Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Herbert Weiner Papers
- Dates:
- 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 The collection contains his publications, several unpublished book manuscripts, extensive notes and lectures, and material documenting his efforts to develop research and training programs at UCLA.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.
- Extent:
- 6.4 linear ft. (11 document boxes, 2 half-size document boxes, 1 record carton box, and 1 flat box)
- Language:
- and Materials are primarily in English, some materials in German.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Herbert Weiner Papers (Manuscript Collection 469). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections Division, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
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.
- Biographical / historical:
-
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.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Dora B. Weiner, 2003.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Jessica Cook in 2016 under the supervision of Jillian Cuellar in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT).
- Arrangement:
-
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
- 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.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- Finding aid last updated 11 October 2016.
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2016-10-11T12:15-0700 . Supplementary encoding and revision by Caroline Cubé using Notetab Pro.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
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.
- Terms of access:
-
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.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Herbert Weiner Papers (Manuscript Collection 469). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections Division, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library12-077 Center for Health Sciences, Box 951798Los Angeles, CA 90095-1798, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-6940