Graphical version

Wellcome Library

Pappworth, Maurice, (1910-1994)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 PP/MHP

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: Pappworth, Maurice, (1910-1994)

Date(s): 1931-1994

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 6 boxes and 1 oversize box

Name of creator(s): Pappworth | Maurice | 1910-1994 | physician

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Maurice Henry Pappworth was born in 1910 in Liverpool. He studied medicine at the University of Liverpool and graduated MB ChB in 1932. From 1938-1940 he was registrar and medical tutor at the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, where he worked with Lord Cohen of Birkenhead. In 1939 he was told he would never get a consultant's job in a Liverpool teaching hospital as he was a Jew. He was conscripted into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1941 and served for 4 and a half years in which he rose to lieutenant colonel and included service in North Africa, Italy and Greece. After the war he was offered jobs in other areas of England but held out for a post in London in a well known hospital, an ambition he never achieved. Instead he turned to private teaching and was a freelance medical tutor from 1947-1990, specialising in preparing medical graduates for the exam for the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP). He also had his own private practice. He maintained that teaching in British medical schools was dreadful and held regular private courses to teach doctors.

Many acknowledge Pappworth's teaching as getting them through the MRCP exam. There were occasions when half the successful MRCP candidates had been his pupils. In 1960 he published Primer of Medicine, which gained a popular reputation among medical students as a short practical guide to the art and science of diagnosis. Within 2 years there were 3 reprints and a second edition followed in 1971. Through out the 1950s and 1960s he became increasingly concerned when his postgraduate students informed him of unethical experiments that they had personally observed, and of descriptions published in medical journals of unethical experiments on patients in the UK and USA, despite informal guidelines such as Nuremberg Code. He wrote letters to the editors of journals publishing work he considered unethical, but they were often rejected for publication. Hence, he collected 14 examples of ethically dubious research, published in 1962 in a special issue of the influential quarterly The Twentieth Century. The first part of his article's title, "Human Guinea Pigs": A Warning", was used again for his later book in 1967. Human Guinea Pigs described 205 experiments in all, including examples of experiments on children, the mentally defective and prison inmates. 78 examples were from NHS hospitals. The book was particularly harsh on Hammersmith Hospital where the earliest cardiac catheterisation and liver biopsies had been carried out in Britain.

At the same time as Pappworth was exposing experiments in Britain, Henry K. Beecher was also documenting unethical research in the US, but, he was not as criticised by his medical colleagues as Pappworth was. The British medical establishment were not amused at their dirty linen being washed in public, and he was told by members to be quiet. However, within 6 months of Human Guinea Pigs being published, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) issued a report on the ethics of clinical research. It was Pappworth's activities in the late 1950s and 1960s that led to the Royal College of Physicians British code on ethics of human experimentation. In 1972, Pappworth spoke of belonging to a select band of less than 10 who had been members of the RCP for over 35 years. Despite passing the MRCP in 1936, it took 57 years for him (it normally takes 10-15 years) to be elected Fellow in 1993. Pappworth died on October 12 1994.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Maurice Pappworth comprising writings, notes, articles, correspondence, draft chapters, and photographs, 1960s-1990s. Subjects include material relating to his concern in ethical issues arising from experiments on humans, Section C, to Section D on organ transplants and brain death as well as Jewish medical ethics, 1964-1994. It is interesting to note the reactions that Human Guinea Pigs stirred up within the medical profession in Section C, 1958-1991. With regards to not being elected a Fellow of the RCP, Section E highlights how other doctors were appalled at the length it took for him to be elected (see letters of congratulations), 1961-1993.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English and Italian

System of arrangement:

The collection is divided into sections as follows: A Personal material, 1931-1994, n.d;. B Own writings, 1955-1993; C Human Guinea Pigs and Human Experimentation, 1964-1994, n.d.; D Ethics, 1964-1994, n.d.; E Royal College of Physicians, 1961-1993, n.d; F AIDS, 1985-1989, n.d.; G Lectures/visits, 1967-1984; H Medical Matters, 1954-1992, n.d.; J Publications by others, 1962-1991.

Conditions governing access:

The majority of the papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, by prior appointment with Archives and Manuscripts staff and after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The records were given to The Wellcome Trust in 1995 by Joanna Seldon, Pappworth's daughter.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

In the Wellcome Library: The papers of Ann Dally (PP/DAL) contain correspondence with Pappworth, held as file PP/DAL/C/11.

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions: In compliance with ISAD (G): General International Standard Archival Description - 2nd Edition (1999); UNESCO Thesaurus, December 2001; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
AIDS | Venereal diseases | Infectious diseases | Diseases | Pathology
Abortion, legal | Abortion, induced | Obstetric surgical procedures | Surgical procedures, operative | Surgery | Medical sciences
Cardiology | Internal medicine | Medical sciences
Disabled persons | Disadvantaged groups
Drug industry | Industry
Euthanasia | Right to life | Civil and political rights | Human rights
Hospitals | Health services
Infertility | Diseases | Pathology
Medical education | Higher science education
Neoplasms | Neoplastic processes | Diseases | Pathology
Neurology | Medical sciences
Patients | Health services
Professional practice | Organization and administration | Health services administration | Public administration | Government
Refugees | Migrants
Thoracic diseases | Diseases | Pathology
Tuberculosis | Diseases | Pathology
Actinomycetales infections
Ethics
Journalism
Medical institutions
Pathologic processes
Specialties, medical

Personal names
Pappworth | Maurice | 1910-1994 | physician

Corporate names
Royal College of Physicians

Places