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Abstract
Dr. John Adriani (1907-1988) was a nationally known anesthesiologist who played a key role in anesthesiology's evolution into a full-blown medical specialty. Most of the collection reflects Adriani's career in anesthesiology after it began to flower in the late 1940s.
Dates
- Creation: 1925-1988
Extent
50 Linear Feet (123 boxes)
Creator
- Adriani, John, 1907-1988 (Person)
Physical Location
Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine
Language of Materials
Collection materials primarily in English
Restrictions
Portions of the collection are restricted according to HMD's Access to Health Information of Individuals. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding access. For access to the policy and application form, please visit https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/manuscripts/phi.pdf.
Copyright and Re-use Information
Donor's copyrights were transferred to the public domain. Archival collections often contain mixed copyrights; while NLM is the owner of the physical items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. It is the user's responsibility to research and understand any applicable copyright and re-publication rights not allowed by fair use. NLM does not grant permissions to publish.
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
Dr. John Adriani (1907-1988) was a nationally known anesthesiologist who played a key role in anesthesiology's evolution into a full-blown medical specialty. A physician of many talents, he earned his reputation as a researcher, writer, teacher and drug consultant. Born to an Italian-American family on December 2, 1907 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he received his M.D. in 1934 from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed a one-year surgical internship at the French Hospital in New York City. Adriani then chose to join a small group of physicians who were attempting to professionalize the practice of anesthesia. After five years of training under the pioneer anesthesiologist Emery A. Rovenstine at Bellevue Hospital in New York, he was appointed Director of Anesthesiology at Charity Hospital in New Orleans in 1941 and served in many other top administrative capacities at the hospital through the 1960s.
Beginning in the 1950s, Adriani became prominent in many areas of drug development, evaluation, and regulation in the United States. Adriani published the now classic anesthesia texts The Pharmacology of Anesthetic Drugs and The Chemistry and Physics of Anesthesia; he developed the saddle block method of obstetric analgesia in 1947; he also carried out many research projects independently and for various pharmaceutical companies. He testified as an expert witness in hundreds of legal cases involving anesthesia. He held joint teaching appointments at the Tulane and Louisiana State University medical schools and taught the principles of anesthesiology to medical students, residents, nurses, dental students, and technicians for over four decades. He served on the American Board of Anesthesiology, on the American Medical Association's Council on Drugs (occupying its presidency from 1967 to 1971) and as a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on many different projects. He was an active member of the Academy of Anesthesiology, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and the Association of University Anesthetists. He was on the Editorial Board of Anesthesiology and the Medical Tribune, as well as an advisor to The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. In August of 1969, he accepted an appointment as Director of the FDA's Bureau of Medicine, only to have the offer withdrawn under apparent pressure from the pharmaceutical industry which resented his well-publicized support for generic prescribing. Adriani retired from his hospital administrative responsibilities at Charity Hospital in 1975 but continued to teach, write, consult and testify in legal cases until his death in June of 1988.
Collection Summary
The collection contains little material from Adriani's youth, and none from his childhood. Most of the collection reflects Adriani's career in anesthesiology after it began to flower in the late 1940s. The great bulk of the material dates from between the 1950s and the 1980s, and it consists mostly of typed correspondence, memoranda, reports, manuscripts and printed materials. Adriani maintained a personal correspondence for many years with FDA officials, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and Congressional staff as well as with other physicians. The collection will be of use to those researching the history of anesthesiology, nurse-anesthesia, medical education, the pharmaceutical industry and its regulation by the government, hospital administration, and health-care policy and planning in mid-twentieth century America.
Abstract
Dr. John Adriani (1907-1988) was a nationally known anesthesiologist who played a key role in anesthesiology's evolution into a full-blown medical specialty. Most of the collection reflects Adriani's career in anesthesiology after it began to flower in the late 1940s.
Physical Location
Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine
Provenance
Acc. #541. The Adriani papers were donated to the National Library of Medicine by Dr. Adriani and his wife Irene beginning in 1979.
General
- Processed by
- Marcia L. Meldrum, Francesca C. Morgan, Peter B. Hirtle
- Processing completed
- 1991
- Encoded by
- Dan Jenkins
Processing Information
The Adriani papers were processed in 1990-1991 by Marcia Meldrum and Francesca Morgan under the general direction of Peter B. Hirtle, Curator of Modern Manuscripts.
Creator
- Adriani, John, 1907-1988 (Person)
Subject
- Arens, James F. (James Frederick), 1934- (Person)
- Batten, Douglass H. (Person)
- Cohn, Isidore, 1921- (Person)
- Drapanas, Theodore, 1930- (Person)
- Keats, Arthur S. (Arthur Stanley), 1923- (Person)
- Keown, Kenneth K., 1917- (Person)
- McQuillen, Florence A. (Person)
- Ochsner, Alton, 1907- (Person)
- Parmley, Ray T. (Ray Tim), 1919- (Person)
- Rovenstine, Emery Andrew, 1895-1960. (Person)
- Sappenfield, Ralph S., 1907- (Person)
- Shirkey, Harry Cameron (Person)
- Thomas, Charles C. (Charles Crankshaw), 1904- (Person)
- Thomas, Payne E.L. (Edward Lloyd), 1919- (Person)
- Volpitto, Perry P. (Person)
- Winnie, Alon P. (Person)
- Academy of Anesthesiology (Organization)
- American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (Organization)
- American Board of Anesthesiology (Organization)
- American Medical Association (Organization)
- Council on Drugs (American Medical Association) (Organization)
- American Society of Anesthesiologists (Organization)
- American Society of Regional Anesthesia (Organization)
- Arnar-Stone Laboratories (Organization)
- Charity Hospital (New Orleans, La.) (Organization)
- Charles C. Thomas, Publisher (Organization)
- Columbia University. College of Physicians and Surgeons (Organization)
- Gulf South Research Institute (Organization)
- Health Education Authority of Louisiana (Organization)
- Louisiana State Medical Society (Organization)
- LSU School of Medicine, New Orleans (Organization)
- McNeil Laboratories (Organization)
- Sharp & Dohme (Organization)
- Squibb Institute for Medical Research (Organization)
- Tulane University. School of Medicine (Organization)
- United States. Food and Drug Administration (Organization)
- United States Pharmacopœial Convention (Organization)
- W.B. Saunders Company (Organization)
- Winthrop Laboratories, Inc. (Organization)
- Title
- Finding Aid to the John Adriani Papers, 1925-1988
- Status
- Unverified Partial Draft
- Author
- Marcia L. Meldrum, Francesca C. Morgan, Peter B. Hirtle
- Date
- 1991; 2000
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latn
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is written in English
- Edition statement
- Version 1.0
Revision Statements
- March 23, 2004: PUBLIC "-//National Library of Medicine::History of Medicine Division//TEXT (US::DNLM::MS C 453::John Adriani Papers)//EN" "adriani" converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (sy2003-10-15).
Collecting Area Details
Part of the Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collections Collecting Area
8600 Rockville Pike
Bldg 38/1E-21, MSC 3819
Bethesda MD 20894 US
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