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Correspondence, residency applications, student records, committee minutes, financial reports, and other records relating to Smith's administration of the Department of Pathology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and at Presbyterian and Francis Delafield Hospitals.
History and Biography
Harry Pratt Smith was born on February 18, 1895 and died April 11, 1972. He was educated at the University of California at Berkeley from which he received his B.A. in 1916 and his M.D. in 1921. He served as an assistant and instructor in pathology at Johns Hopkins University, 1921-1924, before moving to the University of Rochester where he was assistant and, later, associate professor of pathology, 1924-1930. He was chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine from 1930-1945. Dr. Smith was Delafield Professor and head of pathology from 1945-60 at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. During that time he was also the director of the pathology service at Presbyterian Hospital and at the Francis Delafield Hospital, a municipal cancer hospital adjacent to the Columbia-Presbyterian campus. From 1960-69 he was a reference librarian and archivist for the American Society of Clinical Pathologists and was a lecturer and consultant from 1970-72.
Dr. Smith's research in the determination of blood volume at high altitude established that erythrocyte mass is the main contributor to expanded blood volume; his work is still regarded as an important precursor of erythropoietin studies. Smith also wrote on the history and clinical practice of pathology and was widely recognized as an outstanding teacher and administrator who believed strongly in multidisciplinary research. During his retirement he was often consulted as an expert on the organizational and "legislative" operation of the AMA. Smith was known as a pioneer in computer applications in clinical pathology.
Organization
Correspondence, residency applications, committee minutes, reports, and other records relating to Smith's administration of the Department of Pathology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Presbyterian Hospital from 1945 to 1960.
The papers are organized in the following series:
Series I. Residency applications, 1949-1959
Arranged chronologically. Photograph of applicants attached. Includes some correspondence with perspective students. This series includes a folder of professional staff who terminated their employment at Columbia to move on to other positions.
Series II. Correspondence, 1945-1954
Arranged alphabetically. Contains Smith's professional correspondence with colleagues in his department, university faculty, medical institutions, and physicians throughout the country. Also included is Smith's correspondence with Willard Rappleye, Dean of P&S, arranged by fiscal year, 1945-1954.
Series III. Financial reports, 1946-1950
Arranged by fiscal year, 1946-1947, with gaps. Includes budget for Department of Pathology including budget sheets, salaries, professional appointments, and applications for grant-in-aid. There is also material on funding for programs such as those headed by Dr. Henry S. Simms for research on aging, Dr. Theodore Zucker for chemical pathology, and Dr. Benjamin N. Berg for the study of carcinogenic agents.
Series IV. Committees, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1954, 1955
Arranged chronologically. Smith served as a member of Search Committees for the Dean of the School of Public Health, and for chairmen of the departments of dermatology, biochemistry, urology, orthopedic surgery, bacteriology, neurology, and obstetrics/gynecology. Additional committee minutes can be found in Series XIII.
Series V. Post-graduate medical education, 1945-1954, with gaps
Arranged chronologically. Documents pertaining to the program of graduate medical education at Columbia University which was designed to provide training in the clinical specialties after graduation from medical school. Material pertaining to post-war readjustment period of discharged medical officers; residency program; internships; lists of post-graduate certified courses; student records; and, memos.
Series VI. Requests for pathologists, 1945-1956
Arranged chronologically. Requests from institutions around the country to obtain the services, both full-time and part-time, of pathologists at Columbia University.
Series VII. Elective program in pathology, 1947-1956
Arranged chronologically. Lists of students applying for elective program in pathology. The program consists of pre-approved hospitals for second year students who wish to spend the summer at another hospital for credit.
Series VIII. Columbia University council, 1947-1951
Arranged chronologically. Annual reports, minutes, and memos for the University Council on which Dr. Smith served. Recorded in these documents is the establishment of the Bachelor of Science to be conferred upon students who completed the course of instruction in the field of Dental Hygiene, beginning after July 1, 1947. Resolutions from various other departments throughout the University are also included.
Series IX. Manuscript: Pathology: The Science of Disease
Typed manuscript by Harry P. Smith, 1955.
Series X. Medical student records, 1950-1956
Arranged chronologically. Records for medical students in pathology. Each record has a photograph attached of the student, name, class year, birth date, college attended, degree awarded, parent's name and occupation, class standing, final grades, as well as grades in subjects such as anatomy, biochemistry and neurology. Interviews with the students about their progress are also recorded.
Series XI. Dental student records, 1946-1954
Arranged chronologically. Records contain name, exam grades, notebook grades, and final exam grades. Records for 1948-49 are missing.
Series XII. X-ray requisitions, 1950-1955
Arranged chronologically. A program was initiated in 1950 by Dr. Smith to have chest films at six month intervals for people who worked in the autopsy room, or whose work brought them in close contact with the autopsy room. Routine photofluorograms were done and the results of the tests are recorded in these records.
Series XIII. Columbia University, 1944-1956
Divided into three sub-series: Faculty of Pure Science; College of Physicians and Surgeons; Institute for Cancer Research.
XIII.i. Faculty of Pure Science
Correspondence, resolutions and printed matter from this University body of which Smith was a member. There is also correspondence relating to Smith's opposition to a Faculty resolution of April 1954 defending the right of faculty members to take the Fifth Amendment during loyalty hearings. Included is Smith's letter to the members of the Faculty and the responses he received.
XIII.ii. College of Physicians and Surgeons
Largely committee records, the most voluminous of which are those of the Committee on Administration, which acted as an executive committee of the entire P&S faculty, and the Committee on Dental Education. There is also interesting material on post-graduate fellowships and on gerontological research (the Committee for Research on Aging).
XIII.iii. Institute for Cancer Research
Records of the Co-ordinating Committee which appears to have approved cancer research projects at P&S.
XIV. Francis Delafield Hospital, 1941-1956
Records relating to Smith's involvement with this municipal cancer hospital whose professional staff was nominated by Columbia. Included are correspondence dating back to planning for the hospital in the early 1940s; and minutes and correspondence of the Medical Board, as well as of its Executive Committee.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Unknown. As the papers appear to have been first processed in 1993 they must have been acquired by Archives & Special Collections before that date.
Removals: A class notebook written by a C. Ward Crampton (P&S, 1900) during his second year in the College of Physicians and Surgeons (1897/98) has been removed and placed with the Archives and Special Collections Medical Student Notebook Collection.
Processed 1993 by "MF", otherwise unidentified; upon the discovery of additional material the papers were reprocessed and the finding aid rewritten by Stephen E. Novak, 2003.