James B. Murphy Papers, American Philosophical Society

A pathologist and cancer specialist, James B. Murphy spent most of career associated with the Rockefeller Institute (1911-1950) investigating the role of lymphocytes in tuberculosis, x-ray mutagenesis, and the nature of malignant tumors in fowls. The Murphy Papers contains professional correspondence and research notes relating to James B. Murphy's cancer research at the Rockefeller, and information on several of the organizations to which he contributed or belonged, including the American Association for Cancer Research; American Bureau for Medical Aid to China; American Cancer Society; Bar Harbor Medical and Surgical Hospital; Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory; Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer (New York City, ca. 1932-1950); National Advisory Cancer Council; and the New York Academy of Medicine (1923-1950). Murphy helped to develop mobile laboratories for hospitals in France during World War I.

Background note

A native North Carolinian, the cancer researcher James B. Murphy was born into a medical family. The son of Patrick Livingston Murphy, Director of the Western North Carolina Insane Asylum, and Bettie Waddell (Bumgardner), Murphy was raised in Morganton, N.C., and educated at the University of North Carolina (BS, 1905) and at the medical school at Johns Hopkins (MD, 1909). Drawn by inclination toward research rather than practice, Murphy nevertheless demonstrated particular skill in dissection and in experimental technique. Fresh out of medical school, he obtained a position under the psychiatrist, Adolf Meyer, in New York, and when Meyer was hired at Johns Hopkins in 1911, Murphy was prepared to return to Baltimore.

Florence Rena Sabin, however, suggested that Murphy accept an offer at the Rockefeller Institute to work in the pathology department under Peyton Rous. Rous's recent work on the viral origins of cancer was just beginning to garner wide notice and seemed to harbor great potential. Making full use of his laboratory skills, Murphy provided valuable assistance in demonstrating that the transmissible agent in the cellular extracts remained active after freezing and drying, and he played a similarly important part in demonstrating that embryos did not reject transplanted tissues, as adult tissues did. His work on the role of lymphocytes in regulating immune response was sufficiently out of step with the main currents of immunology at the time that it received little

During the 1920s, Murphy became a nationally prominent figure in cancer research, serving for many years as an officer in the American Society for the Control of Cancer and its successor the American Cancer Society, on the Advisory Council of the National Cancer Institute, and on the Committee on Growth of the National Research Council. He filled similar guiding roles with the American Bureau of Medical Aid to China, the Bar Harbor Medical and Surgical Hospital, the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Lab, the Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer (ca. 1932-1950); and the National Advisory Cancer Council; New York Academy of Medicine (1923-1950).

Murphy died at his summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine, one year after his retirement from Rockefeller.

Scope and content

The James B. Murphy Papers offer significant insight into the state of cancer research during the critical period of the 1920s through 1940s. As a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute and a colleague of Peyton Rous, Murphy was situated at the center of American medical investigation. Consisting of 15.5 linear feet of correspondence, manuscripts of papers, and materials relating to administrative activities with hospitals and professional organizations, the collection offers a fairly comprehensive perspective on Murphy's research and professional commitments during the most active period of his career.

Murphy's correspondence provides an excellent sense of the networks of researchers in the United States and, to a lesser degree, Britain, concerned with cancer. Murphy was particularly close to Clarence Cook Little, James Ewing (head of the Memorial Hospital in New York), and Ernest Kennaway, and their letters, both in-coming and retained copies of out-going, are filled with candid assessments of researchers, the competing theories on the origin of cancer, lymphocytes, and mutagenesis. The relatively extensive correspondence with Simon Flexner, Herbert S. Gasser (Nobel laureate, 1944), and Edric Smith, among others, relates primarily to administrative matters at the Rockefeller Institute.

Murphy's involvement in professional organizations relating to cancer studies is thoroughly documented, particularly for his work with the American Cancer Society, the Memorial Hospital, the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, and the American Society for the Control of Cancer, Bar Harbor Medical and Surgical Hospital, and the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Lab. Among other files relating to research animals are several folders labeled "Lathrop Mouse Records."

An unusual and valuable series of letters addressed to Murphy provides a perspective on the experience of cancer patients in the 1920s and 1930s. Filed under "Cancer cures and inquiries" are over 1.5 linear feet of letters from cancer patients, their families, and other interested parties pertaining to everything from their experiences as patients to their theories on the origin of cancer or ideas for cures. In most cases Murphy's replies are included. Other, similar letters are scattered throughout the collection, including a particularly odd letter from a Hawaiian man signed Wah Wahoo.

Administrative information

Restrictions

To protect medical confidentiality, researchers may not publish the names of any patients that may appear in the collection.

Provenance

Gift of James Slater Murphy, 1974 (accession number 1974-1394ms).

Preferred citation

Cite as: James B. Murphy Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Additional information

Related material

Additional Murphy Papers are located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the Archives Center of the Rockefeller Institute.

The APS also houses the papers of Peyton Rous, Murphy's former supervisor, and several other researchers at the Rockefeller Institute, including Eugene Opie, Leon J. Cole, Oswald Robertson, and Harold Amoss.

References

Little, Clarence Cook, "James Bumgardner Murphy," Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science 34 (1960), 183-203.

Löwy, Ilana, "Biomedical research and the constraints of medical practice: James Bumgardner Murphy and the early discovery of the role of lymphocytes in immune Reactions," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 63 (1989), 356-391.