Leonidas H. Berry Papers

Collection

Identifier: MS C 423

Abstract

The collection includes correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, publications, and lectures. In addition to his long and distinguished medical career as a pioneering gastroenterologist and influential African-American physician, Dr. Berry was active in teaching, writing, and community public service.

Dates

Creation: 1907-1982

Extent

5.0 Linear Feet (11 boxes + 8mm films)

Creator

Berry, Leonidas H. (Person)

Physical Location

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

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Restrictions

Collection contains restricted material. Portions of the collection are restricted according to HMD's Access to Health Information of Individuals policy. 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

Leonidas Harris Berry, M.D., was born on 20 July 1902 in Woodsdale, North Carolina. After graduating from Wilberforce University in 1924, Dr. Berry moved to Chicago where he received a second B.S. degree from the University of Chicago, followed by a M.D. degree from the Rush Medical College of the University. In 1933, he also received a M.S. degree in Pathology from the University of Illinois Medical School.

After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Berry worked briefly at the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C., and then at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois where he specialized in gastroenterology. Dr. Berry has lived in Chicago since his return in 1931, working in addition at the Michael Reese Hospital, Provident Hospital, and the University of Illinois Medical School.

In addition to his long and distinguished medical career, Dr. Berry has been active in teaching, writing, and community public service. The latter has included work in civil rights, on the racial problems of public health, and with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Further biographical information on Dr. Berry can be found in his 1981 family history/autobiography, "I Wouldn't Take Nothin' for My Journey," found in the reading room of the National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine Division.

Collection Summary

Dr. Berry's papers, which he gave to the National Library of Medicine in 1986, center on Dr. Berry's active professional and civic life. While the earliest copies of family material date from the 1890s, the bulk of the collection dates from the 1950s. Included are correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, publications, and lectures. Especially well documented are Dr. Berry's professional and community activities. Material on his work with drug abusers is found in the records of his tenure as president of the Cook County Physicians Association, at which time he developed and instituted the "Berry Plan" for the treatment of narcotics users. Berry's concern for the health needs of minorities is reflected in the records relating to the Chicago Commission on Human Rights, the Medical Forum Group, and in the folders on the African Methodist Episcopal Church, whose Health Commission Berry headed. In the latter capacity he helped organized the "Flying Medics," a group of black physician who went to Cairo, Illinois in 1970 to address that community's medical needs. In 1965-66 Berry served as the president of the National Medical Association. His files from his presidency are found throughout the collection. They address the wide range of issues of interest to African American physicians at a time when civil rights were of mounting national concern. Of particular interest are the records relating to the integration of minority physicians into mainstream medical organizations and institutions, an event also documented in the records of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.

Rounding out the collection are records relating to Dr. Berry's involvement with professional gastroenterological groups, correspondence and reviews about his publications, and material used in the preparation of his autobiography. Except for a collection of typescripts, there is little material on Dr. Berry's research or his patients. Dr. Berry did make many films demonstrating the use of the Berry endoscope; many of these are found in HMD's historical audiovisual collection. Berry's instruments are housed in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.