Burn, (Joshua) Harold

  • Burn; J Harold, 1892-1981
Date:
1921-1977
Reference:
GC/154
  • Archives and manuscripts

Collection contents

About this work

Description

Letters received, 1920s, 1950s; reprints of papers, 1970s; photographs, 1930s-1950s.

The letters in Section A were probably kept simply as autographs, but most of them discuss Burn's work and others'; the snapshot photographs in the albums (Section C) include pictures of very eminent individuals in pharmacology and physiology.

Publication/Creation

1921-1977

Physical description

1 box Paper, photographs

Contributors

Arrangement

Arranged by section as follows:

A Letters received

B Reprints

C Albums of photographs, mainly of picnics and conferences

Acquisition note

This small accumulation of papers came to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre in September 1981 with the second accession of the archive of the British Pharmacological Society. Burn was a founder member of the Society serving as Secretary and Treasurer 1934-1945, and retained links with it throughout his life: the reprints in Section B are accompanied by covering letters to the then secretary. 14 portrait photographs have been retained in the BPS archive (SA/BPS/H.2).

Biographical note

After graduation in 1914, Burn worked at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories under HH Dale. He trained in medicine after military service in the First World War and worked again with Dale at the National Institute for Medical Research Department of Pharmacology. He was Director of the Pharmacological Laboratories of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain 1926-1937 (and Dean of the College of Pharmacology from 1933) and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford 1937-1959. Further details can be found in obituaries in the BMJ 1981, 283,444, the Lancet 1981, ii, 212, and Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 30, 45-89, 1984.

Related material

Related material in the Wellcome Library:

Papers of Burn's colleague, Edith Bülbring (PP/BUL), which include laboratory notebooks.

There is also correspondence of Burn with WF Bynum about the history of the British Pharmacological Society, and various materials of historical interest supplied by him, in the archives of the society (SA/BPS/G.4).

Related material held elsewhere:

Oxford University: History of Neuroscience Library, Correspondence and papers, 1932-1984 (Reference : CSAC 107/4/85)

Cambridge University: Churchill Archives Centre, Correspondence with AV Hill, 1935-74 (Reference : AVHL)

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Subjects

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Identifiers

Accession number

  • 28