Sekulich, Milosh

Correspondence, notes, case records, and draft writings pertaining to his study of tuberculosis and its classification, mainly 1953-1962.

1932-1962

7 boxes

The papers have been slightly re-arranged, although on the whole the files are as Sekulich left them.

Dr Sekulich's papers and books were presented to the Wellcome Institute by his executor, Mrs U. Bozovic, in February 1987.

The following notes on his career have been put together from his curriculum vitae and autobiographical notes (ref 1-4). Dr Sekulich qualified with an MD from Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1926. During the 1920s and 1930s he worked at the University Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases and Belgrade State Hospital, as well as undertaking research in Paris clinics. From 1935-41 he was in charge of a unit for Internal Diseases and Tuberculosis at the Municipal Hospital Belgrade. He fled to London in 1941, working in various capacities for the Yugoslav government and liberation movements and acting as Yugoslav representative to UNRAA. He appears to have re-qualified as MB,ChB in Glasgow in 1944 and he undertook research work under Professor Dible at the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, 1946-48. Subsequently he held appointments at the Hounslow, Harrow, Hampstead, Edgware, Ealing, Luton and Uxbridge Chest Clinics, where he tested his classification scheme of TB. In 1948 and again from 1953 he undertook general practice work and had a small private practice. The collection reflects his dedication to the classification scheme for pulmonary tuberculosis which he devised. This was a subject which had interested him from 1923 and which he appears to have first written about in 1940. He published a large number of papers in Serbian, French, German and English, and his important books were published by Heinemann: The Classification of Pulmonary Tuberculosis (1953) and Tuberculosis, Classification, Pathogenesis and Management (1955). In his scheme he emphasized that every case should be classified for either primary or secondary TB of any organ, and must represent a pathogenic entity: he further divided into two pathogenic types and four clinico-pathologico-pathogenic forms.

A number of Dr Sekulich's medical apparatus and diagnostic instruments are to be found in the Wellcome Collection at the Science Museum (ref 1987-573-578). Sekulich's library and other papers were given to the School of Slavonic and European Studies, University of London.