Records of the Philadelphia County Medical Society

The records of the Philadelphia County Medical Society document the activities of two committees within the Society: the Committee on Maternal Welfare and the Committee on Archives.

The Committee on Maternal Welfare records consists of records of committee meetings, materials used in conducting maternal mortality surveys, maternal death reports, and correspondence. The records, 1944 to 1973, were maintained by M. Agnes Gowdey, recording secretary of the Committee on Maternal Welfare.

The records of committee meetings, spanning 1944 to 1972, include agenda, minutes, reports, memoranda, and membership lists are contained in Series 1. This series also contains miscellaneous notes, most of which were recorded during committee meetings, and miscellaneous printed material, including maternal mortality reports from other institutions (1958-1964) and the American Medical Association's "Guide for Maternal Death Studies" (1957).

Series 2, spanning 1951 to 1971, includes material used in conducting maternal mortality surveys. Present are procedure forms prepared by the committee to provide guidelines and rules for the proper execution of the maternal mortality study. Also included are samples of forms distributed to the hospitals participating in the survey, as well as explanations of the various codes and symbols used on these forms. This series also contains a record book (1961-1971) providing statistical figures derived from the committee's maternal mortality surveys.

Included in Series 3 are monthly and annual reports, both of which provide statistics on maternal mortality in Philadelphia. Also present are individual case reports (1955-1972); these case reports, which make up the bulk of the collection, provide detailed information about each deceased mother, including her medical history, the nature of her pregnancy, and the cause of death. Also included are medical examiners' reports, mortality summaries, lab reports, and death certificates. The case reports are arranged by code number, a number assigned by the committee as each case report was received.

Series 4 contains correspondence (1945-1973), most of which was received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. These communications provide information used in the committee's study, including Philadelphia Code Numbers and Bureau of Vital Statistics Codes for maternal deaths in Philadelphia.

The Committee on Archives records consists of correspondence, reports, minutes, and newsclippings, 1912-1951, documents the work of the Philadelphia County Medical Society's Committee on Archives and its officers, particularly Albert M. Eaton and William N. Bradley, and of the society's executive secretary, Franklin M. Crispin.

Included are notifications of appointment to the committee; responses to requests for photographs; discussions of the mission of the committee; biographical and genealogical research on the society's founders and correspondence with their descendants; occasional minutes and reports; and a collection of newsclippings, concerned, primarily, with physicians and medicine during World War I. The newsclippings also contain obituaries of physicians Alfred Reginald Allen and Benjamin Lee. There is also a folder of historical reference material containing lists of society presidents and a list of members in 1883-1884.