIATRIST ROBERT R. MEZER.

Boston, MA: August 26 and Septembeer 27, 1957.. 1957.. Very good.. - Both letters are typed on the cream-colored letterhead, 11 inches high by 8-1/2 inches wide, of "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts / Department of Mental Heath / Division of Legal Medicine". The August letter fills one side of the letterhead and is signed "Robert R. Mezer, M.D" with his typed title "Clinical Director / Parole Clinic and Norfolk Treatment Center". The September letter fills one side of the letterhead with 2 paragraphs on a follow-up sheet and is signed "Robert R. Mezer, M.D." without the typed title. The top corners of both letters are lightly creased with the right corners slightly darkened and both are folded twice for mailing. Together with the September mailing envelope. Very good. <p>Two splendidly detailed and discursive letters from one psychiatrist to another. Dr. Mezer writes to Dr. Foxe in August 1957 after reading Foxe's book "Studies in Criminology". Mezer explains that the Division of Legal Medicine offering psychiatric services to prisoners and parolees has only recently been established and he asks many questions about Foxe's experience of treating patients in a prison setting. He plans also to read Foxe's book "Crime and Sexual Development".<p>Mezer writes his second letter in September 1957 after Foxe has sent him copies of "Crime and Sexual Development" and "The Life and Death Instincts". He muses at length about Foxe's ideas: "I found myself wondering if some of the conclusions were on the basis of the associations of your patients or on the basis of your own interpretations and formulations. For example, why is robbery with a gun late anal rather than phallic, that is, might not the gun be a phallic symbol?. Another example might be seeing the car as a female symbol instead of as symbolic of intercourse. This is not said in any critical light, as our limited case material to date tends to confirm the primitive pre-genitality you describe...."<p>Mezer, author of "Dynamic Psychiatry in Simple Terms" [1960] examined Albert DeSalvo ["The Boston Strangler"] at the request of F. Lee Bailey. Mezer shocked the courtroom by reporting. "DeSalvo told me he was the strangler....He told me he strangled 13 women...and he went into details of some of them, telling me some of the most intimate acts he committed."<p>A psychiatrist and criminologist, Dr. Foxe was also an avid collector of skating books and even published a skating bibliography.