This collection consists of the records of the Friends of the Texas Medical Center Library, beginning with the organization's incorporation in 1960. There are materials relating to the Friends Board and administration, fundraising and gifts, events, and publications.

Materials include meeting minutes, financial records, correspondence, invitations, photographs, newsletters, and other administrative records relating to the organization and its operations.

The collection also features an Oral History Project, launched in 2023.

George J. Ehni, MD papers contains documents relating to Dr. Ehni’s life and career in neurology, including correspondence, manuscripts, research materials, and reprints. Some of these materials appear to be related to lectures or talks given by Ehni.

The Greater Houston Hospital Council collection contains a hospital directory, council comments, annual reports, and newsletter.

Subjects: Hospital

Demonstration dated 04/17/1969 of transplantation of the human heart. A plastic bubble oxygenator is used. Film has voice over narration by Lucien Stervinou and illustrations by Barry Baker.

The Griff T. Ross, MD, oral history scrapbook was compiled by Stanley Joel Reiser, MD, MPA, PhD. Dr. Reiser is the Adjunct Professor, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus; and the University of Texas Austin Plan II Honors Program. Dr. Reiser donated the scrapbook in March 2014. The scrapbook contains a bibliography of Dr. Ross’s works and an oral history interview of Dr. Ross. The scrapbook also includes interviews with Bill Ross, Griff Ross’s brother; Dr. Carlson (given name unknown); Dr. Alton Steiner, and Dr. Ernest Knobil. The scrapbook was actually a binder filled with loose sheets of 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper. The binder has been removed and discarded. The collection consists of 0.25 cubic feet (1 box).

Subjects: oral history, scrapbook, UT School of Medicine, Ernst Knobil.

Papers consist primarily of personal and professional correspondence; board meeting and committee meeting minutes and reports; drafts, manuscripts, and published professional papers (including several first drafts handwritten by Dr. Taylor); documentation chronicling his role with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in Japan, his role in the organization and development of a regional medical plan centered in Houston, of the University of Texas (UT) Postgraduate School of Medicine and its Division of Continuing Education, and of M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute (MDAH), currently known as UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and its renowned Department of Pediatrics; applications and correspondence regarding funding for a wide range of research, continuing education, and community projects. The collection consists of 45 boxes equaling 23 cubic feet contain personal and biographical papers, documentation of appointments, meetings, boards and committees, continuing education, and other paper materials.

Subjects: ABCC, Oncology. Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston.

The Harold Pruessner, MD papers contains documents relating to his role at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, particularly in the Department of Family Practice. Contents include articles, curricula, training material, information about family practice, and other administrative materials. There is also an audio recording of an interview with Dr. Pruessner from 1998. Items date from 1964 to 1998, with most of them corresponding to his time in Houston, Texas.

The Harold S. Skjonsby, DDS, papers (MS069) is 2 cubic feet,consists of 5 boxes, and is in good condition. The collection contains memos, instructional materials, curriculum, and reports that document Harold S. Skjonsby’s time as faculty the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston.

The Harris Busch papers is a conglomeration of reprinted research conducted by Dr. Harris Busch and his colleagues. The reprints are bound into volumes according to year. Dr. Busch's research was conducted at a variety of institutions including the Department of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Pathology at Yale University; University of Wisconsin Madison; and the Department of Pharmacology at University of Illinois. However, most of his research in the collection was conducted at the Department of Pharmacology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he was Professor in the Department of Pharmacology. He would conduct research regarding cellular metabolism, cancer, toxicology, and pharmacology within the Department of Pharmacology at Baylor College of Medicine from approximately 1962-1997. This collection includes: publications, reports, research, reprints, and patents.

Subjects: Cancer, Toxicology, Pharmacology

The Harris County Association of General Practice is a component branch of the American Academy of General Practice and the Texas Chapter of the American Academy of General Practice. Through the diligent efforts of Dr. Lyman C. Blair and others a charter was issued on July 23rd, 1948, thereby establishing the Harris County Chapter.

The collection documents the history of a local medical association and to some extent the attitudes with the field of general practice.

Harris County Medical Society records consists of about 14 boxes and contains financial, newspaper clippings, audio discs, digital roster CD, photographs, bound copies of Physicians Newsletter, pictorial rosters that document the history of the Harris County Medical Society.

The Harris County Psychiatric Center records contains a total of 2 boxes that consist of newsletters for the Harris County Psychiatric Center. 1989 – 2003. Total of 10 boxes that consist of faculty reprints, correspondence, newsletters, scrapbooks, annual reports, and administrative records that document the history, operations, and development of the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston (UTHSCH), Department of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences (UT Psych), Mental Health Institute (MSI), Harris County Psychiatric Center (HCPC), Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (TDMHMR). 1950 – 2005. Newsletters include: Progress 1989-1994, Progress 1995, News January through September 1989.

Subjects: Psychiatry

Manuscript (MS) 159, The Herbert Fred, MD Papers, is a collection of papers related to Dr. Fred's medical career and personal life in five self-defined series: Medical, Running, Writing, Family, and Religious. Herbert Leonard Fred, MD was born in 1929 in Waco, Texas. He is known for his contribution to medical education. He is an award-winning clinician, diagnostician, and professor of internal medicine. In keeping with the beliefs of Sir William Osler, Dr. Fred, an emeritus American Osler Society member, centered his medical practice on the patient, championing the use of the mind and five senses to develop medical diagnoses.

Dr. Fred studied at Rice Institute from 1946 to 1950, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1950 to 1954, and University of Utah Hospitals from 1954 to 1957. After service in the United States Air Force, he returned to Houston, Texas where he joined the faculty of Baylor University College of Medicine from 1962 to 1969. Ensuing academic appointments included: University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences from 1968 to the present; Director of Medical Education, St. Joseph Hospital from 1969 to 1988; The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston from 1971 to the present; Rice University from 1979 to 2002; and HCA Center for Health Excellence from 1988 to 1993.

The papers are in excellent condition. Documentary forms consist of correspondence, certificates of fact, scholarly presentations, scholarly article reprints, school boy essays, real estate deeds and titles, judicial decrees, news clips, portrait and event records. Formats include text; visual works in photographic, slide, pastel chalk, and pencil; audio works in video and audio on compact disc and magnetic tape along with award and gift realia. Dr. Fred collected images of disease conditions and symptoms throughout his career to use for medical education. The collection contains an extensive color slide collection of medical images, many of rare conditions. These slides are in fragile condition and some have faded beyond recognition. Extensive papers relating to Dr. Fred’s parents and grandparents from the Fred and Marks families in Waco, Texas are in the Family Series and contain some information about Waco and or Texas history. Geographic locations to which the records pertain are Waco, Amarillo, and Houston, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Salt Lake City, Utah; Europe and China. While most of the collection is open to public use, some folders and the medical images have restricted access due to patient confidentiality. With a date range from 1890 to 2013, the collection consists of 112 cubic feet in 88 boxes plus several realia objects in the Oversize collection.

This collection reflects the interest Herman E. Detering, III, owner of the Detering Book Gallery, had in photography and psychiatry in the 19th century. A primary focus is on the treatment and study of people experiencing various forms of mental illness. Publications from numerous hospitals, asylums, and other organizations are included. The coverage includes the United States, France, England and other places in Europe.

The original materials Detering gathered include 19th century carte de visites, a collection of glass plate negatives from the 1920s, and postcards and other images related to hospitals and asylums. Accompanying the photographs are some realia, such as a magic lantern and a camera and stand, all of which are probably from the late 19th century. The collection also includes material related to Mr. Detering’s bookstore and his collecting activities, such as correspondence and invoices.

A significant portion of the collection consists of prints Detering created in preparation for to the exhibit "Photography and Psychiatry in the 19th Century." Curated by Mr. Detering for Houston FotoFest '88, the exhibit was on display from February 25 - March 25, 1988 at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, TX. In addition to various iterations of prints, there is also some correspondence related to exhibit preparation.

The Hermann Detering Book Collection on Psychiatry and Photography (McGovern Historical Center RB 002) has been separated from this archival collection. However, when those books were reviewed, ephemera found within their pages was removed, placed in archival folders, and kept with the archives. The folders were given numbers corresponding to the books in which the items were found.

Many of the prints and working documents in the collection were generated by Mr. Detering around the 1980s, but the source materials range widely in dates, going back at least to the 1800s.

The Herman Walter Johnson, MD papers (MS001) is .25 cubic feet and consists of 1 box and oversized materials. It contains Dr. Johnson's autobiography (Reminiscences of a Male Midwife), United States Army appointment, news articles, certificates, and medical licenses that document the life, career, and military service of Dr. Herman Johnson. The records pertain to the geographic areas of Buffalo, New York and Houston, Texas. The materials are in good condition.

The Hermann Hospital Archive records consists of administrative records, founding documents, legal papers, maps, photographs, films, videos, oral histories, nursing school records, yearbooks, and artifacts ranging from the late 1800s to 1998 that document the creation, development, and history of Hermann Hospital, the first institution in what is now known as the Texas Medical Center. The materials document the long history of the hospital from its inception to the merger with Memorial Hospital System in 1997. Hermann Hospital Archives contains the institutional records of Hermann Hospital (1925-1997) as well as the Hermann Estate (1914-1985).

Real estate-related material from the Hermann Estate business offices, some of it predating the hospital, including professional correspondence, property deeds, copies of letters to tenants and lessees, maps, photographs of construction sites, and a salesman sample or miniature real estate sign (silk-screened metal, circa 1935) (1918-1950’s). Materials related to the construction of the hospital building including work orders, construction progress reports, and order forms and receipts for building materials (1920’s). There are some advertisements and information sheets from companies that supplied hospital and cafeteria equipment to the new hospital (x-ray machines, milk coolers, lighting, surgical implements, etc.) (1920’s). Copies of orders for medical supplies and alcohol permits from the Prohibition years. A small amount of material is related to the lawsuit filed by Hermann’s Swiss relatives over his bequest to the city. There are items dealing with daily operations in the earlier part of the century, including staff newsletters, letters of application for “cards” (permitted local doctors to see patients at the hospital even if they did not practice there full-time), administrative memos. Some material about the financial situation of the Estate and funding of the hospital, including accounting records, ledgers from the pre-hospital Estate, and legal papers (1910’s-1950’s). Staff publications, meeting minutes for various committees, board of trustees items (1940’s-1980’s). Oral History Project transcripts, 1992-1998.

There are photographs (originals or copies) of Houston in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; of Mr. Hermann in his last years; of the hospital interior and exterior when it was new; of early nursing school graduation classes (ca. 1850-1930’s). Nursing school yearbooks, records, and a uniform (1940’s-1970’s). VHS tapes of relevant television specials, news reports, and educational programs for staff (1980’s). A sizable collection of patient registers and logbooks from various departments (1920’s-1980’s) including the register with the hospital’s first patients in 1925. Scrapbooks of staff photos and news clippings (1960’s-1980’s). There are large numbers of slides and photographs that document the history of LifeFlight and the work of Dr. James "Red" Duke (1970’s-1980’s). There is a small amount of realia including decorative plaques, awards, small commemorative items, and a mailbox from the old hospital building. A few boxes contain administrative papers (1980’s). One contains working papers of the Rice University Oral History Project.

A group of photographs equaling 12.5 cubic feet (25 boxes) were compiled for hospital publications by media relations staff in the mid to late 1980s. Most of the items are undated.

The collection is 481.5 cubic feet in size which includes 644 boxes. Materials are in good condition.