Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Acquisition Information
Biography
Scope and Content
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Wade H. Marshall Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1926-1973
Collection number: 427
Creator:
Marshall, Wade H. 1907-1972
Extent:
5 cartons (7.5 linear ft.)
1 box (0.5 linear ft.)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences
Los Angeles, California 90095-1490
Abstract: Wade Hampton Marshall, Ph.D. (1907-1972) was a pioneer in electrophysiology of the brain, internationally renowned for his
work in mapping the somatosensory system of the cat and monkey and the visual cortex of the cat. His strong background in
physics, and his technical ingenuity contributed not only to neurophysiology but also to wartime work in engineering fields.
From 1954 to 1970 he set up and headed the Laboratory of Neurophysiology of NIMH/NINDB, where he continued his own work and
enabled an outstanding group of scientists and young trainees to pursue their own research. This collection contains materials
from all phases of his life, with special depth in the NIH years of 1952 to 1964, correspondence with many neurophysiologist
including groups in Paris and in Brazil, and manuscript draft concerning Marshall's concerns with topics in psychology,
sociology, and scientific ethics.
Physical location: Southern Regional Library Facility
Language of Material: Collection materials inEnglish
Access
Collection is open for research, but access to one document box is restricted.
Publication Rights
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Biomedical Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are
retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish if the Biomedical Library does not hold the copyright.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Wade H. Marshall papers (Manuscript collection 427). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History
and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Acquisition Information
The collection was was a gift from Louise Hanson Marshall to the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library in 2005.
Biography
Wade Hampton Marshall (1907-1972) was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, graduated from Beloit College in 1930, and earned
the MS and PhD degrees in Physiology from the University of Chicago in the laboratory of Ralph Gerard. After two years as
an Instructor in Physiology at George Washington University Medical School, and a summer course at Harvard University Department
of Physiology where he worked with Herbert Grass, Marshall moved in 1936 to Johns Hopkins Medical School and stayed until
1943 as a Fellow of the National Research Council.
Marshall had a strong preparation in physics when he joined Dr. Gerard's laboratory as a graduate student, and a facility
in envisioning and building appropriate instrumentation for his planned research. His amplifier and stimulation circuits
enabled ground-breaking work on the cat and monkey somatosensory system with Gerard at Chicago, and with Drs. Clinton N. Woolsey
and Philip B. Bard at Johns Hopkins Medical School; with Dr. Samuel A. Talbot, also at Hopkins, Marshall used similar techniques
to map the cat visual cortex. And during the years of World War II and shortly after, his technical strength and ingenuity
served for developments in areas such as rocket propulsion fuels and the proximity fuse.
From 1947 to 1949, Marshall served at the National Institutes of Health as a Research Fellow, and from 1949 to 1953 as Physiologist,
National Institute of Mental Health. In 1954, Dr. Seymour Kety, the first Scientific Director of the NIMH (and Director
of Intramural Research for both NIMH and NINDB), asked Dr. Marshall to establish the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and become
its Chief; this position he held until his retirement in 1970.
Dr. Marshall was already widely recognized as an effective, pioneering electrophysiologist at the time he began to build
the Laboratory of Neurophysiology. Over the following 18 years he also developed as a leader who gathered around him a remarkable
group of brilliant, productive researchers. This team became renowned for taking in bright young MDs and PhDs as research
fellows, and within a few years sending them out as sought-after research scientists to university and hospital posts. At
the time of Dr. Marshall's retirement from NIH, the International Journal of Neuroscience devoted two whole issues to ca.
40 original research papers contributed in his honor by former mentees and coworkers. Their high esteem was also shown in
the letters sent by them on the occasion of his retirement from NIH and to his wife, Louise Marshall, after his death.
Dr. Marshall's interests ranged far beyond science and the brain. Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a renowned member of the Laboratory
for Neurophysiology for many years, made these remarks at a memorial service for Marshall: "But to those who knew him well,
we has more than anything a humanist. It was his insatiable curiosity about the workings of the human mind that shaped all
this thinking, and beyond his own research on the brain, led him into such fields as anthropology, sociology, and law....I
never heard him discuss any topic of deep human concern to which he did not bring some insight."
Scope and Content
This collection of Dr. Wade H. Marshall's papers provides fascinating glimpses into his intellectual and scientific pursuits,
and a reasonable coverage of his biography. The materials covering graduate school, first professional employment, and post-graduate
fellowship, all in neurophysiology, provide examples of syllabi, laboratory notes, drafts of papers and presentations, and
near-complete coverage of WHM reprints.
From 1947 to 1949, Dr. Marshall worked as a Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, from 1949-1953 as a Physiologist,
and in 1954 he was appointed Chief of the newly established Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institute for
Mental Health, a position he held until retirement in 1970. The type of documents, and content, over these years reflect
WHM's changing responsibilities. From 1952 to 1964 there are a mass of carbons for memos and correspondence emanating from
the Laboratory of Neurophysiology, including a number from Laboratory members other than WHM. These cover mostly administrative
matters, such as personnel, equipment, space allocations, etc., and they provide interesting insights into the problems and
advantages of setting up and conducting basic research within the structure of the NIH. The number of these documents drops
off extremely after 1964.
The scientific contributions of the various sections of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology, and they were considerable, are
mostly covered in the somewhat superficial language of annual progress reports, and such. More specific, but intermittent
glimpses into WHM's and his coworkers' scientific activities and opinions can be gained from their reprints, of course, and
from the rather few manuscript drafts and laboratory notes included in the papers. However, WHM's correspondence with many
of the major researchers and editors in the international neurophysiology community provides a good window on his scientific
ideas and judgments.
Dr. Marshall's interests ranged widely beyond neurophysiology. He read much and corresponded with experts in sociology, psychiatry
and psychology, child development, criminology, and more. A large portion of this collection and of his manuscript drafts,
correspondence from 1969 to 1972, and background materials concern topics in these areas, topics that have been grouped into
Series 5 and 6 of the collection.
A note on the arrangement of documents: the original folders were organized chronologically, or not at all; the chronological
order has been retained where possible. Also retained was the original division of correspondence into folders grouping
various correspondents together by date, and folders devoted to a single correspondent; the criteria by which separate-folder
status was originally decided are not clear.
The collection is organized into the following series:
- Series 1. Personal Materials, 1926-1973. 19 folders
- Series 2. Professional Materials, 1930-1946. 28 folders
- Series 3. Professional Materials, 1947-1970. 30 folders
- Series 4. Correspondence, 1937-1972. 45 folders
- Series 5. Topics in Science and Society, 1929-1972. 51 folders
- Series 6. Miscellaneous Topics, 1940-1973. 21 folders
- Series 7. Non-Print Materials
- Series 8. Restricted Materials.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Marshall, Wade H. (Wade Hampton), 1907-1972 - Manuscripts
Neurophysiology--United States--Manuscripts
Neuroscientists--Archival resources