John H. Lawrence
Box 1/25: contains a mostly complete set of records pertaining to the study of
decompression sickness undertaken from about 1942 to 1944. Lawrence worked with
Hamilton, Jones, and Tobias on this project. They were either part of or corresponded
with the Subcommitt4ee on Decompression Sickneses, part of the Committee on Aviation
Medicine of the National Research Council (John Fulton, Chairman).
Mostrecords are correspondence,filed alphabetically by name of correspondent. Letters
worth noting are:
H.S. Bazett re subcommittee's work; also in Captain Crawford(March 12, 1942) and Du
Bois (Feb 10, 1942).
letter to Hastings (Jan 26, 1942), to Officer in Charge (Nov 27, 42) asking for volunteers
for a metabolism test from among army or navy ROTC members between 17 and 27 years
old.
letter to Lewis, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, re people on the team studying the
problem of aeroembolism: Dr’s J.C. Larkins, J.G. Hamilton, Farnsworth Loomis, J.H.
Lawrence, H.B. Jones, Robert Smith, Martin Kamen, Paul Aebersold, Chieng Wu.
Jack Mohney's name also begins to appear somewhat prominently.
to Richards (Jun 15, 42): CMR-9 forms covering people working on the team.
letter to Dr. Neuburgh re Hamilton and iodine use for hyperactivity of the thyroid (Sept 30,
43).
and so on (if interested, let me know,and I will type up the rest of my notes).
Note: J.H. Lawrence recordsfrom 1945 to 1948 appearto be missing.
From 1949to the early 1950's, Lawrence's correspondence pertains to multiple smaller
projects to study cancers in humans. Experiments conducted or planned include: using
human subjects for studies of radioactive stilbamidine for multiple myeloma; carbon-14
experiments; radiophosphorousin polycythemia vera charity cases; the search for an
antileukemia factor by injecting human subjects with leukemic blood; red and yellow bone
marrow andinjections of phosphorous and sulfur; leukemia and the experimental use of
ACTH and ammopteriu; red blood counts and pregnant women; blood conditionsin
Peruvian Indians; radioactive iodine and the treatment of Grave's disease; the localization of
brain tumors with radioactive diiodofluorescein; and the effect of cortisone on leukemia.
Key people involved include: Shields Warren, bigwig in the AEC, to whom applications
for permission to use human subjects were sent; in one instance, he refused permission
because not enough animal studies had been done (folder U-Z 1949, box 3/25), Nathaniel
Berlin, re C-14; Dr. Huff, re iron metabolism studies using P-32; John Gofman, Paul
Aebersold, Charles Perry (Secretary for Subcommittee on Permissible Internal Doses),
Low-Beer, and Merck.
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Archives and Records Office
Human Radiation Experiments Search and Retrieval Project
Anna Berge Research Notes
Electronic documentTitle: Jones, Tobias, Lawrence
April 4, 1994
2