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About

Erich Meyerhoff Prize

This prize was established in 1956 by Ralph and Jo Grimes of the Old Hickory Bookshop, Brinklow, MD, in memory of Murray Gottlieb, a New York antiquarian book dealer. Since 2010, this award has been sponsored by the MLA History of the Health Sciences Section. In 2016 it was renamed to honor longtime MLA member Erich Meyerhoff, AHIP, FMLA. Meyerhoff was a legendary figure in medical librarianship with great devotion to the history of the health sciences. The purpose of the Meyerhoff Prize is to recognize and stimulate interest in the history of the health sciences. The prize is awarded annually for the best unpublished scholarly paper about a topic in the history of the health sciences. 

Criteria

  • The author of a paper submitted for the Erich Meyerhoff Prize must be a member of the Medical Library Association.
  • The submitted paper must treat some aspect of the history of the health sciences.
  • The submitted paper may be under consideration for publication at the time of submission but cannot have been published.
  • The submitted paper must meet the requirements for submission to the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

Submissions

  • The title of the paper must appear at the head of the manuscript and in the uploaded file name. 
  • A 150-word abstract must be included on a separate page.
  • The author's name, title, institution/library, address, telephone, and email address should be included in the application form only.
  • To facilitate blind review, and avoid disqualification, identifying information should NOT appear anywhere in the uploaded documents or file titles.   

The jury will review submissions and award points based on the following:  

  • bibliographic research and documentation
  • experimental design and accuracy
  • relevance/contribution to the study of the history of the health sciences 
  • originality
  • style and writing quality 

Recipient

  • The prize carries the right of first refusal for publication to the Journal of the Medical Association.
  • The recipient will be notified in March. They will receive a complimentary registration to the annual conference and a cash award of $500 after the annual conference.
  • The recipient will be asked to share a photo and video for the virtual awards ceremony held in April. 
  • If there are no appropriate submissions, the association may elect not to present the prize in a given year.

Ready to Submit an Application? 

  • The award application process is now closed.
  • Applicants and award recipients will be notified in March 2024 with the results.
  • The virtual awards ceremony will be held in April 2024.
  • Nominations for the 2025 award will open in August 2024.

Past Award Recipients

  • 2023: "White degeneration, neo-Lamarckism, and the early twentieth century campaigns against hookworm in Puerto Rico and the U.S. South": Anne Morgan, AHIP 
  • 2022: none awarded
  • 2021: "Proving the Proverbial Gadfly: Situating the Historical & Racial Context of Southern Medical Works by Mary Louise Marshall through a Critical Librarianship Framework"Aidy Weeks, AHIP
  • 2020: none awarded
  • 2019: “Reforming the Veteran: Propaganda and Agency in WWI Reconstruction Hospitals”: Aaron Jackson
  • 2018: "The Role of Accreditation on the Evolution of United States and Canadian Veterinary School Libraries in the Late 19th and 20th Centuries":  Vicki F. Croft, AHIP, FMLA, and Susanne K. Whitaker, AHIP
  • 2017: "The Coming of the Progressive Era to Mr. Jefferson’s Medical School: Violating the Principles Upon Which the University was Founded": Bart Ragon
  • 2016: "History of DSD (Disorders of Sex Development) and Medical Intervention": Laura Menard
  • 2015: "The Legacy of Color Vision Testing in the Railway Industry": Elena Faria Azadbakht
  • 2014: none awarded
  • 2013: "Life's Blood: Blood Banking in a Southern City": Richard H. Nollan
  • 2012: none awarded
  • 2011: none awarded
  • 2010: "The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Medical Research versus Human Rights": Lindsay E. Blake
  • 2009: "The Lost History of American Veterinary Medicine: The Need for Preservation": Trenton Boyd
  • 2008: "Envisioning the Unborn: Art, Anatomy and the Printing Press in the Modern Era ": Heidi Heilemann
  • 2007: "The Body Politic: The Contributions of Physician-Patriot Joseph Warren": Elizabeth Connor
  • 2006: "The Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates: A Reconsideration in the Context of Its Time": Suzanne Shultz
  • 2005: "The Japanese Adoption of Western Medicine: From Sakoku to the Meiji Era": Ursula Ellis
  • 2004: "History of Tumor Measurement Using Radiographs": Beth Wagner
  • 2003: none awarded
  • 2002: "The Early Botanical Medical Movement as a Reflection of Life, Liberty, and Literacy in Jacksonian America": Michael A. Flannery
  • 2001: none awarded
  • 2000: "War as Laboratory: Albert B. Sabin's Military Service and Its Influence on His Poliomyelitis Research and Development of the Oral Poliovirus Vaccine": Maggie Yax
  • 1999: "Financing North American Medical Libraries in the Nineteenth Century": Godfrey S. Belleh and Eric v.d.Luft
  • 1998: "Of Mice and Men: The Vivisection Controversy in Turn of the Century America": Mary Westermann
  • 1996: "The Dreadful Visitation: Public Health and Public Awareness in 17th Century London": Stephen J. Greenberg
  • 1995: "Historical Writing About Women, Medicine and Health: A Histobiographic Essay": Susan K. Rishworth
  • 1994: "A Poor Man's Riches, A Rich Man's Bliss: Regimen, Reform, and the Journal of Health, 1829–1833": Thomas A. Horrocks
  • 1993: "Blacks in Chiropractic Education": Glenda Wiese
  • 1992: "Hot Springs Water and Facilities for Healing: The U.S. Public Health Service and Camp Garraday": Edwina Walls
  • 1991: "A Hospital by and for Blacks: A Chapter in the Medical History of Birmingham, Alabama, 1930–1954": Mary Rhinelander McCarl
  • 1989: "Retrolental Fibroplasia: Experimental Research and Service at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary": Joan Krizack
  • 1985: "Early Dental Journalism: A Mirror of the Development of Dentistry as a Profession": Sara Anne Hook
  • 1984: "Ancient Medical Authors and Their Renaissance Editors and Publishers": Christopher Hoolihan
  • 1983: "The Phenomenology of Phrenology: A Note of the Hegelian Critique of Gall's Special Organology": Charles Gordon Forrest
  • 1982: "Moral and Humane: Patients' Libraries in Nineteenth-Century American Mental Hospitals": Lisa Dunkel
  • 1980: "John Brown's Corpus": Judith A. Overmier
  • 1979: "Osteopathic Medicine-Past and Present": Georgia Walters
  • 1978: "Historical Journal Resources of the Rudolf Matas Library, Tulane University": Mary Lynette Ryan
  • 1977: "Pediatrics in an Eighteenth-Century Remedy Book": Estelle Brodman
  • 1976: "The Library of M. Richard Meader": Joan Campbell
  • 1971: "Nineteenth-Century Medical Journalism in Texas": Violet M. Baird
  • 1970: "Pre-Civil War Journals in Louisiana": Kay Olschner
  • 1969: "Samuel Nickles, Dry and Quaint": Katherine T. Barkley
  • 1968: none awarded
  • 1967: "Medical Collections in Public Libraries of the United States": Marjorie Wannarka
  • 1966: none awarded
  • 1965: "Benjamin Rush and John Minson Galt II: Pioneers of Bibliotherapy in America": Philip J. Weimerskirch
  • 1964: "Medical Aspects of the Westward Migrations, 1830–60": Irwin H. Pizer
  • 1963: "The Library of the Louisville Medical Institute, 1837–46": John Titley
  • 1962: "Medicine and the Mormons": Robert T. Divett
  • 1961: "The McGill Medical Libraries 1829–1929": Martha Benjamin
  • 1960: "The Development of Medical Practice in Bedford Township, NY": Janet Doe
  • 1959: "The Medical College of Utah at Morgan": Robert T. Divett
  • 1958: "The Development of the Omaha Medical College 1869-1902": Bernice M. Hetzner
  • 1957: "The Cholera Epidemic of 1832 in York, Upper Canada": Marian A. Patterson
  • 1956: "Medical Care Among the North Carolina Moravians": Dorthy Long

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