Brief Overview of Collection, MC27

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                    These materials were originally located in 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.

Intravenous drug use.

Lake, George B.

Park, Francis E.

Physicians  z  Alabama  z  Birmingham  x  Correspondence.

Verdier, Charles E.

Wamboldt, Wickes.

Document Types           Certificates.

Clippings.

Correspondence.

Manuscripts for publication.

Location                        Manuscript Stacks

Related Series              MC51, Emmett B. Carmichael/Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences Collection [contains some Ferguson correspondence, photographs, reprints, news clippings etc., in Folders 023j & 248f]

Physical Condition        Acid free folders and acid free boxes

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Last Updated 27 November 2007.
@ Finding Aid Copyright:  The University of Alabama Board of Trustees.