Baltimore
— Renowned sexologist and psychologist John
Money has died on his birthday.
The 85-year-old
expatriate passed away in a Baltimore Hospital on
Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the gay law reform bill
in New Zealand which he was influential in getting
passed.
Dr Money's nephew, Gerard
Murphy, said he had been suffering from Parkinson's
disease and had a bad fall last Sunday.
He was taken to St
Joseph's Hospital in Baltimore with a fractured nose and
left sinus bone but deteriorated throughout the week and
was comatose when he died.
Dr Money had been nursed
by his niece Sally Hopkins. She was with him when he
died.
Mr Murphy said Dr Money,
a close friend of historian Michael King and writer Janet
Frame, was delighted to find out last week that a
manuscript believed to be one of the last complete essays
written by Dr King was to be released.
Dr King wrote the essay
about Dr Money's patronage of the arts to complement the
John Money Wing of the Eastern Southland Gallery in
Gore.
"Sally read the story out
to him a few days before he died," Mr Murphy
said.
Born in Morrinsville in
1921 to a Brethren family, Dr Money attended Hutt Valley
High School and went on to study psychology at Victoria
University before going to the United States.
He has a PhD from Harvard
University and has been based at Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore since 1951.
Dr Money is survived by
his brother Don, who lives in Wellington, and sister Joy
Hopkins, who lives in Toronto. His body will be donated
to science.
