Documents on the origin and development of the Tuskegee syphilis study

The collection represents a broad variety of historical documents and other papers collected by the panel during the course of its investigation. In 1973 a copy of the working papers of the panel was deposited in the National Library of Medicine by Dr. R. C. Backus, the Executive Secretary of the Tuskegee Syphilis Ad Hoc Advisory panel. These working papers were originally titled by the panel administrators as "Documents on the origin and development of the Tuskegee syphilis study".

The collection consist largely of photocopies of externally-sourced background materials originally held in twelve binders. The material was organized by the panel into ten general groupings identified in the general index to the papers. An item-level index to the material was also prepared. In the upper right hand corner of each page of the index is found a roman numeral control number, indicating the major grouping in which the material belongs, and the box number in which the material is found. Each entry in the finding aid is preceded by this index number.