Papers of Carlos Paton Blacker, 1920-1974, reflecting his long and active career in psychiatry (including as including as psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and as an Adviser to the Ministry of Health), and his activities as Secretary to the Eugenics Society and with a number of organisations interested in population and birth control, including the Birth Control Investigation Committee, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the Simon Population Trust. There is also some material relating to his return to military duty in the Second World War as a Regimental Medical Officer. The collection also includes correspondence (both personal and professional), which sheds light on his interests in ornithology and nature conservation, and other writings both published and unpublished.
Blacker , Carlos Paton , 1895-1975 , psychiatristClifford Dobell's personal papers, including protozoology drawings, his reviews of books, original plates and drawings for Dobell's scientific papers. Also, Dobell's papers relating to Giovanni Battista Grassi (1854-1925) and his claim to priority in the discovery of the mode of transmission of malaria.
Dobell , Clifford , 1886-1949 , protozoologist and parasitologistThe 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.
Eugenics SocietyPapers of Dr. Letitia Fairfield, reflecting her interests in social hygiene, in mental health, in medico-legal matters and criminology, mother and child health and welfare, and as a Roman Catholic convert, as well as her broader political and feminist convictions. There is also some biographical material.
Fairfield , Josephine Letitia Denny , 1885-1978 , doctor x Fairfield , LetitiaCorrespondence of Hans Grüneberg with colleagues and friends, 1930-1982.
Grüneberg , Hans , 1907-1982 , geneticistPapers of Thomas Jeeves Horder, 1904-1955, including Horder's appointment diaries, [one at St Bartholomew's Hospital and one at his private practice], memorabilia, Horder's talks and writings, obituaries and appreciations of his life and work, and a very small accumulation of case notes, apparently from his private practice.
Horder , Thomas Jeeves , 1871-1955 , 1st Baron Horder , physicianMSS.3259-3285 comprise chiefly scientific material; they include student notebooks on zoology, botany and geology (MSS.3259-3280); scientific logs from the British Antarctic Expedition (MSS.3281-3283), specifically a biological log (MSS.3281-3282) and a log of whales sighted (MS.3283), both spanning 1910-1913; an address delivered in 1913 to the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association on Mendel's principle of heredity (MS.3284); and some notes on fish and fishing (MS.3285). MSS.5252-5254 comprise more personal and more miscellaneous material. MS.5252 is a scrapbook kept by Lillie, containing news cuttings, photographs and miscellaneous papers, spanning the period c.1845-1910 and including cuttings (with portrait prints) on science and scientists, 1845-1901; caricatures by Lillie of lecturers and staff at Birmingham University, 1904-1905; geological photographs, 1907-1909; family photographs (including a group class portrait at United Services' College, Westward Ho!, c.1892); and ephemera from Cambridge, 1909-1910. MS.5253 comprises cuttings from newspapers and illustrated magazines, spanning 1910-1914 and mainly relating to Robert Falcon Scott's British Antarctic Expedition. Finally MS.5254 comprises correspondence and very miscellaneous papers from the period 1824-1938 (plus some undated material) among them letters to his grandfather John Lillie D.D. (1806-1866), and to his maternal relatives the Macaire family, and letters to Lillie from E.A.N. Arber, Caroline Oates and others.
Lillie , Denis Gascoigne , 1888-1963 , biologistPapers of Sir Peter Brian Medawar, 1937-1991, relating to career, scientific research, and his writings on the philosophy of science; also biographical material collected by the late Dr Robert Reid.
Medawar , Sir , Peter Brian , 1915-1987 , Knight , medical scientist and Nobel LaureateThe records cover the period 1927-1993, although the majority date from the 1940s to the 1970s. Notable series include general correspondence with colleagues world-wide, 1935-1984; Dr Race's research papers on human genetic markers, late 1930s/early 1940s; files of correspondence, research notes, pedigrees etc. on blood grouping investigations, 1942-1993; and a comprehensive collection of photographs recording Medical Research Council Blood Group Unit staff at work and play, 1927-[1980s].
Medical Research Council Blood Group UnitBiographical 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.
Mourant , Arthur Ernest , 1904-1994 , haematologist and geologistThe papers of Frederick Parkes Weber, 1886-1962, consist of case notes from his Harley Street and German Hospital practices, some very fine annotated clinical photographs, and (the bulk of the collection) a large number of volumes and bundles dealing with a vast array of diseases and medical conditions, usually accreted around an original paper by Parkes Weber himself. He described how these 'small collections and bundles around kernels of my earliest writings on the subject' evolved in a letter to the Librarian, Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 27 Feb 1958: "I was in the habit of surrounding my own writings with manuscript and printed correspondence, and all kinds of cuttings and small articles bearing on the subject. Many interesting autograph letters and small essays have in this way become buried and practically altogether lost." These had become 'gradually very extensive, and many of them have become dislocated and unmanageable'. On examination they have been found to include reprints and cuttings of articles, case notes, notes and annotations, correspondence, and photographs. There is also material on more general philosophical questions, and relating to his book Aspects of Death and other publications, and a little personalia and correspondence. Diaries apparently received with the papers were returned to Parkes Weber late in 1958 to assist in the preparation of the notes published as Miscellaneous Notes (see PP/FPW/D.11) and seem never to have been returned to the Wellcome Library (Parkes Weber to Dr Poynter, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 24 Dec 1958 and 11 Feb 1959). This is a collection of major importance for the medical historian.
Parkes Weber had a very active life during a period of unprecedented developments in medicine. He produced well over 1000 articles, and was particularly interested in rare diseases and conditions: conditions with which he is eponymously associated are Rendu-Osler-Weber disease (familial telangiectasis), Weber's diseases (localised epidermolysis bullosa), Weber-Klippel syndrome (haemangiectatic hypertrophy of limbs), Weber-Christian disease (relapsing febrile nodular non-suppurative panniculitis) and Sturge-Weber-Kalischer disease (angioma of brain revealed by radiography). His papers also include much on more common ailments and phenomena, on balneological and climatological treatment, healthy life-style and the promotion of longevity, social medicine, etc. His associates and colleagues included many of the great names in medicine of his day.
Weber , Frederick Parkes , 1863-1962 , physicianPapers of Sir Alan Sterling Parkes, 1926-1988, with a particular bias to the diverse bodies (official, voluntary, and international) which which Parkes was involved through his interests in reproductive biology, endocrinology, scientific publishing, low-temperature biology, and global population issues (among others). There is a large selection of mostly identified photographs.
Parkes , Sir , Alan Sterling , 1900-1990 , Knight , endocrinologistPapers of John Michael Robson on pharmacology, endocrinology and reproductive physiology, 1940s, 1967-1975; incomplete draft history of the Institute of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh, [post 1945].
Robson , John Michael , 1900-1982 , pharmacologistCopies of correspondence from the Rockefeller Family Archives, pertaining to support given to the English Eugenics Society for their researches, 1934-1940, in particular the funding of Dr J R Baker's researches for the development of a cheap and safe spermicide.
Rockefeller Family