Collection of material related to a farewell dinner for Dr. and Mrs. Henry E. Sigerist
Collection processed by and machine-readable finding aid created by UCLA Biomedical Library staff.
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences
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Title: Collection of material related to a farewell dinner for Dr. and Mrs. Henry E. Sigerist.
Date (inclusive): 1947-1948
Collection number: 44
Extent: 6 items in folder (0.2 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: Collection documents a farewell dinner held at the Plaza Hotel, New York City, 9 May 1947, organized for Dr. and Mrs. Henry
E. Sigerist "on the occasion of their return to Switzerland and to do honour to Dr. Sigerist for his fifteen years of outstanding
service to this country in the cause of medicine and the humanities." Collection includes: Printed invitation ([3] p.) --
Manuscript note from an unidentified correspondent, written to Robert L. Leslie, one of the sponsors, stating regrets at not
being able to attend ([1] p.) -- Printed menu and program, including portrait of Sigerist ([8] p., including wrappers) --
Offprint about the dinner, from Bulletin of the History of Medicine, v. 22, no. 1, January-February 1948 -- Offprint: Zilboorg,
Gregory. Henry E. Sigerist -- Offprint: Sigerist, Henry E. Kagan's garrison.
Physical location: Cage
Language of Material: Collection materials inEnglish
Collection is open for research.
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.
[Identification of item], Collection of material related to a farewell dinner for Dr. and Mrs. Henry E. Sigerist (Manuscript
Collection 44). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California,
Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
6013366
Purchased by the UCLA Biomedical Library in 2001 from B & L Rootenberg, rare book dealers.
Henry Ernest Sigerist was born in 1891 in Paris, of Swiss parents, and died in Switzerland in 1957. He received his M.D. degree
from the University of Zurich in 1917 and then served a few years as a Swiss Army physician, the only period in his career
spent in clinical medicine. From 1925-1932 he taught in Zurich and Leipzig as professor in the history of medicine, suceeding
Dr. Karl Sudhoff, his earlier teacher, in Leipzig. In 1932 he was recruited by William H. Welch to become professor and director
of the Johns Hopkins University Institute of the History of Medicine, where he remained until his retirement in 1947.
Already a well-regarded scholar on his arrival in the United States ("Antike Heilkunde", 1927; & "Man & Medicine", 1932),
Sudhoff greatly influenced the maturation of the field of medical history in this country. At Johns Hopkins he built a vigorous
academic department; he founded the "Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine" (later the "Bulletin of the History
of Medicine"), plus other publication series, and edited it for 15 years; and he helped to invigorate the existing American
Association for the History of Medicine. He also continued publishing important commentaries on the interrelationship of disease
and civilization ("The Great Doctors, 1933; "American Medicine", 1934; "Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union", 1937; Medicine
& Human Welfare", 1941; "Civilization & Disease", 1943).
Sigerist was a true scholar, adept in languages, skilled in textual analysis, who saw medical history in a broader perspective
-- stressing that the insights it could provide should illuminate contemporary problems.
Collection documents a farewell dinner held at the Plaza Hotel, New York City, 9 May 1947, organized for Dr. and Mrs. Henry
E. Sigerist "on the occasion of their return to Switzerland and to do honour to Dr. Sigerist for his fifteen years of outstanding
service to this country in the cause of medicine and the humanities." Collection includes: Printed invitation ([3] p.) --
Manuscript note from an unidentified correspondent, written to Robert L. Leslie, one of the sponsors, stating regrets at not
being able to attend ([1] p.) -- Printed menu and program, including portrait of Sigerist ([8] p., including wrappers) --
Offprint about the dinner, from Bulletin of the History of Medicine, v. 22, no. 1, January-February 1948 -- Offprint: Zilboorg,
Gregory. Henry E. Sigerist -- Offprint: Sigerist, Henry E. Kagan's garrison.
Additional Sigerist reprints, snapshots, correspondence, and a portrait can be found in UCLA Biomedical Library's Manuscript
Collection 56, The C.D. O'Malley Papers.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Sigerist, Henry E. (Henry Ernest), 1891-1957