Description |
Papers of Dr. Wood, Wilmington physician and botanist, first secretary of the N.C. Board of Health (1877-1892), and editor of the North Carolina Medical Journal. Wood's correspondence (1867-1892) includes letters from leaders in fields of immunology, medicine, public health, pharmacology, and botany, and letters or reports on public health in most of North Carolina's counties. Subject given most attention is the theory, production, and distribution of smallpox vaccine, with many detailed letters from Dr. Henry A. Martin of Boston and others such as Frank P. Foster, Edward C. Seaton, and B. Rush Senseny. Other major topics are communicable diseases such as typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis (phthisis); epidemics and yellow fever refugees from Florida (1888); problems such as feeblemindedness in children, and leucoderma; individual cases of illness and insanity; the marine hospital and quarantine station for port of Wilmington; the N.C. Medical Society and difficulties of organizing county medical societies and boards of health; lists of eligible doctors in various counties (1877, 1887-1888); the Board of Medical Examiners; need to keep health and vital statistics; sanitation and clean water supplies; teaching of hygiene in schools; inspection of jails, asylums, and poor houses; adulteration of foods; public health in other states; North Carolina Medical Journal; American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, and National Board of Health; and the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. Correspondents include Henry T. Bahnson, Paul B. Barringer, Herbert B. Battle, Kemp P. Battle, Jr., James L. Cabell, William Cain, Henry F. Campbell, Thomas L. Clingman, Edward C. Fisher, Morris H. Henry, J. W. Jones, Richard H. Lewis, Otis F. Manson, Henry O. Marcy, L. Julien Picot, L. L. Polk, F. Peyre Porcher, Charles Rice, Nicholas Senn, J. H. Smart, F. P. Venable, Karl Von Ruck, H. M. Whelpley, James C. White, Marcellus Whitehead, W. F. Whitney, R. H. Winborne, and Joseph J. Woodward. Wood's interest in the history of medicine is the subject of letters from Dr. John R. Quinan of Baltimore, John Shaw Billings, James Bolton, Graham Daves, George Jackson Fisher, J. Ford Prioleau, Joseph M. Toner, Stephen B. Weeks, and George T. Winston. Correspondents among fellow botanists include Spencer F. Baird, William M. Canby, Edward D. Cope, Moses A. Curtis, Job B. Ellis, C. L. Lochman, Thomas Meehan, Henry W. Ravenel, A. S. Rauschenberg, and George Vasey. There are miscellaneous account books and other material for the Journal and the state board of health, including for the latter Wood's letter books (1877-1887), reports by the board, and reports from counties on deaths, diseases, and doctors. Printed material includes journals, papers, reports, clippings, advertisements, posters, and British antivaccine propaganda. There are engravings and some photographs of medical men and botanist M. A. Curtis; photographs of plants and photomicrographs of insects (1872); pressed algae; records of Wood's scientific experiments and medical observations (1861-1862) as Confederate assistant surgeon and of his ozone observations (1877); record of a blood pressure experiment (n.d.); and meteorological reports from Charleston, S.C. (1891). Medical school notes and a few papers (1890-1919) relate to Dr. Charles J. O'Hagan Laughinghouse. |