Theophil Mitchell Prudden papers

Theophil Mitchell Prudden's papers span the years 1872-1925, but are most nearly complete only from the time he hired a secretary in 1896 until his health began to fail in approximately 1906. Consequently, although Prudden was in the forefront of the development of bacteriological and pathological science in this country, there is comparatively little documentation of the first 18 years of his professional life, during which much of his pioneering laboratory, teaching, and public health work was accomplished. These papers - of which the bulk is correspondence - picture an already prominent and respected scientist, administrator, teacher, author, and mentor.

The papers were probably given to Yale by his sister, Lillian Prudden, who edited and published some of the correspondence and other material inBiographical Sketches and Letters of T. Mitchell Prudden, M.D.(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927). Interfiled here with the original letters are typed duplicate copies used in preparation of the book, as well as English translations of some letters in German. Marginalia appearing on some letters are also related to the book's preparation. Other materials quoted by Miss Prudden, such as family correspondence and Prudden's "autobiographical notes," are not to be found in the papers.

Series I, CORRESPONDENCE, has been separated into two sections:General CorrespondenceandAnthropological Correspondence. The original chronological order has been retained in each. Most of Prudden's letters are typed and are in the form of unsigned retained carbon copies.

TheGeneral Correspondenceis mainly concerned with Prudden's professional life. The earliest material relates to his medical studies at Yale and in Germany from 1875 to 1878. By far the largest part falls in the years he had regular secretarial help. There are annual gaps during the summer months while Prudden was vacationing. The almost complete absence of professional correspondence from July 1906 to October 1908—only one incoming letter is included—may indicate the loss of one of the ringed binders in which the correspondence was originally contained. In addition, when the correspondence was removed from the binders, paper remnants indicated that from 250 to 300 letters had been ripped out. There is almost no family and personal correspondence.

TheGeneral Correspondencedeals largely with medical and public health topics or Prudden's routine laboratory and administrative work. It provides information on laboratory techniques at the turn of the century, theories of the cause of disease, politics and the progress of public health. A letter from Prudden to New York City mayor Seth Low (1901 Nov 11; 7 pages) recommending Hermann M. Biggs for Commissioner of Health gives a history of the New York Health Department and Dr. Bigg's role in its development.

Prudden's opinion and advice were asked on matters ranging from candidates for medical positions, purification of water supplies, and cremation (1906 May 4 and 8), to the proper design of a morgue table (1896 Nov 5). Resistance to antivivisection legislation is a recurrent topic (e.g., 1896 Jun 6; 1899 Feb 3 and 10; 1909 Mar 2, 11 letters to state senators). In a letter describing the Department of Pathology (1902 Sep 17, in reply to one of Jul 18), Prudden wrote: "We have material from between five and six hundred autopsies yearly, and aside from this a large number, frequently more than a thousand each year, of various kinds of pathological specimens for examination." Some of these specimens and others are the subjects of correspondence.General Correspondenceand WRITINGS both contain material on the quarantine in the Port of New York, 1892.

The sparse correspondence of Prudden's later years tends to point up his health problems; most of these letters were written from places of convalescence or vacation. He was described as working actively for the Rockefeller Institute during his last 15 years (and even going there as usual on his last day), but there is not much to document it. This suggests that some letters of this period are missing or elsewhere.

Correspondents include notable doctors of the time such as Richard H. Derby, Alva H. Doty, Henry Hun ("Henry"), Abraham Jacobi, Charles McBurney, W.P. Northrup ("Kernel"), Edward L. Trudeau, Ira Van Gieson, William Henry Welch, and in Germany, Julius Arnold, Robert Koch, and Rudolf Virchow.

Anthropological Correspondencecenters on Prudden's deep interest in the ancient Indian inhabitants of the American Southwest. Much of it is with the Wetherills about the summer trips or their own excavations and discoveries. Many letters concern photographs—of sites, artifacts, or people—especially those needed for Prudden's publications. Correspondents include professional anthropologists and popular writers on western exploration and Indian lore such as George Grant MacCurdy at Yale, George H. Pepper, C. Hart Merriam, F.W. Hodge, F.S. Dellenbaugh, and Charles F. Lummis. The correspondence of 1910 is concerned solely with the murder of Richard Wetherill by a Navajo Indian.

Series II, WRITINGS, includes pamphlets, clippings, and published and unpublished typescripts; some are anonymous or written by others, but most are the work of Prudden. The bulk of the writings deals with public health matters such as quarantine in the Port of New York and the United States (1892-1893, 1897-1898) and a proposed U.S. Bureau of Public Health (1893-1897). The earliest item is a draft of Prudden's dissertation for the M.D. degree, "The present use of the sphygmograph in clinical medicine" (1875). One folder contains miscellaneous material (such as lists of personnel, course descriptions, and annual reports) concerning the Department of Pathology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (1886-1904). Also included are an unpublished (?) account of the murder of Richard Wetherill (ca. 1910), obituaries of Prudden's colleagues, particularly of Hermann M. Biggs (1923), and two folders of undated and incomplete typescripts (medical and anthropological). Other writings are filed as enclosures to correspondence, particularly drafts for newspaper editorials and materials on legislative bills.

Series III, PHOTOGRAPHS, BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL, AND MEMORABILIA, includes material by Prudden, about Prudden, and by and about others.

Earliest are two leather-bound diaries kept by Prudden during the summers with Professor Verrill's dredging party in Eastport, Maine (1872) and Professor Marsh's expedition to the West (1873), which were the gift of Lillian Prudden in 1931. Each contains a list of plants observed by him. Found inside the diary of the Marsh expedition were papers concerning its finances, clippings, and a map of an area in northern Nebraska which could have been used during the trip. This diary has been microfilmed: Hist. Mss. Film No. 117 (one reel).

The series includes autobiographical material in the form of short sketches and lists of publications. There are photographs of Prudden at various ages. One folder contains the correspondence of his colleagues and former students who contributed funds for a portrait to be painted of him at the time of his retirement (1909). A folder of writings about Prudden contains some information not found elsewhere, including extensive memorials and reminiscences by several of his colleagues. The only anthropological material is a pamphlet advertising the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company and the Wetherill ranch at Mancos, Colorado, filed with miscellaneous clippings. A folder of the writings of George W. Hawes contains the manuscripts of two talks for classroom presentation: "Our trap rocks" and 'Our red sandstones - both on the geology of the New Haven area - and "Ram Cat Resplendent," an account of a rowdy political meeting in rural North Carolina, which Hawes and Prudden toured on a botanizing trip in the summer of 1874.

The series concludes with "Ancestral tablets," a book of printed genealogical diagrams filled in in MS. This volume records the ancestry of Philip Schuyler Beebe, II (1882-1908), the only child of William Beebe (1851-1917; Yale B.A. 1873; Professor of Mathematics and Instructor in Astronomy at Yale from 1898 to 1917) and Elizabeth Francis (Febiger) Beebe. It is not clear why this is included in the Prudden papers, although among loose papers inside the book is a letter to "My dear Lillie" which may have been addressed to Lillian Prudden.