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Richard M. Taylor Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MS C 629

Abstract

Taylor was a microbiologist, public health official and Director of the Rockefeller Foundation International Health Division. His specialty was arboviruses. In 1951 at the age of 65 he helped establish a program at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU-3) in Egypt to study mosquito- and tick-borne viruses and their transmission cycles. Collaborating closely with Telford Work and others, their work helped eradicate yellow fever and identified the West Nile virus.

Dates

  • 1930-1981

Extent

1.88 Linear Feet (3 boxes)

Creator

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access.

Copyright and Re-use Information

Donor's copyrights were transferred to the public domain.

Privacy Information

Archives and manuscript collections may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in any collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications for which the National Library of Medicine assumes no responsibility.

Biographical Note

Richard Moreland Taylor was a microbiologist, public health official and Director of the Rockefeller Foundation International Health Division. His specialty was arboviruses. In 1951 at the age of 65 he helped establish a program at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU-3) in Egypt to study mosquito- and tick-borne viruses and their transmission cycles. Collaborating closely with Telford Work who led the NAMRU-3 lab, their work helped eradicate yellow fever and identified the West Nile Virus.

Taylor was born Oct. 30, 1887 in Owensboro, Ky. and was relative of President Zachary Taylor. Taylor briefly studied civil engineering at the University of Kentucky before matriculating to the University of Michigan in 1905 where he recevied his medical degree in 1910. From 1910-1917 he was an instructor in bacteriology at New York University Medical School (1910-1911) and New York Postgraduate Medical School (1911-1917). He also received a doctorate of public health from John's Hopkins in 1926 while working for the Rockefeller Foundation. Taylor served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps between 1917-1919 rising to the rank of Major. He was awarded the Legion of Honor during World War I for his service in France.

Taylor was medical director of the Red Cross's Typhus Commission work in Poland from 1920-1922. In 1923 he joined the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division as a field staffer serving in its Paris, Budapest, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro stations until 1945. Taylor then become Director of the Division's laboratory in New York from 1945-1952. When he reached the Rockefeller Foundation's mandatory retirement age in 1952, he continued to work as a consultant to the Navy and Rockefeller Foundation's mosquito- and tick-borne virus research programs at NAMRU-3. In 1956 Taylor left NAMRU-3 to join the Yale University Medical School's Arbovirus Research Unit and was lecturer in the school's Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology section until 1960. In 1960 while still at Yale, under the auspices of the Committee on International Exchange of Persons, Conference Board of Associated Research Councils' Subcommittee on Information Exchange Taylor started the Arbovirus Information Exchange along with Telford Work. The Exchange was a newsletter cataloging arthropod-borne diseases submitted by scientists from around the world. It became the international the standard for information exchange in this research community. He also chaired the World Health Organization's study group on arthropod-borne disease meeting in 1960.

Later in 1960, Taylor and his wife Mary Stevic Taylor (herself an accomplished Stanford University graduate and personal secretary to Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover) moved to her native northern California where he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health as a lecturere in epidemiology until 1970. In 1966 the Society of Tropical Medicine created the Richard Moreland Taylor Award for Achievement in Arbovirology and was its first recipient.

Taylor and Work became close personal friends during their time in Egypt and remained close family friends throughout the remainder of their careers. Richard Taylor died April 15, 1981 in California.

Collection Summary

Diaries, field reports, correspondence, reprints, travel photographs, and 35mm slides partially document the international public health career of Richard Moreland Taylor and his arbovirus research.

The richest content consists of official laboratory and field reports in Series 2 that Taylor compiled for the Rockefeller Foundation International Health Division. Diaries from 1942-1943 cover his work in Brazil at the Servico de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre a Febre Amarela (SEPFA; Yellow Fever Research Service) which was jointly operated by Brazil's Ministry of Education and Health and IHD where he worked to bolster Brazil's rural public health infrastructure and control the incidence of yellow fever. Diaries from 1945-1950 cover his work as director of the IHD laboratories in New York and managing the virus research programs there, especially Coxsackievirus and yellow fever. They include his work to establish a virus laboratory and epidemiological service in Iceland to counter poliomyelitis in 1949. Diaries are missing for 1950-1952 and by 1953 Taylor was in Cairo, Egypt where NAMRU-3 is already established; there are no diaries covering the establishment of NAMRU-3 although there is a short description of its foundations in the 1956 diary. His diaries from 1953-1954 cover the bi-weekly activities of the lab. Also notable is his trip to southern Sudan between Feb.-March, 1954 to investigate yellow fever in collaboration with the Stack Laboratory. Telford Work's films "Yellow Fever in the Sudan" and "Reconnaissance for yellow fever in the Nuba Mountains, southern Sudan, 1954" were also produced as part of the work. Diaries from 1956 diary document Taylor's return to the United States and New Haven, Ct., and consulting project travels to India, Thailand, China, Kula Lumpur, Philippines, Japan, and California. 1958 diaries cover a yellow fever epidemic in Trinidad. The 1959-1960 diary covers Taylor's work in various eastern U.S. states and especially Florida. Taylor returned to Brazil in a 1963 diary. Series 3 contains many photographs and 35mm slides taken during all of Taylor's travels.

Series 1 contains a limited amount of personal and biographical information.

Series 4 contains a large selection of Taylor's reprints although it is not comprehensive.

Abstract

Taylor was a microbiologist, public health official and Director of the Rockefeller Foundation International Health Division. His specialty was arboviruses. In 1951 at the age of 65 he helped establish a program at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU-3) in Egypt to study mosquito- and tick-borne viruses and their transmission cycles. Collaborating closely with Telford Work and others, their work helped eradicate yellow fever and identified the West Nile virus.

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Provenance

Gift, Alexandra Subramanian, March 2018, Accession #2018-005.

General

Processed by
John P. Rees
Processing Completed
June 2018
Encoded by
John P. Rees
Title
Finding Aid to the Richard M. Taylor Papers, 1930-1981
Status
Unverified Partial Draft
Author
History of Medicine Division
Date
June 2018
Language of description
English
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Finding aid is written in English
Edition statement
1.0

Collecting Area Details

Part of the Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collection Collecting Area

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