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The archive spans Browne's career from school onwards, but the core series of records focus on his work as a medical missionary at the BMS hospital in Yakusu, Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Section B comprises records for the period 1938-1958, including registers of leprosy sufferers, case records and photograph albums documenting various symptoms. Section K contains further photographs (mainly clinical) for the period 1938-1977, the most important series of which dates from Browne's time at the Baptist Mission Hospital and comprises over 900 negatives and prints together with supporting documentation, 1954-1958.

Section C contains a small number of files compiled by Browne during his research into leprosy, yaws, onchocerciasis and ainhum, 1946-1983. Particularly notable are the files on the anti-leprosy drug B663 (now known as clofazimine), into the use of which Browne conducted pioneering studies whilst director of the Leprosy Research Unit, Uzuakoli, Eastern Nigeria, 1959-1966.The remaining records comprise personal and biographical material, 1923-1985 (section A); general subject files containing correspondence, reprints etc. on a wide variety of topics, 1948-1986 (section D); writings by Browne, 1935-1985 (section E); records of Browne's involvement with the International Leprosy Association, 1909-1985 (section F) and various other organisations, 1959-1986 (section G); records on foreign visits, 1965-1985 (section H); and a few files on religious matters, 1959-1984 (section J).

The papers are very extensive though there are some lacunae, probably attributable to Chain's many changes of workplace. The early biographical period is sparsely documented, there are sporadic gaps in the correspondence files, and there is no original documentation of the penicillin research at Oxford (although there are many historical accounts and much correspondence about the history of penicillin). The surviving biographical material provides documentation of the arrangements for Chain to live and work in Britain, later honours and awards and his musical interests, and family correspondence, photographs and press-cuttings. There are very substantial records of his later career at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and Imperial College, London, including his continuing contributions to biochemical problems such as carbohydrate metabolism, ergot alkaloids, edible proteins and aeration studies. The Imperial College material also contains records of the creation, administration, finance and architectural design of the Biochemistry Department, and developments in the Department after Chain's statutory retirement in 1973. Additional information about Chain's research is available in the documentation of his very extensive consultancy agreements and collaborative work with industrial firms such as Astra, Beechams and Rank Hovis McDougall, and records relating to government, grant-giving and charitable bodies such as the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research Campaign and Medical Research Council which contributed to the funding of his research. There is much material on Chain's lectures, addresses and broadcasts, and on his extensive travel on visits and conferences, which includes a substantial number of unpublished talks.

An exceptional feature of the Chain papers is the documentation of the large number of Israel and Jewish organisations with which he was associated, especially the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he was a governor for many years and had at one time considered taking up an appointment.

The initial deposit, sections A-K, consists mainly of correspondence and associated papers (leaflets, memoranda, extracts from minutes, etc.). There are two main series of correspondence: 'People' and 'General' and some other distinct smaller series such as 'Branches and other Societies'. The internal arrangement of these files is normally chronological, with a few exceptions (usually an alphabetical arrangement). There are also lecturers' report sheets, publications, slides, posters, charts, and photographs, mainly but not exclusively in Section G: Propaganda and Publicity. There is a set of Annual Reports and related material 1908-1979 (Section A). Under the will of Dr. Marie Stopes the Eugenics Society was left her birth control clinic, books from her library and certain emoluments. Three boxes of her correspondence and some miscellanea, were assigned to section K. In 1988 minute books and the Society's extensive collection of press cuttings plus some financial records were added as GB0120 SA/EUG/L-N.

The collection provides good documentation of many aspects of McIlwain's career and his contribution to the development of neurochemistry in the UK and internationally.

Section A, Biographical, brings together obituaries, curricula vitae and bibliographies, and material relating to the various stages of McIlwain's scientific career, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, his appointment to the Biochemistry Chair at the Institute of Psychiatry in 1954 and the symposium held in his honour on his retirement in 1980. The section also presents a significant body of material relating to McIlwain's undergraduate studies at King's College, University of Durham, including essays and notebooks.

Section B, Institute of Psychiatry, is principally papers relating to the activities of McIlwain's own Department of Biochemistry and especially its teaching programme in neurochemistry. There is also material relating to various government and University of London enquiries into medical education.

Section C, Research, includes copies of McIlwain's M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses, notes, drafts and reports for early work in the 1930s and correspondence 'from the Lab' for the 1930s and 1940s.

Section D, Publications, lectures and broadcast, is the largest in the collection. It presents significant documentation, especially correspondence, relating to his textbook Biochemistry and the central nervous system which went through five editions, 1955-1985, and important editorial correspondence for the Biochemical Journal (member of the Editorial Board, 1946-1950), Biochemical Pharmacology and Journal of Neurochemistry. There are also drafts for lectures and seminars for scientific audiences in the UK and abroad, principally from the 1960s onwards.

Section E, Societies and organisations, documents McIlwain's involvement with a number of UK and international bodies including the Biochemical Society, the International Brain Research Organisation and the International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN) of which he was a founder member and from 1984 'Historian' of the Society with responsibility for its archives.

Section F, Visits and conferences, covers the period 1947-1993 and is of particular interest for its documentation of the historical sessions which McIlwain organised at ISN meetings.

Section G, Correspondence, presents an alphabetical sequence of McIlwain's correspondence including significant exchanges with a number of distinguished mentors and contemporaries such as G.R. Clemo, F. Dickens, K.A.C. Elliott, P.G. Fildes, S.S. Kety, H.A. Krebs, Derek Richter and F.L. Rose, and a chronological sequence of shorter scientific correspondence covering the period 1938-1992.

There is also an index of correspondents.

Biographical material includes the draft of Mourant's autobiography, Blood and Stones published after his death in 1995, together with the correspondence and papers Mourant assembled while writing it. There is also documentation of Mourant's education at Victoria College Jersey and at Exeter College Oxford. The latter includes notes on lectures 1922 - ca 1926. Documentation of Mourant's career, honours and awards is patchy, although there is material relating to his search for employment in the early 1930s. There are pocket diaries spanning 1915-1982, with a fairly continuous sequence 1922-1961. Biographical material also includes extensive family and personal correspondence, much of which dates from or relates to the German occupation of Jersey or shortly thereafter. Mourant's other documented interests include his membership of the Methodist Church and his political affiliations, the League of Nations Union in particular.

There is a little material relating to Mourant's early career with the Geological Survey 1929-1931, miscellaneous material relating to Mourant's service with the MRC's Blood Group Reference Laboratory at the Lister Institute and the Nuffield (later Anthropological) Blood Group Centre at the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, and more extensive but uneven coverage of the Serological Population Genetics Laboratory. Although there is some documentation of the foundation of the Laboratory 1964-1965 and of its staff, the surviving material consists chiefly of correspondence and papers relating to Mourant's largely successful efforts to find continued funding for the Laboratory 1969-1977. Haematological research material, though not extensive, covers Mourant's work in a number of areas from research on blood serum in the mid-1940s to the mapping of blood groups in the 1960s and 1970s. There are early research notes, correspondence and papers relating to student and other expeditions undertaking blood group and physical anthropology research and some MRC material assembled by Mourant relating to projects in which he had an interest. The largest group of research papers, however, is maps and data produced during preparation of the second edition of The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups. There is a chronological sequence of drafts and correspondence relating to Mourant's publications, 1929-1991, with extensive material relating to editions of The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups and to The Genetics of the Jews (1978). There is also editorial correspondence relating to publishers and journals, chiefly invitations to review books or referee papers and an incomplete set of offprints. There is correspondence and papers relating to some of Mourant's lectures and broadcasts, most notably the lectures on blood groups given at the Collège de France, Toulouse, 1978-1979. Societies and organisations material is not extensive, and is confined to brief documentation of only a few of the societies and organisations with which Mourant was associated. It includes professional and geological bodies as well as haematological, biological and medical organisations. Visits and conferences material covers the period 1960-1987. It is not comprehensive, though there is also considerable documentation of Mourant's visits and conferences in the papers he assembled in the course of preparing his biography and with lectures material. Mourant's correspondence is extensive. Its complexity reflects Mourant's organisation of the material, the bulk of which was found in three main series: 'Foreign 1965-1977', 'Biological' and 'Geological', together with a fragment of a fourth series 'Home 1965-1977'. Principal correspondents include C.C. Blackwell, B. Bonné, O.J. Brendemoen, V.A. Clarke, L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, A. W. Eriksson, T.J. Greenwalt, J.K. Moor-Jankowski, T. Jenkins, W.S. Pollitzer, D.F. Roberts, J. Ruffié, D. Tills and J.S. Weiner.

Records of the Physiological Society, including all the minute books from the foundation of the Society in 1876, the proposal books for candidates from 1888, correspondence, histories and photographs. The bulk of the material dates from after 1939.

Sharpey-Schafer's correspondence is extensive. In addition to his own correspondence it includes papers of William Sharpey, saved by Sharpey-Schafer after his death, 1836-70 and n.d. There are significant numbers of letters from William Sharpey himself, Sir Michael Foster, Sir John Burdon-Sanderson, Sir William Osler, George John Romanes, Sir Victor Horsley, Sir James Paget, Lord Lister, Sir Charles Sherrington, Sir William Gowers, Thomas Henry Huxley, John Newport Langley, Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, Ernest Henry Starling, Allen Thomson, Sanger Monroe Brown, Sutherland Simpson, Francis Gano Benedict, Harvey Cushing, Albrecht Kossel, Karl Hugo Kronecker, Carl Ludwig, Charles Robert Richet, and Masaharu Kohima.

Material relating to Sharpey-Schafer's career at UCL includes correspondence on his controversy in the Neurological Society with Sir David Ferrier, 1887-88, and papers relating to the rebuilding of University College Hospital in 1895.

Material relating to Sharpey-Schafer's career at Edinburgh University includes correspondence on the forced resignation of William Cramer from the department of Physiology on grounds of German nationality, 1914, and papers on the opening of the department of Animal Genetics in 1930.

Other papers reflect various aspects of Sharpey-Schafer's scientific interests, including the history of the Physiological Society (with several letters from Archibald Vivian Hill), artificial respiration and bird migration. There are also numerous letters in response to his controversial address to the British Association in Dundee in 1912, and correspondence on the position of scientists in post-Revolutionary Russia, 1918-21.

There is a substantial correspondence on the various textbooks Sharpey-Schafer wrote or to which he contributed, 1910-34.

Sharpey-Schafer's personal papers include correspondence with his wives and children, 1876-1935, scrapbooks of press cuttings, c. 1899-1930, and a large collection of photographs, mainly portraits.

Papers of the Strangeways Research Laboratory, c 1901-1988, comprising papers of T S P Strangeways; annual reports including 1929-1950; minutes and correspondence of the Trustees, 1929-1971; account books and ledgers, 1929-1970; papers relating to funding from various bodies, 1929-1975; papers relating to Medical Research Council funding, c.1962-1969; papers relating to grants, c.1963-1970 and c.1967-1980; administrative records, 1931-1971; general correspondence, 1942-1947, 1954-1956, and 1965-1970; assorted files, 1930s-1960s; miscellaneous historical material including research by George Eric Howard Foxon; minutes of the Radium Commission, 1932-1943; and papers relating to C F Robinow, E M Brieger and Michael Abercrombie.

Although the collection is by no means comprehensive, there are interesting records of many aspects of Wilson's career.

Section A. Biographical: Brings together material relating to obituaries, tributes, honours and awards. Includes Wilson's account of his First World War experiences and his assessment of his scientific publications. Section B. Research: Although not extensive, provides documentation of a number of Wilson's principal interests including the Salmonella group of bacteria and milk hygiene. There are three laboratory notebooks with experimental data covering the period 1919-45. Section C. Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS): Relates chiefly to the unpublished history written by Wilson after his retirement as Director of the PHLS. There is also a little material relating to laboratory design and equipment and PHLS personnel. Section D. Lectures and publications: The most substantial in the collection. There are records of Wilson's lectures for a period of forty years from 1944, extensive documentation of the later editions of Principles of bacteriology and immunity, and editorial correspondence and papers for the British Journal of Experimental Pathology and the Journal of Hygiene. Section E. Societies and organisations: Documentation of Wilson's association with ten British organisations including the Medical Research Club, Medical Research Council and Veterinary Club. The Medical Research Council material relates to the Working Party on Tristan da Cunha which was set up to supervise medical investigations when the inhabitants were evacuated to Britain after the island's volcano erupted in 1961. There is also material relating to the Research Foundation, Chicago, which specialised in tuberculosis research, on whose medical advisory committee Wilson served. Section F. Visits and conferences: Records of a number of overseas trips in an advisory capacity for the World Health Organisation, including to Ethiopia 1964, Iraq 1965, Iran, Sudan and Egypt 1971 and the Philippines 1972, and records of international microbiology congresses. Section G. Correspondence: Although not extensive, includes a chronological sequence of scientific correspondence, 1930-1987, Wilson's collection of autograph letters addressed to Topley and himself, and references and recommendations. Section H. Photographs: Photographic records of Wilson, colleagues, conferences and PHLS laboratories. Section J. 'Biographical History of Bacteriology': Manuscript of Wilson's history, with correspondence about publication.