IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0120 PP/EHR
Held at: Wellcome Library
Title: Ehrlich, Paul (1854-1915)
Date(s): 1898-1956
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 9 boxes
Name of creator(s): Marquardt | Martha | d 1956 | Paul Ehrlich's secretary
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Paul Ehrlich was a leading medical researcher of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908. He is best remembered for 'Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet', Compound 606, the arsephanemine drug salvarsan which was a cure for syphilis, discovered in 1909.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Carbon copies of Martha Marquardt's transcripts of Paul Ehrlich's copybooks, 1898-1915, made by her during the early 1950s. There are 6 series, representing both copies of letters sent by him, and notebooks. There are not complete sets of transcripts for all of these: in some cases the originals themselves appear to no longer exist. Users should be aware that, according to a letter from Dr E A Underwood, Director of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, to Gunther Schwerin, 25 Mar 1963 (WA/HMM/CO/Eau/13), there are some misreadings by Marquardt of scientific terms in the originals, as, although she was capable of deciphering Ehrlich's writing, she was not herself a scientist. The originals are now in Boxes 4-22, 27-27A, 28-28A, 29-36 in the Paul Ehrlich Collection at the Rockefeller Archives Centre, and another set of transcripts in Boxes 80-86 there.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: German
System of arrangement:
A. Series I, 1898-1900 B. Series II, Zettel Buch, 1900-1915 C. Series III, Carcinom, 1906-1913 D. Series IV, Direktor Ehrlich, 1903-1915 E. Series V, Direktor Ehrlich, 1902-1903 F. Series VI, Speyer-Haus, 1906-1912.
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
Accruals:
Archival history:
Shortly after the Second World War, Gunther Schwerin, one of the grandsons of Paul Ehrlich, located Ehrlich's copybooks in Germany, and sent them, along with other material, to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in London for safekeeping. While they were there, Martha Marquardt, formerly Ehrlich's secretary, and one of the few people able to read his handwriting, prepared seven sets of typewritten transcripts. These carbons are the 3rd set (of 4) copies, formerly in the possession of Sir Henry Dale, and presented by him to the Library early in 1958. The originals, and 3 sets of copies, are now held with the Paul Ehrlich archive in the Rockefeller Archive Center, 15 Dayton Avenue, Sleepy Hollow, New York 10591 USA, by whose kind permission this set of copies is made available in the Wellcome Library.
Immediate source of acquisition:
These transcripts surfaced during the clearing out of the Bentley House stacks, April 2007.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Paul Ehrlich archive in the Rockefeller Archive Center.
Related material:
Material specifically relating to these materials in Wellcome Historical Medical Museum archives, and also re Ehrlich centenary exhibition; some correspondence with Ehrlich among archives of Wellcome Foundation; MS6078, papers of his colleague Alfred Berthheim, includes some correspondence; a few items of correspondence, etc, among papers of L Colebrooke (PP/COL) and Sir Henry Dale (PP/HHD).
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.
Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009