MUSC’s Waring Library is now home to a collection of materials of Henry Ernest Sigerist, M.D., one of the most influential medical historians of the twentieth century.

Dr. Sigerist had three sets of his works specially bound for each of his daughters, himself and his wife. When his daughter, Erica Sigerist Campanella, found it necessary to move to smaller quarters and limit her library, she contacted the Waring Library as a potential “home” for her collection of 69 volumes of her father’s works.

Dr. Sigerist was most famous as a medical historian, but he was also a renaissance man and a social scientist. Although trained and licensed as a physician, he was more interested in the historical and social aspects of medicine as they impacted society and culture as a whole. He was born in Paris in 1891.

After receiving his medical degree and license to practice, Dr. Sigerist began his career in the study of medical history at the University of Zurich in 1921. He also held a post as director of the Institute of the History of Medicine at the University of Leipzig. In 1932, Dr. Sigerist emigrated to the United States when he received an appointment as professor and director of Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine and acting librarian of the William H. Welch Medical Library.

One of his most famous works produced in 1932 was Grosse Aerzte, a compilation of short biographies on the topic of great ideas in the history of medicine. In 1933, Dr. Sigerist established the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

During his career in the United States in the 1930s and '40s, Sigerist produced several works studying the relationship of medicine and society and the influence of political turbulence on nations like the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union. Sigerist was also interested in the subject of medieval medicine, concentrating his studies on the period before the establishment of the School of Salerno, regarded by historians as the first medical school.

His knowledge of languages was extensive and included Greek, Latin, Chinese, Sanskrit, French, German, Russian, Italian and English. Dr. Sigerist returned to Europe in 1947, beginning his retirement in Switzerland. He died at his home in Pura, Switzerland, in 1957. In his bibliography, published in 1966, Genevieve Miller credits Dr. Sigerist with 27 books in 64 editions and an incredible 455 papers.

“We at the Waring Library are thrilled to add this important collection of medical history materials,” said Jane Brown, library curator. “We’re very grateful to Mrs. Campanella.” Dr. Sigerist passed his love of medical history on to his daughter Erica, who as a medical history librarian, served as chief of the library of the World Health Organization in Geneva Switzerland and curator of its historical collection for many years.