Hyman Morrison papers

Hyman Morrison (1881-1963), A.B., 1905, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; M.D., 1908, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, was a visiting physician at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, a clinical professor of medicine at Tufts College Medical School (now Tufts University School of Medicine) in Medford, Massachusetts, and Chief of Medicine at Boston State Hospital, Massachusetts. Morrison's main areas of research included nervous disorders in Jewish patients, including extensive work contesting the diagnosis of “Hebraic debility,” tuberculosis of the appendix, and the life and work of physicians Reginald Heber Fitz (1843-1913) and Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866).

Hyman Morrison was born in October 1881 in Vilna, Russia to Annie (Weinstein) and Joseph Morrison. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1893. Morrison attended English High School in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and, after graduation, was accepted to Harvard University. He received an A.B. degree with high distinction from Harvard University in 1905; during his time at Harvard, he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He moved immediately into the Harvard Medical School and graduated with his M.D. in 1908. He was identified as white in the 1910 U.S. Census. He was Jewish. In a 1907 paper in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, written during his time as a student, Morrison critiqued diagnoses of “Hebraic debility” made at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. This was an institution dominated by Protestant physicians who often used the term “Hebraic debility” to diagnose Jewish immigrants suffering from non-specific ailments including fatigue, muscle or joint pain, weakness, or migraine. Morrison’s work, which he continued after graduation, argued that such “debility” was only to be expected in individuals who had undergone such a drastic life-change as whole-sale immigration, often under traumatic circumstances, and that nervous disorders in Jewish patients were not caused by innate differences between the nervous systems of Jews and non-Jews (1). After graduating from Harvard Medical School, Morrison took advantage of his posts at Beth Israel Hospital and Boston State Hospital to collect data for articles on gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes mellitus, and diseases in the erythema group.

Morrison had a strong interest in medical history, researching and writing a biography of Harvard Medical School professor Reginald Heber Fitz (1843-1913). Fitz was a professor of Morrison’s during his time at Harvard Medical School and was responsible for influential articles on the diagnosis and treatment of appendicitis and other abdominal disorders. Morrison also did work on the life of English doctor Thomas Hodgkin. Hodgkin was responsible for the original diagnosis of the disease now known as Hodgkin’s lymphoma; he was also part of the movement to popularize the use of the stethoscope.

During his lifetime, Morrison used his research on Hodgkin to publish “Doctors Afield” in 1954 and his research on Fitz for several articles, including “The Chapter on Appendicitis in a Biography of Reginald Heber Fitz” (1946) and “Reginald Heber Fitz” (1941). His other major publications included: “Tuberculosis Located in the Vermiform Appendix” (1952); “A Study of the Incidence of Subacute Bacterial Endocarditis at the Massachusetts General Hospital” (1927); “A Study of the Fatal Cases of Diabetes Mellitus in Boston from 1895 to 1913, with Special Reference to Its Occurrence Among Jews” (1916); and “A Biologic Interpretation of Jewish Survival” (circa 1937). Morrison also published a translation of Paul Langerhans’ work on the survey of the pancreas, “Contribution to the Microscopic Anatomy of the Pancreas” (1937).

Morrison was a member of the Boston Medical History Club and served as Vice-President in 1932; he presented several papers before its membership, including draft versions of what were then revised into published articles. He was also a member of the Greater Boston Medical Society and the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Morrison married Rose Lena Hurwitz (died 1960). They had three daughters: Flora Mildred, Judith, and Miriam. Morrison died in 1963 in Belmont, Massachusetts, of carcinoma of the stomach.

1. Crenner, Christopher. Private Practice: In the Twentieth-Century Medical Office of Dr. Richard Cabot (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 165-167.