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Wellcome Library

Burn, (Joshua) Harold


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 GC/154

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: Burn, (Joshua) Harold

Date(s): 1921-1977

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 1 box

Name of creator(s): Burn | (Joshua) Harold | 1892-1981 | pharmacologist

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

After graduation in 1914, Burn worked at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories under HH Dale. He trained in medicine after military service in the First World War and worked again with Dale at the National Institute for Medical Research Department of Pharmacology. He was Director of the Pharmacological Laboratories of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain 1926-1937 (and Dean of the College of Pharmacology from 1933) and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford 1937-1959. Further details can be found in obituaries in the BMJ 1981, 283,444, the Lancet 1981, ii, 212, and Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 30, 45-89, 1984.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of J Harold Burns comprising letters received, 1920s, 1950s; reprints of papers, 1970s and photographs, 1930s-1950s. The letters in Section A were probably kept simply as autographs, but most of them discuss Burn's work and others'; the snapshot photographs in the albums (Section C) include pictures of very eminent individuals in pharmacology and physiology.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Arranged by section as follows:
A Letters received
B Reprints
C Albums of photographs, mainly of picnics and conferences.

Conditions governing access:

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, 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.

Finding aids:

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

This small accumulation of papers came to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre in September 1981 with the second accession of the archive of the British Pharmacological Society. Burn was a founder member of the Society serving as Secretary and Treasurer 1934-1945, and retained links with it throughout his life: the reprints in Section B are accompanied by covering letters to the then secretary. 14 portrait photographs have been retained in the BPS archive (SA/BPS/H.2).

ALLIED MATERIALS

Related material:

Related material in the Wellcome Library: Papers of Burn's colleague, Edith Bülbring (PP/BUL), which include laboratory notebooks. There is also correspondence of Burn with WF Bynum about the history of the British Pharmacological Society, and various materials of historical interest supplied by him, in the archives of the society (SA/BPS/G.4).

Related material held elsewhere: Oxford University: History of Neuroscience Library, Correspondence and papers, 1932-1984 (Reference : CSAC 107/4/85) Cambridge University: Churchill Archives Centre, Correspondence with AV Hill, 1935-74 (Reference : AVHL)

DESCRIPTION NOTES

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

Rules or conventions: General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Mar 2009.


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Medical sciences
Pharmacology
Physiology

Personal names
Burn | (Joshua) Harold | 1892-1981 | pharmacologist

Corporate names
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

Places