Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Herbert Weiner papers
469
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Herbert Weiner Papers
Manuscript Collection number: 469
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections for Medicine and the Sciences
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
6.4 linear ft.
(11 document boxes, 2 half-size document boxes, 1 record carton box, and 1 flat box)
Date (inclusive): 1934-2002
Abstract: Herbert Weiner, M.D. (1921-2002) was a pioneer in psychosomatic medicine who revolutionized scientific understanding of how
the brain and body interact during illness. He served as chief of behavioral medicine at UCLA (1982-2002) and was a researcher
at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric and Brain Research Institutes. His research was vital to the development of psychoneuroimmunology,
a field examining the brain's influence over the immune system. The collection contains his publications, several unpublished
book manuscripts, extensive notes and lectures, and material documenting his efforts to develop research and training programs
at UCLA. It also includes Weiner’s interactions with professional medical organizations and outside institutions such as the
MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
Physical Location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections for Medicine and the Sciences Reference Desk for paging information.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections for Medicine and the Sciences Reference Desk for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Copyright of portions of this collection has been assigned to The Regents of the University of California. The UCLA Library
Special Collections can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. Please contact the UCLA
Library Special Collections for Medicine and the Sciences reference desk for information on permissions.
[Identification of item], Herbert Weiner Papers (Manuscript Collection 469). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History
and Special Collections Division, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Dora B. Weiner, 2003.
Processed by Jessica Cook in 2016 under the supervision of Jillian Cuellar in the Center for Primary Research and Training
(CFPRT).
Herbert Weiner, M.D. (1921-2002), a pioneer of psychosomatic medicine, revolutionized scientific understanding of how the
brain and body interact during hypertension, asthma, ulcers, anorexia nervosa, rheumatoid arthritis, and other illnesses.
Weiner was born in Vienna and grew up in London. He came to the United States with his family in 1939, graduating magna cum
laude from Harvard in 1943 and receiving his medical degree from Columbia University in 1946. During the 1950s and 1960s he
was a researcher at Walter Reed Medical School Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, studying the impact stress has on the development
of gastric ulcers and other diseases.
From 1966-1982 he was a professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. Beginning in
1969 he was also chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Montefiore Medical Center (1969-1982). In the 1970s he performed
foundational research on the behavioral effects of hydrocortisone, a drug used to treat asthma and other autoimmune disorders.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1982 to join the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCLA’s David Geffen School
of Medicine, where he taught until his retirement in 2001. At UCLA he was chief of behavioral medicine (later Professor Emeritus)
and a researcher at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric and Brain Research Institutes.
In addition to serving as the editor for
Psychosomatic Medicine (the leading journal in the field) from 1972-1982, Weiner published two books,
Psychobiology and Human Disease (Elsevier, 1977) and
Perturbing the Organism: The Biology of Stressful Experience (University of Chicago Press, 1992). He also co-authored over 20 books, and wrote more than 200 papers during his lifetime.
Overall his research was vital to the development of psychoneuroimmunology, a field examining the brain’s influence over the
immune system. His study charting the negative effects of stress on women whose spouses died of lung cancer is considered
seminal. Weiner passed away in 2002 in Encino, California of lung cancer.
Herbert Weiner's papers are organized into three series. They contain a six volume series of his collected article publications,
as well as copies of his two books. It also includes extensive notes and lectures on the history of physiology as a discipline,
evidence of his research on anorexia nervosa and stress, notes on Nobel Prize winner Dickinson W. Richards, and collected
information on other related psychosomatic topics. There are materials relating to the development of research and training
programs at Montefiore Medical Center and UCLA, where Weiner served as chief of behavioral medicine from 1982 to his retirement
in 2001, as well as Weiner’s interactions with outside institutions like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation,
and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Materials relating to Weiner's education at
Harvard, an in-depth curricula vitae, and autographed photographs of notable scientists can also be found in the collection.
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Lectures and Publications, 1959-2002
- Series 2: Professional Organizations, Research, and Grants, 1955-2002
- Series 3: Biographical Information, Correspondence, and Photographs, 1934-2002
Donald B. Lindsley papers, 1866-2001, Coll. # 423, UCLA Library Special Collections Brain Research Institute. History Project.
Research files. 1952-1985, University Archives Record Series 338, UCLA Library Special Collections Brain Research Institute.
Records. 1961-2012, University Archives Record Series 339, UCLA Library Special Collections Judd Marmor papers, 1923-2001,
Coll. # 1795, UCLA Library Special Collections Louis Jolyon West papers, 1890-1998, Coll. #590, UCLA Library Special Collections
Sidney Cohen collection, 1910-1987, Coll. # 1845, UCLA Library Special Collections Society for Psychophysiological Research
records, ca. 1955-1987, Coll. # 1194, UCLA Library Special Collections
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
7834315