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.
