Abstract
THE Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which is the only one of its kind in the United States of America, was the last creation in 1929 of that remarkable and radiant personality, William Henry Welch. “My ambition,” he wrote to Dr. L. W. Weed, odean of the Medical School, in a letter dated November 21, 1927, “is to create a real institute of medical history with a good reference library and a salaried staff, where facilities are offered not only for teaching, but for serious study and research. A ‘Lehrstuhl’ merely is not enough”. The professorship in the history of medicine in the University was originally intended as a retirement chair for Dr. Welch who, however, insisted on the organization of a properly equipped department. He was succeeded by Dr. Henry E. Sigerist, a former director of the Institut fur die Geschichte der Medzin at Leipzig, who, with his magnetic personality, relentless energy, and immense erudition, has built up a magnificent institute serving the triple purpose of research, education, and nucleus for medico-historical activities in the country. Supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, it is situated on the top floor of the William H. Welch Medical Library. Dr. Sigerist is ably assisted by his associates Drs. Owsei Temkin, Ludwig Edelstein, John Rathbone Oliver, and Sandford V. Larkey. Initially designed as a house-organ, to contain papers written by members of the Institute and by others connected with the University, in January 1933 the Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine began to appear as a supplement to the Jnhns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, from 1935 functioning as an independent organ. At the beginning of 1939 it changed its name to “Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Organ of the American Association of the History of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine”.
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BETT, W. Medicine in the Renaissance. Nature 143, 864–865 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143864a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143864a0