Henry E. Sigerist Collection

Biography

Henry E. Sigerist was born in Paris. He received his M.D. from the University of Zurich in 1917 and, after a period of medical service in the Swiss army, devoted himself to the study of the history of medicine. He taught at the Universities of Zurich and Leipzig and in 1931 came to Johns Hopkins as a visiting lecturer in history of medicine. In 1932, he succeeded William H. Welch as director of the Institute of the History of Medicine. In 1933, Sigerist founded the Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, which later became the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Sigerist resigned from his position at Johns Hopkins in 1947 to devote himself to writing an eight-volume history of medicine, of which only one volume had been published before his death in 1957. He published and lectured extensively. A major figure in the socialized medicine movement, Sigerist was also a pioneer in the study of the social history of medicine. Other research interests included medical geography, medieval medicine, health education, art and medicine, Boerhaave, Paracelsus, public health, and medical etymology.

Scope and Content

The Henry E. Sigerist Collection spans his entire career at Johns Hopkins. It contains correspondence, research notes, manuscripts for books and articles, lectures, and scrapbooks. Records pertaining to the Institute of the History of Medicine and the Bulletin of the History of Medicine are also in the Sigerist Collection.

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