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Name Burr Ferguson Papers

Dates 1919-1940

Extent 2 cubic feet

Historical Note Burr Ferguson, was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 21, 1872.  In 1887 the Ferguson family moved from Montgomery to the young city of Birmingham.  He entered The University of Alabama in 1889 and earned an A.B. degree in 1893.  While at the Capstone, Ferguson was active in many student activities, including Sigma Nu Fraternity and both the football and baseball teams.  After his graduation, Ferguson entered Columbia where he received an M.D. in 1896.  Immediately afterward, Dr. Ferguson was appointed a member of Bishop Satterlee's 1896 Commission to Russia to Intercede for the Armenians.  Dr. Ferguson next worked in several New York hospitals before he returned to Birmingham in 1913 to serve as the Medical Officer of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.  During World War I, Dr. Ferguson served in France from 1918 to 1919 and in Siberia and Albania in 1919 as part of the American Red Cross Service.  During the 1920s, Ferguson was a physician assigned to the U.S.P.H.S. and served in the European cities of Rotterdam, Le Havre, London and Southampton.  After 1926 Ferguson was in private practice in Birmingham, and by the early 1930s was known as the chief exponent of the intravenous use of hydrochloric acid in the treatment of infections and ulcers.  His 1936 book, Facts and Phagocytes, examined his discovery, research, and use of hydrochloric acid, and it made possible his consideration for the 1937 Nobel Prize in medicine.  Ferguson was listed in the 1938 edition of Who's Who Among Physicians and Surgeons and in the 1939 and 1940 editions of the Biographical Encyclopedia of America. He was a member of the Jefferson County Medical Society, the American Medical Association, the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans.   Dr. Ferguson died in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuscaloosa in 1946.

Scope & Contents Includes correspondence, manuscripts and reprints, legal materials, certificates, cards, and ephemera.

Arrangement Correspondence arranged chronologically, other materials by material format.

Accession Number M94-19

Provenance The materials in this collection were originally donated to the medical library in the 1960s by the brother of the late Dr. Ferguson.  At some point following this donation, the collection was transferred to the Jefferson County Medical Society/UAB Health Sciences Archives.  In December 1994 the materials were transferred to the UAB Archives after the JCMS/UAB archives was disbanded.

Finding aid Printed descriptive guide by Tim L. Pennycuff available in repository.

Access Points
Bankhead, William Brockman,  d  1874-1940.
Ferguson, Burr,  d  1872-1946.
Ferguson, Hill,  d  1877-1971.
Hydrochloric acid.
Physicians  z  Alabama  z  Birmingham  x  Correspondence.

Document Types Certificates, Clippings, Correspondence, Manuscripts for Publication Location Manuscript Stacks

Related Series
MC118, Ferguson Family Papers
MC51, Emmett B. Carmichael/Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences Collection [contains some Ferguson correspondence, photographs, reprints, news clippings etc.]

Physical Condition Acid free folders and acid free boxes


This page created 1999 and last updated on 1 September 2017.

Copyright:  The University of Alabama Board of Trustees.

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