Open without restrictions.
Columbia does not hold copyright to this material.
Collection is located on-site.
Biographical material; reprints of scientific papers; and transcripts of, and notes on, trials he was involved in. These include the Jean Harris "Scarsdale Diet Doctor" murder case, 1980-81, in which he served as an expert witness for the defense. Also included is a draft of a unpublished book he wrote on the Harris case.
History and Biography
Noted U.S. dermopathologist Albert Bernard Ackerman, generally known as A. Bernard Ackerman, was born on November 22, 1936, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was educated at Princeton (BA, 1958) and Columbia (MD, 1962) and did a residency in dermatology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He was on the medical school faculties of the University of Miami, New York University and Thomas Jefferson University. Ackerman was an expert in the field of dermopathology and his textbook, Histologic Diagnosis of Inflammatory Skin Diseases (1978), is considered a landmark in the field. He also served as an expert medical witness in numerous trials. Ackerman died in New York City in 2008.
Organization
The Ackerman papers chiefly document two important episodes in his career: his role as an expert medical witness for the defense in the celebrated trial of Jean Harris for the murder of Dr. Herman Tarnower in 1981; and his own trial for malpractice in Dubin v. Thomas Jefferson University, et al., in 2000. The Dubin case documents are largely trial transcripts, though there is a small amount of background matter. The Harris case materials are more varied and include trial transcripts – many extensively annotated by Ackerman – newspaper clippings and correspondence, two books on the trial, and the manuscript of Ackerman’s own unpublished book on the case.
Among other materials in the papers are a small number of reprints of Ackerman’s scientific articles and his curriculum vitae.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of the estate of A. Bernard Ackerman, 2011 (accession #2011.007)
Rehoused into new folders. Duplicates discarded.