McCarrison, Sir Robert (1878-1960)

149 posters illustrating nutrition observations and experiments, 1913-c.1947; memorabilia including notes for speeches and letters received, 1931-1960; correspondence with Nutrition Society and Oxford University Press, 1950s; photograph album of Coonoor including the Pasteur Institute, 1920s-1930s.

1913-1960

2 boxes 6 o/s folders 1 o/s folder 1 photo album

A Posters B Memorabilia C Photograph album

The material in accession 598 was transferred to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre from the International Nutrition Foundation, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, in October 1995, and had presumably been acquired by the late Dr Hugh Sinclair, who set up the Foundation. The photograph album C.1, accession 804, was presented as a gift to the CMAC in November 1998

Sir Robert McCarrison served in the Indian Medical Service 1901-1935, in research apart from active service in the First World War. From 1918 until his retirement in 1935 he worked in a unit, known from 1929 as the Nutrition Research Laboratories, at the Pasteur Institute at Coonoor, one of the smaller hill stations lying in the Doddabetta Ranges of the Blue Mountains, Nilgiri District (now part of the Tamilnadu state), Southern India (The Nilgiris, or Blue Mountains, are famous for their horticulture, coffee and tea plantations, and are inhabited by ancient tribes such as the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas and Irulus - see C.1). Letters to him from his former assistants there, Mula Singh and Krishnan, on the publication of the Festschrift, can be found in B.5. His interest in deficiency diseases was aroused by his observations of the distribution of goitre and cretinism in Gilgit, where he served from 1904, and the posters in Section A illustrate his observations and experiments on the effects of diet on metabolism. A list in B.1 includes some of the titles of the posters in section A, but also mentions others not found.

A small amount of material relating to interactions with George Scott William and Innes Pearse in SA/PHC/F.16/4

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