Open without restrictions. Columbia University does not possess the copyright to these papers.
Papers of surgical pathologist Arthur Purdy Stout. Included are correspondence; medical school notes; an autobiography; a journal; letters and records from his military service during World War I; documents relating to the Surgical Pathology Laboratory; reprints of his scientific articles; and, photographs.
History and Biography
Arthur Purdy Stout, surgical pathologist, was born in New York City on Nov. 30, 1885, the fourth son of Joseph S. Stout and his wife, Julia Frances (Purdy) Stout. He was educated at the Pomfret School and at Yale, where he received his A.B. in 1907. After a year spent traveling in Asia, he entered the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University (P&S) and received his M.D. in 1912.
Stout served a surgical internship at Roosevelt Hospital and then returned to P&S in 1914 as an Instructor in Surgery. He served in the U.S. armed forces in France during World War I after which he resumed his position at Columbia. He became an Assistant Professor of Surgery in 1921, an Associate Professor in 1928 and a full Professor in 1947. From 1950, he was concurrently Professor of Pathology.
Stout was one of the most prominent pathologists of his era, with a special expertise in tumor pathology. During his tenure as director (1928-1951), the Laboratory of Surgical Pathology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center gained an international reputation and trained many future leaders in the field. His colleagues included such prominent figures as Virginia Kneeland Frantz, Cushman Haagensen, Margaret Murray and Raffaele Lattes, who succeeded Stout as director.
Stout was the author of over 300 scientific articles and the monograph, Human Cancer (1932). He also wrote four fascicles of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's Atlas of Tumor Pathology. He belonged to 16 professional societies and was the recipient of numerous awards. In 1947, an organization of surgical pathologists was named the Arthur Purdy Stout Club in his honor. The name was changed in 1956 to the Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists.
Upon retirement in 1951, Stout became director of pathology and Attending Pathologist at Francis Delafield Hospital, a municipal cancer hospital whose professional staff was appointed by Columbia University. He retired from Delafield in 1954, but remained a Professor Emeritus of Surgery at Columbia and a Consulting Pathologist at both Delafield and Presbyterian Hospitals until his death on Dec. 21, 1967.
Stout married Jean Stoddart of Toronto in 1914; they had one child, Julia F. Stout, in 1916.
Organization
Arranged in 8 series:
I. Biographical materials
II. Speeches and Writings
III. Correspondence/Subject files/Journals
IV. Student notes
V. Reprints
VI. Photographs
VII. Artifacts and Oversize
VIII. Bound Reprints
The papers contain considerable personal information on Stout as well as much information on surgical pathology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center during the first half of the 20th century. There is, however, little correspondence of either a professional or personal nature.
Stout's 427 page unpublished autobiography, "Notes on the Education of an 'Oncological' Surgical Pathologist," complete with a running personal bibliography, was written in stages from 1950 through 1966, a year before Stout's death. It presents the evolution of his medical career, including the growth of his research interests and responsibilities as a surgical pathologist, as well as briefly discussing his personal life. In addition, there are articles on Stout by many of his colleagues, memorial statements and obituaries. Other personal materials include Stout's letters while in France during World War I and a large number of his notes from medical school (1908-1912).
Another highlight of the papers are the records of his trip around the world in 1907-08. Stout's travel journal is largely a record of his time in Japan and China, during which he ascended the Yangtze River to Chungking and then proceeded overland to Burma. The remainder of his journey to India and Kashmir can be traced in the typed transcripts of his letters to his mother. The journal is illustrated by hundreds of photographs taken by Stout; taken together, the journal is a remarkable record of a remote part of China in the years preceding the 1911 Revolution.
Records documenting the Laboratory of Surgical Pathology include a typescript of an article, "The Surgical Pathology Laboratories of the Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University 1921 through 1945," uncredited but probably by Stout; Virginia K. Frantz's "Teaching of Second Year Surgery and Third Year Surgical Pathology " (1953); and a folder of data and statistics, 1930-1951 (Box 2:6).
While the loose reprints in these papers are incomplete with very few before 1942, a more complete set can be found in Series VIII, Bound Reprints.
The photographs are extensive and include portraits of Stout from every part of his life and many of his family and friends both formal and informal.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of Dr. Raffaele Lattes, 1985; gift of Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists, 1988; gift of the family of Raffaele Lattes, 1998 (acc. #1998.02.05).
The earlier accessions of Stout's papers were processed circa 1988 along with records of the Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists and called the "Arthur Purdy Stout Collection of Surgical Pathology." Organizing the collection was made possible with financial support from the A.P. Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists.
Upon receiving additional Stout papers in 1998, the collection was reappraised and it was decided to separate the corporate records of the Society from Stout's personal papers. Both collections were reprocessed and had new finding aids written in 2004 by Stephen E. Novak.