IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0120 PP/JCM
Held at: Wellcome Library
Title: Moir, Professor John Chassar
Date(s): 1921-1977
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 6 boxes
Name of creator(s): Moir | John Chassar | 1900-1977 | Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
John Chassar Moir was the first Nuffield Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1937 to 1967. At University College Hospital, London, he and Dr Harold Ward Dudley had isolated the new drug ergometrine, responsible for the traditional clinical effects of ergot, which was rapidly and universally adopted for the prevention of haemorrhage after childbirth, and he had written a thesis on rotation of the foetus in childbirth for which he gained his MD and a gold medal from Edinburgh University. At Oxford, he built up the Radcliffe Infirmary, studied the use of diagnostic x-rays in obstetrics, and made an outstanding contribution to gynaecological surgery, the repair of vesico-vaginal fistulae. He was for several years the co-editor and for the sixth edition sole editor, of Munro-Kerr's well-known textbook Operative Obstetrics. He became president of the obstetrics and gynaecology section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and in 1974 was made an honorary fellow. Further biographical details can be found in the obituaries in the British Medical Journal and the Lancet.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
The collection consists of miscellaneous material pertaining to Professor John Chassar Moir's career which was retained in the family, 1921-1977. This includes biographical material; research files, including on ergot, vesico-vaginal fistula, and history of obstetrics; a few case notes; correspondence; and two films of operations.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Arranged in sections as follows: Research files; Case notes and clinical material; Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford; Miscellaneous correspondence; Biographical and career; Portrait photographs; Films; Specimens; Obituaries and letters of condolence received by Moir's widow; Volume of notes by Jane Moir, including biographical details and reminiscences, and lists of the authors of the congratulatory letters in section.
Conditions governing access:
The bulk of the papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking. Certain files are closed as they contain sensitive information, these files are as follows: PP/JCM/10/1 closed until January 2029, PP/JCM/10/2 closed until January 2043, PP/JCM/10/3 closed until Janary 2033, PP/JCM/10/4 closed until January 2057, PP/JCM/12/2 closed until January 2056.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Material at the Wellcome Library: papers of Moir's successor in the Nuffield Chair, Sir John Stallworthy (Ref. PP/JAS). Material at other repositories: other papers of Professor Moir's are held by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (Special Collections, reference S/02). These include professional notes and correspondence with Sir Henry Dale on ergot, c.1930-1938, and with others. Forceps and other items are held in the College Museum. The Wellcome Galleries of the Science Museum hold Professor Moir's domiciliary deliveries case.
Finding aids:
The catalogue is available on microfiche via the National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS).
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
A small amount of re-arrangement has been necessary, and the removal of original file covers.
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
These papers were given to the Wellcome Library in April and October 1990 by Professor Moir's daughter, Miss Jane Moir.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.
Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009