A Guide to the Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection 1806-1995
Collection Number MS-1
A Collection in
Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library



Contact Information:
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
1300 Jefferson Park Avenue
P.O. Box 800722
University of Virginia Health System
Charlottesville, Virginia 22908-0722
USA
Phone: (434) 924-5591
Fax: (434) 924-4238
Email: jre@virginia.edu
URL: http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/

Processed by: Historical Collections Staff

© 2003 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved.

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Preferred Citation

Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection, 1806-1995, MS-1, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, Historical Collections and Services, University of Virginia

Processing Information

The original collection was processed by Alderman Library staff prior to the transfer to Health Sciences. P. Kahler Hench Additions were processed by Mark Mones of the Department of Historical Collections and Services staff, ca. 1990. P.S. Hench, HAM/TMC Additions; Reed Family Additions; Laura Wood Papers; and Edward Hook Additions (James Carroll Papers) were processed by Henry K. Sharp of the Department of Historical Collections and Services staff, 2001.

Descriptive Summary

Repository: Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia
Collection number: MS-1
Title: Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection 1806-1995
Physical Characteristics: 66.5 linear feet; 153 boxes; Letters, maps, and reports-4 boxes: 43 cm x 53 cm x 8 cm; Letters, maps, newsclippings, and reports-89 boxes: 13 cm x 39.5 cm x 26.5 cm; Photos-25 boxes: 13 cm x 39.5 cm x 26.5 cm; Reprints-35 boxes: 13 cm x 39.5 cm x 26.5 cm
Language: English
Collector: Transferred ca. 1982 from Alderman Library Special Collections, former accession number 8054. Originally gift of Mary Kahler Hench, 1966. Plus various additions: 1) Reed Family Additions and 2) Laura Wood Papers, transferred ca. 1982 from Alderman Library Special Collections; 3) P. Kahler Hench Additions, gift of P. Kahler Hench in 1988 and 1989; 4) P.S. Hench, HAM/TMC Additions, transferred from the Houston Academy of Medicine/Texas Medical College in 1991; and 5) Edward Hook Additions (James Carroll Papers, gift of Theodore Woodward to Edward Hook, 1995), separated from Edward Hook Papers, 2001.

Scope and Content Information

The Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection comprises letters, research notes, interview transcripts, photographs, negatives, reprints, and artifacts assembled by Mayo Clinic physician and scientist Philip S. Hench over a twenty-five-year period of research. The collection includes the largest extant compilations of original correspondence of Yellow Fever Commission members Walter Reed and Jesse William Lazear, and of U.S. Public Health Service physician and sanitarian Henry Rose Carter. Army Surgeon Jefferson Randolph Kean, who served as quartermaster for the Commission's experiments, and his first wife Louise Mason Young Kean are also well represented. Photostats of period materials in other archives, including official records and correspondence in the National Archives, supplement the original holdings and make this collection an extraordinarily complete record of all the activities surrounding the Commission's work. Additional papers in the collection include materials from Reed's first biographer, Howard Atwood Kelly, and from James Peabody of the New York State Biology Teachers' Association, concerning his efforts to commemorate the work of Reed. Also present are Hench's own extensive research and correspondence files, thoroughly documenting his efforts to verify the accuracy of the yellow fever story, to identify and collect information on all of the participants, and to identify, preserve, and memorialize the site of the Commission's experiments in Cuba. Evident as well is the close friendship which developed between Hench and various of the yellow-fever personalities, including volunteer John J. Moran, General Jefferson R. Kean, Brigadier General Albert E. Truby, and members of the Reed family. Special Note: Approximately 5,500 original documents with transcriptions and full-text search capability are available on line: http://yellowfever.lib.virginia.edu.

Biographical/Historical Information

Philip S. Hench (1896-1965) joined the Rheumatology staff of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. in 1921. Hench remained at the Mayo Clinic for the duration of his career, and won the 1950 Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine with two other scientists for the discovery of cortisone. In addition to this scientific work, Hench pursued an interest in the conquest of yellow fever, with particular attention to the role of the United States Army Yellow Fever Commission of 1900-1901, headed by Army surgeon and bacteriologist Walter Reed. Hench undertook a thorough study of the facts and circumstances of the Commission's work, which had demonstrated that the mosquito Aedes Aegypti is the vector for the spread of yellow fever. From 1937 onwards for the next two and a half decades, Hench made thorough searches of innumerable archive collections, interviewed all of the survivors associated with the yellow fever experiments, and eventually amassed a substantial collection of letters and other original materials, all with a view toward publishing a definitive history of the events. Although his premature death prevented him from accomplishing his literary intentions, Hench remains a figure of critical importance to the history of yellow fever since the records of his meticulous research form the largest and most extensive archival collection on the yellow fever story and its interpretation as a public health victory.

Walter Reed (1851-1902) was an 1869 medical school graduate of the University of Virginia, the youngest student ever to have completed the University's medical curriculum. Subsequently, Reed enrolled at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in Manhattan, where he received a second medical diploma in 1870. Reed interned at a number of hospitals in New York and worked for the Brooklyn Board of Health before joining the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1875. Reed took assignments at various Army posts in the American West, including forts in the Arizona Territory, Nebraska, Dakota Territory, and Minnesota. In 1891 he completed advanced coursework in pathology and bacteriology in the Johns Hopkins University Hospital Pathology Laboratory, and in 1893 Reed joined the faculty of the Army Medical School in Washington, D.C., where he held the professorship of Bacteriology and Clinical Microscopy. He also became curator of the Army Medical Museum and joined the faculty of the Columbian University in Washington (later the George Washington University). His research interests as a bacteriologist ranged from erysipelas to cholera, typhoid, malaria, and yellow fever. In 1900 Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg appointed Reed the head of a scientific commission to Cuba to investigate the etiology of yellow fever. Human experiments undertaken by the Commission proved a mosquito vector for the disease and disproved infection from contaminated materials and air, then believed to be the only means of transmission, results which quickly and dramatically reversed the uncontrolled ascendancy of yellow fever epidemics world wide. Reed lived barely two years after the completion of the Commission's work, succumbing to appendicitis in November of 1902.

The name of Walter Reed has become synonymous with self-experimentation in medicine. Informed consent is also a hallmark of the Yellow Fever Commission. The Commission needed human subjects in order to test the mosquito theory because, at the time, no one knew of any animals susceptible to the disease. The commissioners agreed to experiment on themselves before requesting volunteers. Several Spanish immigrants participated in the experiments, but the majority of volunteers came from Lieutenant Albert E. Truby's Hospital Detachment at Camp Columbia. Governor-General Leonard Wood authorized Reed to offer the volunteers a $100 gold piece. To a poor Spanish immigrant or an underpaid army private, this was considerable incentive. Added to this was the likelihood of contracting yellow fever naturally during their assignment in Cuba, a point that Reed emphasized in the consent form. Reed said it would be better to contract yellow fever in a controlled environment where one could receive immediate medical attention from reputable physicians than to unexpectedly develop yellow fever in a remote camp where adequate care was unlikely. Even so, Reed stated the possibility that volunteers might die during the experiment. The members of the Yellow Fever Commission are considered the first advocates of informed consent because of their conscientious approach to human experimentation.

Arrangement

Series Description: The collection is organized into five principal series, as follows: 1) Jesse W. Lazear Series. 2) Henry Rose Carter Series. 3) Walter Reed Series, including Philip S. Hench's Reed-related collections and general correspondence. 4) Alphabetical Series, comprising Philip S. Hench's additional research materials and selected correspondence, arranged by personal name. 5) Truby-Kean-Hench Series, comprising selected correspondence of Philip S. Hench with Albert E. Truby and Jefferson Randolph Kean. Supplemental materials are organized by type, as follows: 1) Maps 2) Miscellany 3) Artifacts 4) Photographs 5) Negatives 6) Reprints 7) Oversize Materials Manuscript Additions are organized by accession, as follows: 1) P. S. Hench, HAM/TMC Additions 2) Reed Family Additions 3) P. Kahler Hench Additions 4) Laura Wood Papers 5) Edward Hook Additions (James Carroll Papers)

Contents List