Catalogue of papers and correspondence of CLAUDE GORDON DOUGLAS FRS (1882 - 1963)

NCUACS 1.87

Catalogue of papers and correspondence of CLAUDE GORDON DOUGLAS FRS (1882 - 1963)

1911-1975

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

SUMMARY OF CAREER OF C.G. DOUGLAS

SECTION A RESEARCH, TEACHING, PUBLICATIONS NCUACS 1.87/A.1-NCUACS 1.87/A.46

SECTION B WARTIME RESEARCH NCUACS 1.87/B.1-NCUACS 1.87/B.55

SECTION C HALDANIANA NCUACS 1.87/C.1-NCUACS 1.87/C.28

INDEX OF CORRESPONDENTS

The material is presented in the order shown in the list of contents. It includes detailed records of Douglas's First World War work in France on the medical and defensive aspects of gas warfare, and his 'Haldaniana', an assemblage of material relating to Douglas's great teacher and mentor, J.S. Haldane. The collection offers regrettably little documentation of Douglas's scientific activity in the Physiology Laboratory, Oxford University, or of his extensive committee work for government and others.

Section A (Research, teaching, publications) is disappointingly slight. The most interesting material relates to the 1911 expedition to Pike's Peak, Colorado, though this is almost exclusively photographs and newspaper accounts. The expedition was organised by J.S. Haldane to investigate respiration at high altitude and the summit party comprised Haldane, Douglas, Yandell Henderson of Yale and E.C. Schneider of Colorado. The subsection on teaching includes class notes for practical courses on experimental physiology, and the publications subsection the 'ms. of original edition' of Douglas's and J.G. Priestley's book Human Physiology.

Section B (Wartime research) is the most substantial in the collection. The comprehensive records of the First World War gas warfare work presented here appear to be the documentation used by Douglas for his contribution on the development of gas warfare to the Official medical war history. There are many papers by Douglas on aspects of the effects and treatment of gas poisoning, but there are also papers by other distinguished scientists including J. Barcroft, T.R. Elliott and J.S. Haldane.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Douglas went to the Experimental Station at Porton (until October 1941) where he was largely responsible for re-writing the Medical manual of chemical warfare. The papers listed at B.43 - B.49 very probably relate to this work. Douglas was also consulted on nutrition questions during the Second World War and there is material on diet in respect of the army, coalminers and Oxford undergraduates.

Section C (Haldaniana) is Douglas's assemblage of material relating to J.S. Haldane arranged and listed in a chronological sequence. It includes what appears to be an unpublished paper (C.5), obituaries and tributes, and records of the Royal Society Tyndall Mining Research Committee on which Douglas succeeded Haldane as chairman. There is also material for Douglas's talks at the 1961 Haldane Centenary Symposium.

A full account of Douglas's career and research can be found in the memoir by D.J.C. Cunningham written for the Royal Society and published in 1964 (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 10, 51-74), a copy of which is enclosed at A.24.

Compiled by Peter Harper

The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the following societies and organisations:

The City of Bath

The Geological Society

The Institute of Physics

Pergamon Books

The Royal Society

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Shell U.K. Ltd.

The Society of Chemical Industry

<p>It is intended that letters from J.S. Haldane to Douglas currently in the possession of Dr. Cunningham will be passed on to the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh which already holds the letters from Douglas to Haldane.</p>

English

c129 files

The material was received in August 1987 from Dr. D.J.C. Cunningham, the author of the Royal Society memoir of Douglas.

SUMMARY OF THE CAREER OF C.G. DOUGLAS

b.1882 Leicester

educ. 1895 Wellington College

1898 Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester

1900 New College, Oxford

1901 Magdalen College, Oxford

1905 Guy's Hospital

1907 Fellow, St. John's College, Oxford

1911 Member, Anglo-American expedition to Pike's Peak, Colorado

1914-1919 War service

1916 Award of Military Cross

1917 Physiological Adviser to the Directorate of Gas Services at G.H.Q.

1918 Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, R.A.M.C.

1922 Election to Fellowship of the Royal Society

1927 Oliver-Sharpey Lecturer, Royal College of Physicians

1942 Professor of General Metabolism, Oxford University

1945 Award of Osler Memorial Medal, Oxford University

1961 Chairman of the Haldane Centenary Symposium

d. 1963 Oxford