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Fielding Hudson Garrison Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MS C 166

Abstract

Collection of Garrison's Army Medical Library correspondence, personal memoranda books, correspondence, and photographs, and selected letters from Garrison's acquaintences solicited by Henry E. Sigerist after Garrison's death. Garrison served for many years as Editor of Index Medicus, and also performed detailed reference services in the Army Medical Library. He is perhaps best known as the author of the Introduction to the History of Medicine, the... first comprehensive American treatise on the history of medicine.

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Dates

  • Creation: 1910-1957

Extent

3.75 Linear Feet (9 boxes)

Creator

Physical Location

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

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Restrictions

Collection is not restricted. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding 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....

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Biographical Note

Fielding Hudson Garrison was born on 5 November 1870 in Washington, D.C., the son of John Rowzee Garrison II and Jennie Davis Garrison. He received an A.B. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1890 and a M.D. degree from Georgetown University in 1893. In 1910 he married Clara Augusta Brown. The Garrisons had three daughters: Patricia Garrison Boorman, Margaret Garrison Estey, and Shirley Garrison Klein. Garrison died in Baltimore on 18 April 1935....

Most of Garrison's professional career was spent as a librarian, bibliographer, and medical historian at the Army Medical Library (later the National Library of Medicine). First appointed as a clerk in the library in 1891, Garrison rose to become principal assistant librarian, second only to the director of the library. Commissioned in the Army Medical Corps in 1917, he also rose to the rank of Colonel. In 1930 Garrison left the library to become the librarian of the William H. Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University.

Garrison's contributions were numerous. He served for many years as Editor of Index Medicus, and also performed detailed reference services in the Army Medical Library. He prepared plans and collected material for the history of the U.S. Medical Department in World War I. He wrote countless articles and reviews instructing and encouraging medico-historical activity in the United States. He is perhaps best known as the author of the Introduction to the History of Medicine, the first comprehensive American treatise on the history of medicine.

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Collection Summary

While a prolific historian and outstanding biographer in his own right, Garrison apparently had little sense of the potential historical interest in his own correspondence and papers. In response to a request from Mrs. Leroy Crummer in 1934 for copies of her husband's correspondence with Garrison, he replied that, when "faced with the dire necessity of moving tons of unbound paper to Baltimore when I came over here, I made short work of it." He had... offprints of his publications bound, but as for his personal correspondence, only a few volumes of letters were similarly preserved. He described these as "mainly autograph items," mostly from European celebrities. A list of the volumes which Garrison had bound is attached to a letter from J.H. Bryson. The first nine volumes in the list were letters; the remainder are publications.

The National Library of Medicine has received three of the volumes of letters from Garrison's daughters (see below). At least two other volumes were loaned by one of the daughters to a scholar who lost them during a move. A sixth volume, described as "Mencken Letters," is believed to be in the possession of one of Garrison's grandchildren. The location of the other three volumes of letters is unknown.

Franz L. Tietsch, a witness to Garrison's will, noted in a 1941 letter to Dr. Judson B. Gilbert that Garrison "declined to make provisions for the disposal of his books, papers and sundry writings," and that Mrs. Garrison then disposed of much of it after his death. The materials in the Fielding H. Garrison collection in the National Library of Medicine therefore have been assembled from a variety of different sources. The original provenance and order of the material, however, has been retained whenever possible within the collection. An index at the end of the finding guide makes it possible to identify material from an individual correspondent in any of the four series which make up the collection.

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