The Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library, part of the Harvard Medical School Libraries, holds papers related to leprosy, including:
The William Lloyd Aycock Papers (1919-1951) document the development of Aycock’s research on polio, epidemiology, leprosy and other contagious diseases. His unpublished writings and speeches reflect an emphasis on the host factors and comparative analysis of polio, leprosy, measles, mumps, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever and yellow fever. This material also documents his interest in the body’s natural resistance to disease (autarcersis). Correspondence with other Harvard Medical School faculties (1942-1951) illustrates his research activities and institutional network as Associate Professor. A class lecture series on epidemiology, coordinated and indexed by William Lloyd Aycock in 1941, offers a comprehensive view of course content in the field. Professional correspondence (1942-1951) with research institutes, laboratories, hospitals, college and university professors, public health departments, US governmental departments, publishers, publications and granting foundations reflect Aycock’s research development, his broad network of associations and his eminence in the fields of epidemiology, polio and leprosy.
William Lloyd Aycock was born in Georgia in 1889. He received an MD from the University of Louisville in 1914. He became Instructor of Bacteriology at the New York Postgraduate Medical School and Hospital and diagnostician at the New York State Health Department. From 1917-1919, he served as a first lieutenant in the US Army, directing a base hospital laboratory, and an epidemiologist at the Central Laboratories of the American Expeditionary Forces.
His work encompassed epidemiology in general and polio and leprosy in particular. Comparative aspects of various contagious diseases and emphasis on host factors marked much of his research. During and after World War II, he was a consultant to both the US Department of War and the Office of the US Surgeon General on matters of epidemiology. He conducted field research on leprosy in the Territory of Hawaii from 1949-1951 and on streptococcal and rheumatic fever in Newport, RI from 1950-1951.
Entry made April-June 2002