McCarrison, Sir Robert (1878-1960)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0120 GC/205
Held at	: Wellcome Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://wellcomelibrary.org/ ›
Full title	: McCarrison, Sir Robert (1878-1960)
Date(s)	: 1913-1960
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1/2 box, 7 o/s folders and 1 photo album
Name of creator(s)	: McCarrison | Sir | Robert | 1878-1960 | Knight | nutrition expert, Indian Medical Service
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Sir Robert McCarrison served in the Indian Medical Service 1901-1935, in research apart from active service in the First World War. From 1918 until his retirement in 1935 he worked in a unit, known from 1929 as the Nutrition Research Laboratories, at the Pasteur Institute at Coonoor, one of the smaller hill stations lying in the Doddabetta Ranges of the Blue Mountains, Nilgiri District (now part of the Tamilnadu state), Southern India (The Nilgiris, or Blue Mountains, are famous for their horticulture, coffee and tea plantations, and are inhabited by ancient tribes such as the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas and Irulus - see C.1).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Sir Robert McCarrison including 149 posters illustrating nutrition observations and experiments, 1913-c.1947; memorabilia including notes for speeches and letters received, 1931-1960; correspondence with Nutrition Society and Oxford University Press, 1950s; photograph album of Coonoor including the Pasteur Institute, 1920s-1930s. Letters to McCarrison from his former assistants in Nilgiri District, Mula Singh and Krishnan, on the publication of the Festschrift, can be found in B.5. His interest in deficiency diseases was aroused by his observations of the distribution of goitre and cretinism in Gilgit, where he served from 1904, and the posters in Section A illustrate his observations and experiments on the effects of diet on metabolism. A list in B.1 includes some of the titles of the posters in section A, but also mentions others not found.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

A Posters; B Memorabilia; C Photograph album.

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:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The material in accession 598 was transferred to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre from the International Nutrition Foundation, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, in October 1995, and had presumably been acquired by the late Dr Hugh Sinclair, who set up the Foundation. The photograph album C.1, accession 804, was presented as a gift to the CMAC in November 1998.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

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:
Feb 2009