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Papers of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). The genesis of ASH is illustrated in Fletcher's papers (section Q), arising out of his work on the Royal College of Physicians smoking reports. There is a full run of Committee minutes from 1971 onwards (section B). The bulk of the files are those of the Director, associated with all aspects of ASH's campaigning and administrative work. These overlap to some extent with the files of the Project Officer (section P), which are concerned with various specific campaigns, especially about smoking in the workplace and in public places. Published papers, leaflets, posters and booklets are to be found in files throughout the archive, but section T consists of publications which were filed together, apparently transferred from the ASH library.

Armitage Dispensing Chemist prescription registers 1899-1943, a total of 30 items, 1-27: registers, 1899-1940; 28-30: Records of Prescriptions Dispensed for Particular Doctors, 1919-1925, 1928-1943.

Agendas and notes (as opposed to formal minutes) of meetings of the Association of Area Medical Officers of Health, anda number of papers circulated to members in connection with meetings. The earlier items (1974-1976) are all xerox copies, as no set of signed minutes was kept; but from 1977 onwards the agendas and notes of meetings (though not all of the circulated papers) are the typed top copies.

These records contain material dealing with all aspects of County Medical Officers' work. The broad categories are: minutes, 1902-1907 and 1918-1974; correspondence, 1939-1974; plus a few photographs and miscellaneous items, 1905-1972.

Among the papers are several boxes of records generated by Dr Ramage's role as Association of County Medical Officers of Health representative on the Public Health and Housing (subsequently Health and Welfare) Committee of the County Councils Association. These consist of minutes and other circulated papers and subject files of correspondence, etc. As these records are not duplicated in the holdings of the Association of County Councils (formerly the County Councils Association) they have been retained as of considerable interest on local government health matters.

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.

Correspondence of William Thomas Brande, 1825-1878, with some letters by his son, William T.C. Brande. Brande's advice on chemistry was sought by many of the correspondents in this small collection. They include Timothy Bramah on experiments relating to minting coin, Samuel Brown (1776-1852) on metal used in lighthouse construction; Frederick Richard Lees (1815-1897) on distillation of alcohol; Thomas William Clinton Murdoch (1809-1891) on fumigating 'coolie labour' aboard ship; and John Morillyon Wilson (1783-1868) on the danger of tobacco smoke to teeth. Other letters refer to publications and Royal Institution matters and Brande's own health.

Papers of the British Medical Association compring files [1915-1960], from the following subject series: Medico-Political, Science, Groups, Ethics, Public Health, Hospitals, Organisation. Also incomplete set of copy minutes of Council, Committees and of the Annual Representatives' Meetings and Special Representatives' Meetings, [1907-1982].

Papers of Herbert Davies Chalke, 1924-[1980] including lecture notes, papers and publications, including re alcoholism, TB, care of the elderly, and food safety. Also papers re service with RAMC in North Africa.

Croadsell collection comprising pharmacy prescription books and ledgers, 1923-1951.

Papers of Allen Daley, mainly from the period after Daley's retirement in 1952 until his death in 1969. They comprise correspondence, committee papers, reports, lecture notes and photographs relating to many aspects of public health and community medicine, including other professions in the public health field and health education. Of particular note is the almost complete set of his lecture notes, articles and speeches spanning his career and retirement (see C.3), many of which include other information relating to public health gathered by Daley for the purposes of writing the speech or article. Also, after his retirement he reviewed nearly 600 book and journal articles (see C.7).

Personalia and memorabilia of Walter Ernest Dixon and G Norman Myers, 1865-1949; files relating to their pharmacological research (digitalis, morphine substitutes, coramine, etc) and teaching and glass lantern slides, some of Dixon and colleagues, mostly relating to research.

Papers of Sir Richard Doll arranged as follows: Section A. Correspondence and papers from Doll's period as Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford (1969-1979). Includes the administration papers of medical departments. During Doll's professorship, most of the planning and development of the John Radcliffe Hospital complex was undertaken, and many of the papers relate to this project, including building specifications and architect's plans as well as numerous reports prepared for committees on which Doll served, including those concerned with the re-organization of Oxford hospital services.

Section B. Papers deriving from the conduct of trials and other epidemiological research. The collection contains material from a range of clinical trials in the field of gastroenterology, conducted initially under Francis Avery Jones at Central Middlesex Hospital. The trials investigated a variety of treatments of ulcers: from an investigation of the influence of smoking, to the role of blood group distribution and family history, from the efficacy of liquorice treatment to the efficacy of intragastric milk drips in uncomplicated gastric ulcer, and from comparative trials to determine rates of healing, to investigating cortisone in ulcerative colitis. Occupational epidemiology is well-represented, including material on both vinyl chloride and asbestos. The latter incremental research into the link between asbestos exposure and lung cancer (at the Turner and Newall factory in Rochdale) includes related correspondence, draft papers and original data, beginning with Doll's landmark paper of 1955. Other research-based material includes papers relating to a Medical Research Council trial of mild hypertension (completed in 1985), for which Doll acted as Chair of the Ethical Committee. Papers on smoking and lung cancer are less well-represented: spanning the period 1956-1972, they do not, unfortunately, include papers from formative research conducted with Bradford Hill. Correspondence relating to ISIS-3: Third International Study of Infarct Survival (for which, Doll acted as Chair of the Data Monitoring Committee) can be found at D/3/82, amongst the lecture papers where it was originally filed.

Section C. Doll's international reputation prompted a number of requests for his professional assistance, from both private and public sectors. In addition to formal consultancy conducted in America and Europe, Doll's international lecturing itinerary sometimes incorporated local consultancy - see, for example, D/3/41 (Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Study), D/3/42 (correspondence with Shell Oil, Houston, concerning peer-review of a case-control study of fourteen leukaemia deaths at an oil-refinery), or D/3/54 (a new Centre for population health studies in Tasmania). More extensive consultancy is represented by papers concerning the Spanish Toxic Oil Syndrome: the WHO invited Doll to weigh evidence gathered to determine the cause of the epidemic and prepare an expert report.

Section D. Lecture texts and papers, published and unpublished from 1968 to 1991. Many files contain germane correspondence, notes and background material. For instance, D/1/20 ("Osler's English School") contains brief correspondence with the Dept of Pathology, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford on Osler's post-mortem record; D/1/32 ("Pott and the path to prevention") contains photocopied medical notes of James Chard, chimney sweep (St Batholomew's Hospital, 1848); D/2/28 ("Avoidable cancer: attribution of risk") contains clinical correspondence on beta-carotene; and D/3/24 ("Medical effects of smoking: problems and perspectives") includes correspondence with Austin Bradford Hill on the origins of the prospective study of doctors and their smoking habits. Some additional papers, prior to 1968, can be found in Section B, where they are filed together with contemporaneous research materials.

Section E. Audio and video tapes amongst Doll's papers. A small collection of materials drawn from 1981-1984, including an interview on Japanese television.

Papers of Professor Sir Alexander Haddow including correspondence, diaries, autobiographical notes, photographs; scientific notes, 1920s-1970s.

Papers of Robert Hetherington, predominantly concerned with contraception (especially oral contraception) drug toxicity and thalidomide. It consists mainly of press cuttings but there is a large collection of advertising material for oral contraceptives with some notes and correspondence. Dr Hetherington was collecting material during the 1960s and 1970s both agreeing and disagreeing with his own ideas on these contentious issues.

Papers of Sir Ernest Kennaway, 1899-1957. Most of the items in this collection appear to relate to the later years of Sir Ernest's career. The collection chiefly comprises notebooks on medical issues such as substance-related illnesses and occupational diseases (chiefly cancers) plus a little material on religious issues.

Prescription books, Martindale and Co chemists, 1936-1970.

Papers of Sir Edward Mellanby, 1896-1974, notably relating to his research interests in vitamins, nutrition and deficiency and material on his activities subsequent to his retirement as an advisor on questions of research and medical administration. May Tweedy married Edward Mellanby in 1914 and collaborated in his research throughout the rest of their lives together, as well as working independently. It can thus be seen that it is not altogether easy to differentiate between the papers of this couple; for example in Section C of Sir Edward's papers are included a number of files and volumes relating to his wife's work as his associate, while her diaries in Section E contain details of her husband's activities as well as her own. Although Lady Mellanby was Sir Edward's collaborator throughout the course of his career, her papers are on the whole distinct from his and concentrate on her work in research into dentition and dental problems. They are therefore listed separately, and the list annotated at relevant points where there is an overlap. It is clear that these papers are not a complete record of the Mellanbys' careers. It is likely that following Sir Edward Mellanby's death, when the material underwent various moves, some items were lost. However, as for 16 years he was Secretary of the Medical Research Council, the record of those years is to be found among the files of the MRC, although details of the relevant files at the MRC are not yet available.

The 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.

Papers of Sir William Drummond Macdonald Paton, 1930-1993, chiefly comprising papers relating to his main research interests, namely underwater physiology, histamine, synaptic transmission, drug dependence, anaesthetic mechanisms, allergy electron microscopy and the history of science, particularly medical science. The collection also includes correspondence, research papers and laboratory notebooks, and papers relating to the committee work that occupied his energies. Papers from Paton's time as both a Rhodes Trustee and a Wellcome Trustee provide further evidence of the extent of his commitments in committee.

Papers relating to Paton's Chairmanship of the Research Defence Committee (1972-77) are particularly extensive and reveal the social and political pressures of the period, the passionate challenges of the anti-vivisection lobby, as well as Paton's personal commitment to a socially responsible use of animals in scientific experimentation. Papers relating to Man and Mouse: Animals in Medical Research (1984), in which Paton set out his fundamental position on animal experimentation, provide further material on this topic.

Another field of interest in which Paton expended considerable energy was that of drug dependence, particularly the pharmacological action of cannabis. Through work in laboratory and committees, and through the media and many speaking engagements, he campaigned strenuously to warn of what he judged to be the deleterious effects of cannabis, and forged campaign alliances with American colleagues who shared his concerns.

Throughout his career, Paton maintained strong links with the Royal Navy, acting as scientific adviser and consultant on deep diving and underwater physiology. This strand of his work was of enduring interest: Paton's work on the physiological properties of gases at high pressure led directly to the development of the deep-diving breathing mixture known as 'Tri-Mix', in which nitrogen is added to helium and oxygen. Paton took great pleasure in the Royal Navy achieving, in 1980, the world's deepest dive (see D/2/14).

Savory and Moore prescription registers, 1912-1944.

Drug registers, 1945-1955, and cash books, 1951-1957.

Papers relating to the Wellcome Witness Seminars, 1993-1997, including original audio tapes of the seminars (in most cases, master plus copy); photographs of witnesses and other participants; correspondence, both administrative and between the Twentieth Century Group and witnesses; and programmes and lists of participants.