The bulk of this collection consists of academic addresses, publications, manuscripts, and notes mostly from the 1930s. It also contains biographical material, information about Bland's personal rare book collection, several academic robes, and cuts used in printing a student guide booklet.
Pascal Brooke Bland (1875-1940) was born on May 9, 1875 in Monocacy, PA. He attended public and private schools in Berks and Montgomery Counties in Pennsylvania before enrolling at Jefferson Medical College. He graduated as President of his class in 1901 and then began a residency at Jefferson Hospital. During his fifteen-month tenure, Bland served as the hospital’s first Resident Pathologist.
After the completion of his residency, Bland became an assistant to Dr. E. E. Montgomery and a Demonstrator in the Department of Gynecology. He studied medicine in Europe in 1907 and 1910, ultimately deciding to specialize in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Between 1910 and 1925, Bland was an Assistant Professor of Gynecology at Jefferson. In 1925, he was appointed Professor of Obstetrics and Resident Obstetrician at Jefferson Hospital. In this capacity, he was responsible for establishing the hospital’s first residency in obstetrics (a joint residency for obstetrics and gynecology would not be introduced until the departments were combined in 1946).
Bland wrote several works on his medical specialties, including Gynecology: Medical and Surgical (1924) and Practical Obstetrics for Students and Practitioners (with Thaddeus L. Montgomery, first edition 1932, subsequent editions 1934 and 1939). He had a strong interest in the history of medicine, amassing a personal library of rare books on the subject. Throughout his professional life, Bland was a member of organizations including the American Association of Obstetricians, Gynecologists, and Abdominal Surgeons; the American College of Surgeons; and the Royal Society of Medicine in London. He was a fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia, serving as President of the latter in 1928.
Bland retired from Jefferson in 1937, thereafter holding the title of Professor Emeritus. He died by suicide on October 31, 1940. Bland bequeathed the remainder of his estate (left over after all direct heirs were deceased), over $1 million, to the Jefferson Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He also left his personal medical library and a nineteenth-century birthing chair to Jefferson Medical College.
I. Biography (1929-1941)
II. Addresses (1907-1939)
III. Publications (1917-1941)
IV. Manuscripts (1926-1936)
V. Manuscripts - other authors (1934-1936)
VI. Correspondence (1934-1940)
VII. Notes (1933-1938)
1. Notes (1933, n.d.)
2. Clinic Notes (1934-1938)
VIII. Teaching Materials (1928-1937)
IX. Rare Book Collection (1935-1941)
X. Events and Ephemera (1940)
XI. Necrology (1940)
XII. Artifacts (n.d.)
P. Brooke Bland Papers, MS-009. Thomas Jefferson University - Archives and Special Collections.
P. Brooke Bland Papers, MS-009. Thomas Jefferson University - Archives and Special Collections. http://aisrmedia1.jefferson.edu:81/repositories/2/resources/4 Accessed May 13, 2024.