Introduction | Biographical Sketch | Scope and Content | Series Description | Inventory

Introduction

The Merl B. Smith Papers were donated to the Center for Archival Collections by Roger Chapman, with the cooperation of Gretchen Smith and Doris Recker, on November 2, 2001. The collection consists of 1.5 feet of personal lecture notes, teaching papers, military service files, and books belonging to a Toledo, Ohio physician who was a medical educator and saw military during World War II.

The collection was processed and finding aid prepared by Marilyn Levinson, Curator of Manuscripts in November 2001.

Biographical Sketch

Merl B. Smith was born in Toledo, Ohio on October 14, 1914 to William Ross and Matilda (Markley) Smith. A graduate of Libbey High School in 1932, he got his undergraduate degree from the University of Toledo and then entered the medical program at Ohio State University, where he graduated with honors in 1940. After a one-year internship at the Cleveland Clinic, Smith entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps, serving from July 1941 until November 1945.

In 1946, after the war, he was married to Margaret A. (Roberts) Smith. Between 1948 and 1957 Dr. Smith was on the staff of the Toledo Clinic. Starting in 1957 he was also associated with Flower Hospital, serving as Chief of Medicine from 1957 to 1958 and then from 1958 until 1963 as Chief of Staff Elect and Chief of Staff. He retired from practice at the Toledo Clinic in 1984.

Merl B. Smith died at his home in Toledo at the age of 86 on March 3, 2001.

Scope and Content

The Merl B. Smith papers consist primarily of personal papers and teaching notes that he used during his years as a medical educator associated with Flower Hospital from the 1950s through the 1970s.

The collection also includes miscellaneous notes, papers, and publications associated with Smith's service with the U.S. Army Air Force as a flight surgeon.

Those books that relate directly to medical education in Toledo, particularly the yearbook, The Creed, from the Flower Hospital School of Nursing, and others associated directly with Smith were retained in the collection. Other general medical texts have been transferred out of the collection.

Series Description

LITERARY PRODUCTIONS

LECTURE NOTES - GENERAL
1950-1975
Notes for lectures and speeches presented to conferences and panel discussions, primarily on topics associated with diabetes, and student nursing teaching notes on general medical topics

LECTURE NOTES - MILITARY
1943-1944
Printed and handwritten notes from U.S. Army Air Force lectures on tropical medicine, neuropsychiatry, treatment for chemical agents, and other topics

PRINTED MATERIAL

PAMPHLETS/BOOKLETS
1940-1945
Pamphlets, circulars, handbooks, and other publications related to military medicine

BOOKS
1934-1976
Medical and military books related to Smith's service as a flight surgeon, and yearbooks of the Flower Hospital School of Nursing, transferred to CAC general book collections. Other general medical books transferred to Jerome Library

ARTIFACTS

REALIA
n.d.
Office plaque "To All My Patients"

Inventory

Box 1

Folder

1. Lecture/speech: Addison's Disease and Addisonian crisis, Feb 1950
2. Lecture/speech: Diabetes, May 2, 1950
3. Lecture/speech: Panel on Evaluation of Risks for Surgery, Jan 28, 1955
4. Lecture/speech: Recent advances in the knowledge of diabetes, Feb 16, 1955
5. Lecture/speech: Panel on diabetes (final draft), October 1956
6. Lecture/speech: Relationship of obesity and diet to heart disease, Mar 19, 1957
7. Lecture/speech: Status of the new oral insulin substitutes, March 20, 1957
8. Lecture/speech: Orinase, its physiological actions and its clinical, Nov 20, 1957?
9. Lecture/speech: The Anemias, diagnosis & treatment, March 4, 1958
10. Lecture/speech: Recent advances in the physiology of the Adrenals, Nov 24, 1958
11. Lecture/speech: Talk on diabetes before the Practical Nurses' Assn., Oct 20, 1959
12. Lecture/speech: Graduation Flower Hospital School of Nursing, Aug 31, 1962
13. Lecture/speech: Diabetes and Ketoacidosis, Aug 27, 1975
14. Lecture/speech: Medicine as a career (note cards), n.d.
15. Lecture/speech: Miscellaneous notes, references, etc., n.d.
16. Student nursing teaching notes: endocrinology, 1950s-1970s
17. Student nursing teaching notes: endocrine pamphlets, aids, articles, 1950s-1970s
18. Student nursing teaching notes: leukemia, 1957-1972
19. Student nursing teaching notes: hematology, 1952-1967
20. Student nursing teaching notes: postpartum procedures, n.d.
21. Student nursing teaching notes: PCO syndrome, 1986
22. Intern lecture notes, 1952-1960

Box 2

Folder

1. U.S. Army Air Forces. Lecture notes, 1943-1944
2. City Hospital (Cleveland, Ohio) Departments of Pediatrics and Contagious Diseases. Information and Procedures. Cleveland, Ohio : The Hospital, 1940.
3. USAF School of Aerospace Medicine. Flight surgeon's handbook / prepared under the Direction of the Commandant, School of Aviation Medicine, Army Air Forces. 2nd edition. Randolph Field, Texas : The School, 1943.
4. United States. Army Air Forces. Air Service Command. Pilots' information file / by Army Air Forces. Washington : Army Air Forces, 1944.
5. Notes on tropical diseases for air forces medical officers. New York : Arctic, Desert and Tropic Information Center, 1944?
6. The Air surgeon's bulletin. Dayton, Ohio, Aero Medical Laboratory, Engineering Division, Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field, [Washington] G.P.O. (Jan & Feb 1944 only)
7. United States. Army Air Forces. Your body in flight / prepared by Aero Medical Laboratory, Engineering Division. Dayton, Ohio : Maintenance Data Section, Maintenance Division, Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field, 1944
8. United States. Army Air Forces. Physiology of flight : human factors in the operation of military aircraft. Washington, 1945
9. Office plaque "To All My Patients"

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