Correspondence Henry E. Sigerist – John F. Fulton 1930–1956 Edited and annotated by Marcel H. Bickel Bern, 2012 an online publication of the Institute of the History of Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland Correspondence Sigerist – Fulton ǁ Table of Contents Table of Contents Preface ................................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.1. Henry E. Sigerist (1891-1957) ................................................................................... 5 1.2. John F. Fulton (1899-1960) ........................................................................................ 6 1.3 The Correspondence .................................................................................................... 8 1.3.1. Technicalities and Explanations ......................................................................... 8 1.3.2. Topics of the Correspondence .......................................................................... 8 2. The Letters ....................................................................................................................... 11 3. Index of Letters .............................................................................................................. 459 4. Literature ....................................................................................................................... 467 5. Name Index ................................................................................................................... 476 6. Subject Index ................................................................................................................. 483 2 Correspondence Sigerist – Fulton ǁ Preface Preface Henry E. Sigerist (1891-1957) is recognized as the foremost historian of medicine of his time. In addition, he was an activist in the fight for a reform of the American health system and, last but not least, he was a scholar with an exceptional breadth of interests and with engaging human qualities. John F. Fulton (1899-1960) was an outstanding American physiologist and medical historian. As a colleague he came in contact with Sigerist, then in Europe, around 1930. They then met in the U.S., and when Sigerist settled in this country in 1932, he and Fulton kept a constant and ever more frequent correspondence between Baltimore and New Haven and from 1947 on between New Haven and Switzerland. Most of Sigerist’s correspondence has been a hidden treasure for long; until recently only the incomplete correspondences with George Rosen (Viseltear 1978) and with George Urdang (Sonnedecker 1983) have been published. In 2008 an edition of Sigerist’s correspondences with four Swiss historians of medicine (A. C. Klebs, B. Milt, H. Fischer, E. Hintzsche) has been published (Bickel 2008). Also published is an edition of the correspondences between Sigerist and Welch, Cushing, Garrison, and Ackerknecht (Bickel 2010a), as well as the correspondence between Sigerist and Charles Singer (Bickel 2010b). There are several reasons that make an edition of Sigerist’s correspondences worth-while : 1. Most of the correspondences are stored in only two archives in a well-organized and accessible form. 2. Stored are not only the letters collected by Sigerist, but also the carbon-copies of his own letters since about 1923. 3. These corresondences are almost complete with very few letters missing. These three facts are rarely combined and therefore are an invaluable advantage for an edition. To this must be added the interest in both Sigerist and John F. Fulton. This correspondence is therefore likely to allow a true insight into the lives and mentalities of the two correspondents, including their private lives and scientific work, as well as relationships with persons, books, and topics. Hence the correspondence is a source for the correspondents’ biographies and for many topics and features of the 20th century. I have tried to adopt modern criteria for the edition of correspondences (Steinke 2004). The three reasons given above allowed for an edition of the letters to and from Sigerist (in a chronological sequence) and using all letters available, i.e., without a selection, which in any case would have been questionable. An unselected edition was feasible because the correspondence is limited in size and contains very few trivialities. The individual letters were transcribed in their totality too. Thus, future editors would only have to alter the annotations. Problems of transcription are dealt with in the introduction to the edited correspondence (chapter 1.3.1.). The annotations are given in small print following the transcribed letters. A bibliography of all literature mentioned in the letters and comments is given in chapter 3. All persons mentioned in the letters are listed in the name index (chapter 4) and the major subjects in a separate indx (chapter 5.). The bulk of the letters to and from Sigerist is stored in the following archives: 1) Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library P. O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 3 Correspondence Sigerist – Fulton ǁ Preface 2) The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions 5801 Smith Avenue, Suite 235 Baltimore, MD 21209 1) contains Sigerist’s correspondences of his time in Zurich and Leipzig (prior to 1932 and incomplete) and of the years in Pura (1947-1957, almost complete). 2) contains the correspondences of his years at Johns Hopkins (1932-1947, almost complete). Both archives have lists of the correspondences under the heading „Sigerist Papers“. Certain letters of Sigerist’s Leipzig years are at the Universitätsarchiv Leipzig (1925-1932, incomplete). The archive of the Department of the History of Medicine at the University of Zurich has a large collection of Sigeristiana, however, very few letters letters. Both Sigerist and Fulton played a major role in medicine and academic life in the United States. Their correspondence is more voluminous than the ones previously published. It is a correspondence between two friends, showing their plans and achievements, books read and people met. The reader becomes acquainted with the two personalities and watches as the first half of the 20th century unfolds in many of its aspects. For the present edition the editor ows gratitude to many who have helped him in many ways. The archives of Yale, Johns Hopkins and Leipzig mentioned above were kind enough to let me publish their correspondences. Their personnel’s competence, cooperation, and friendly advice is highly appreciated. I extend my thanks to my colleagues of the Departments of the History of Medicine in Bern and Zurich for stimulation and help with the transcription and comments: Urs Boschung, Pia Burkhalter, Gertraud Gamper, François Ledermann, Iris Ritzmann, Hubert Steinke. Nora Sigerist-Beeson, Sylvia Bonner, Martina Fierz, and many others offered their help, and so did my wife Leni and our daughter Susanne. Bern, 2011 Bickel, Marcel H., ed.: Henry E. Sigerist. Vier ausgewählte Briefwechsel mit Medizinhistorikern der Schweiz. Peter Lang Publishing Group, Bern etc. 2008. Bickel, Marcel H., ed.: Henry E. Sigerist. Correspondences with Welch, Cushing, Garrison, and Ackerknecht. Peter Lang Publishing Group, Bern etc. 2010. Bickel, Marcel H., ed.: Henry E. Sigerist and Charles Singer, Correspondence, 1920-1956. Med. Hist. Supplement 30, 2011. Sonnedecker, Glenn, ed.: The American Correspondence Between George Urdang and Henry E. Sigerist 1941-1948. Graz, 1983 (21 pages). Steinke, Hubert: Why, What and How ? Editing Early Modern Scientific Letters in the 21st Century. Gesnerus (Swiss J. Hist. Med. Sci.) 61, 282-295, 2004. Viseltear, Arthur J., ed..: The George Rosen – Henry E. Sigerist Correspondence. J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci. 33, 281-313, 1978. 4 Correspondence Sigerist – Fulton ǁ 1. Introduction 1. Introduction 1.1. Henry E. Sigerist (1891-1957) Sigerist was born in 1891 in Paris, the son of Swiss parents. After schooling in Paris and Zurich he started out with studies of orientalistics in Zurich and London, then studied medicine in Zurich and Munich. Right after obtaining his MD in 1917 he entered the field of the history of medicine as a private scholar in Zurich, stimulated by some of his teachers and, above all, by Karl Sudhoff. As a lecturer at the University of Zurich Sigerist became so productive and successful that in 1925 he was called to fill the first chair of medical history as the successor of Karl Sudhoff at the University of Leipzig. His most important time began in 1932 as William H. Welch Professor of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. During his 15 fruitful years at Hopkins he succeeded in transforming medical history into an academic subject and in providing stimuli in matters of public health and social medicine. He eventually resigned his post in 1947 in order to find the time to write his multi-volume History of Medicine in the quiet of the Swiss village of Pura where he died in 1957. An undefatigable writer, Sigerist produced many books and hundreds of papers (Miller 1966) which, combined with his rhetorical talent and his charisma, stimulated many authors to deal with Sigerist during his time. This secondary literature (Berg-Schorn 1978) (Fee/Brown 1997) has even increased in the half century since his death. It contains much biographical information.