INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

This description of the professional papers of Simon Flexner was originally made for the Survey of Sources for the History of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, a project funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Commonwealth Fund under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The original goal of the Survey was to locate manuscript and archival materials related to the history of the life-sciences. To do this, the Survey compiled a list of approximately 1000 life-scientists who were alive after 1900. As Archives Coordinator for this project it was my task to locate the personal papers of the scientists on the Survey's list, and where possible, obtain descriptions of each collection. Where no guide was available the Survey staff often made their own description.

The Survey entered the names of individuals and institutions from these guides into a computer data base and generated lengthy indexes. For this description the in-house guide to the Simon Flexner Papers produced by Mr. Murphy D. Smith, Manuscripts Librarian of the American Philosophical Society Library, was checked against the Survey's extensive indexes. Those files of interest to the Survey were selected and work began on a folder-by-folder description of the collection.

It became apparent from the first box of the collection that the bulk of the correspondence is not solely between Flexner and the eminent life-scientists on the Survey's list, but also with a much wider group of scientists and civil servants. Since the Flexner papers are of primary importance to historians of twentieth century American science, the author decided to include a description of all those series of correspondence which amount to one or more files in addition to those files originally selected for inclusion in the guide.

As the user will see, for some series of correspondence there are quite extensive notes which may include comments on individual letters which the author felt to hold particular historical significance, while for other files there may be very little detail. The author felt the historians should be made aware of a lack of material in some cases where one might expect to find numerous letters. This guide does not attempt to detail every item in each file, but tries to give a general overview of the nature of the correspondence between Flexner and his contemporaries.

It must be stressed again that the following description is only of selected files from Flexner's professional papers, and amounts to approximately only 70% of the collection. For a complete file-heading list, scholars should use this guide in conjunction with Mr. Smith's in-house guide.

My thanks go to Dr. Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., Executive Officer and Librarian of the American Philosophical Society for his sound judgment in editing this guide and to Dr. Robert E. Kohler of the Department of the History and Sociology of Science of the University of Pennsylvania for his valuable comments. Thanks also to Mrs. Jean T. Williams for her hard work in typing the guide.

THE PROFESSIONAL PAPERS OF SIMON FLEXNER - A DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY

The Simon Flexner papers in the American Philosophical Society contain a wealth of information not only on Flexner's directorship of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research but also on the Rockefeller Foundation and numerous other institutions with which Flexner was involved. These include the National Research Council Fellowship Board in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, although in general the collection documents the development of the biomedical sciences in the United States between World War I and 1935. This introduction will not repeat George W. Corner's History of the Rockefeller Institute, in which the intricate details of scientific discovery at the Institute and its administrative history are described, or offer a. history of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has been published in Raymond Fosdick's The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation. I shall, however, attempt to display the richness of the collection in many areas.

There is no mention of Flexner's early career in the papers, but a brief outline of those years will elucidate those later scientific achievements which are documented in the papers. Flexner received his M.D. from the University of Louisville in 1889. He had little desire to become a practicing physician, however, and, at the suggestion of his younger brother Abraham Flexner, he left Louisville to study pathology under William H. Welch at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was Welch who suggested that Flexner take up the study of a pathological problem rather than seek further instruction in bacteriology.

At this time Flexner first became involved in the study of cerebrospinal meningitis. In 1890 he was appointed Fellow in Pathology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, becoming associate professor of pathology in 1891 and professor of pathological anatomy in 1899. In 1893 the governor of Maryland requested that Johns Hopkins send a commission to study an outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis in a mining town. Flexner was appointed its leader and selected Llewellys F. Barker as his assistant. In 1899 Flexner was appointed chairman of a commission to study the existing diseases in the newly acquired Philippine Islands; there he isolated the causative bacillus of a type of dysentery often fatal to the inhabitants.

As has been mentioned, the collection does not document these early years of Flexner's career. They were, however, of the greatest significance, for it was these early experiences with epidemic diseases that led Flexner later in his career to become directly involved with the epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis that hit New York in 1906. He conducted experiments which resulted in the isolation of the causative organism and allowed him to reproduce the disease in monkeys in order to obtain a serum. In 1910 infantile paralysis struck the East Coast of the United States. With Paul Lewis, Flexner conducted experiments similar to those with meningitis and discovered the cause to be a filterable virus, for which he developed a convalescent serum. Mach of the collection is made up of correspondence respecting Flexner's research on these diseases: scientific.corresdondence, laboratory notebooks, administrative correspondence with the New York City and State Departments of Health an how public health could play a part in the prevention of epidemics.

While Flexner was making the beginnings of his career in Baltimore, the Rev. Mr. Frederick Gates, business manager to John D. Rockefeller, was busy with ideas of funding medical research, an enterprise which in his view would yield enormous benefits for mankind. In 1897 Mr. Gates suggested to Mr. Rockefeller that he fund an institute for medical research which would be administered independently from other Rockefeller gifts. After years of surveys a planning group was called together in 1901 to bring the idea to fruition. This planning group, composed of William H. Welch, Hermann Briggs, Emmett Holt, Christian Herter, Theobald Smith, and Simon Flexner, became the Board of Scientific Directors of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Flexner was appointed director of the new Institute. Its aims were to provide adequate facilities and funds for full-time research, an idea which was new to the United States and one which was resented and opposed by many practicing physicians. The Institute also incurred public resentment, but the work of Flexner and his associates with meningitis in 1906 and infantile paralysis in 1910 reduced public opposition and validated the existence of the Institute. By 1906 the Institute was receiving large sums of money from the Rockefeller fortune, and moved to its newly constructed laboratories. Unfortunately, the papers tell little of these beginnings.

Flexner had difficulty in choosing the first full-time staff for the Institute qualified to conduct research year-round. Some of those chosen by Flexner were Samuel Meltzer, P. A. T. Levene, Hideyo Noguchi, and Eugene L. Opie. Alexis Carrel joined the staff in 1906, and Jacques Loeb began work there in 1909. The Flexner papers contain extensive files of correspondence which document the scientific achievements of these men, and reveal their roles in the administration of the Institite.

In 1909 the Rockefeller Hospital was completed, with Rufus I. Cole as director, although Flexner retained the overall directorship of both the Hospital and the Institute. There is much correspondence between Cole and Flexner, mostly of an adminsitrative nature, but the files also contain documentation of some of the outstanding scientific research conducted in the Hospital's own laboratories by D. D. Van Slyke, A. E. Cohn and A. E. Mirsky.

In 1916 the Institute opened a department of Animal Pathology in Princeton under the leadership of Theobald Smith. Flexner again retained ultimate control, and there is much administrative correspondence with Smith concerning the research at Princeton, particularly that of John W. Gowen. For both of these centers of research the collection contains extensive documentation of the scientific achievements of other individuals.

In the years between 1901 and 1913 the Rockefeller philanthropies were organized on an increasingly regular basis. The General Education Board was established in 1903 with Wallace Buttrick as its president. In 1909 the China Medical Board was organized, and in the same year the Sanitary Commission to Eradicate Hookworm Disease was launched. In 1913 the International Health Commission (later Board) was founded with Wickliffe Rose as its director, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which had been operating for nearly a decade under John D. Rockefeller's direct supervision, was incorporated. Flexner became a trustee of the Foundation in 1913, along with John D. Rockefeller Jr., Frederick L. Gates, Henry Pratt Judson, Starr J. Murphy, Jerome D. Greene, Wickliffe Rose and Charles O. Heydt. Later, Charles William Eliot of Harvard and A. Barton Hepburn joined the Board. The Flexner collection contains voluminous material pertaining to each of the Rockefeller boards and their activities in the funding of public health and education both in the United States and abroad. Probably most important here is the work of the General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation in supporting the development of medical education, following the publication of Abraham Flexner's report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada in 1910.

In 1913 the General Education Board gave Johns Hopkins Medical School sufficient funds to institute full-time clinical instruction. Within six years programs similar to Hopkins' were funded at Washington University in St. Louis, Yale, the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt. The policy of the General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation in regard to medical education was to make the best schools better, forcing others to follow suit. One strategy was to train good men who would teach full-time in these institutions. Money for this purpose was given by the Board and the Rockefeller Foundation, while the National Research Council allocated funds for fellowships which were employed to encourage men to pursue academic careers in medicine. Most of the money appropriated for upgrading medical education was given as outright grants to the institutions concerned and was to be spent in accordance with their perceived needs. However, by the mid1920s it became apparent that there was duplication between many of the boards, especially in the area of medical research. In addition, the growing demands for funds by medical institutions and the absence of control by the Foundation over the expenditure of its grants led the Foundation's officers to seek policy advice from the Board of Trustees. In 1928 these studies led to a complete reorganization of the Foundation and a major shift in grant policies. In this reorganization the Division of Natural Sciences was created. It was first directed by Max Mason, then by Hermann A. Spoer and, from 1932 on, by Warren Weaver. The Flexner collection contains much material on the Foundation's reorganization, especially in relation to the creation of the Division of Natural Sciences. Many files are devoted to the period in the early 1930s when Warren Weaver was beginning his program to support research into "vital processes," a program which later evolved as "molecular biology." The papers illustrate the shift in Foundation giving money for the building of facilities and providing endowments to the direct funding of research. Much of the correspondence deals with applications of physical sciences to biology, both through Weaver's program and in those of the National Research Council.

It is Flexner's multiple roles as director of the Rockefeller Institute, member of the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, member of the Fellowship Committee of the NRC Board in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, and advisor to so many other Rockefeller commissions and boards, which makes this collection so fascinating. The papers illustrate the work of a mm with a finger in every pie -- so to speak; and it was this multifaceted role which made Flexner one of the most important figures in shaping the biomedical sciences in America as they are today. The importance of foundations in supporting basic research both in the United States and abroad during the interwar period has been stressed by scholars before, but the Flexner Papers have yet to be used to document this phenomena It is an invaluable source, especially in regard to the influence of scientists on the policies of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Simon Flexner Papers were presented to the American Philosophical Society by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and Dr. James T. Flexner in 1964. They fill 188 file boxes.

RELATED COLLECTIONS AT THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

• The Simon Flexner Family Papers
• Francis Peyton Rous Papers
• Hans Thacher Clarke Papers
• Cyril Norman Hugh Long Papers
• Rufus Ivory Cole Papers
• Max Bergmann Papers
• Eugene Lindsay Opie Papers
• Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout Papers
• Peter K. Olitsky Papers
• Landsteiner-Mackenzie Papers
• Florence Rena Sabin Papers
• James B. Murphy Papers
• Oswald H. Robertson Papers
• Thomas M. Rivers Papers
• Leslie T. Webster Papers
• Charles Benedict Davenport Papers
• Leslie Clarence Dunn Papers
• Franz Boas Papers
• Harold Lindsay Amoss Papers

SOME PAPERS AT THE ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVES CENTER, POCANTICO HILLS, TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

Many of the papers at the Rockefeller Archives Center will bear relation to the content of the Simon Flexner Papers. I have listed just a sample of collections below.

• Microfilm Edition of the Simon Flexner Papers at the American Philosophical Library
• Records of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
• Papers of the General Education Board
• Papers of the China Medical Board
• Records of the Rockefeller Foundation
• International Education Board Papers
• Papers of the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease, Washington, D.C.
• Rene Jules Dubos Papers
• Phoebus Aaren Theodore Levene Papers
• Jacques Loeb Papers
• Herbert Spencer Gasser Papers
• Frederick Taylor Gates Papers

SOME RELATED COLLECTIONS IN OTHER REPOSITORIES KNOWN TO CONTAIN SIMON FLEXNER CORRESPONDENCE

• James McKeen Cattell Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• Jacques Loeb Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Records at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
• Autograph Letter Collection at the Wellcome Histcrical Library, London, England
• Jean Macnamara Papers at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia
• Frank Rattray Lillie Papers at the University of Chicago Library
• Frank Rattray Lillie Papers at the Marine Biological Laboratories, Woods Hole
• Thomas Hunt Morgan Papers at the California Institute of Technology Archives
• Joseph Roby Papers at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.
• Oral History Collection at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.

ABBREVIATIONS