[Chinese Americana]. [Medicine]. Chen, Raymond Feng-chu

[Small Archive of Letters, Notes, Photographs, and More Belonging to Dr. Raymond Feng-chu Chen During His Student Years at Harvard and Cornell]

[Various locations, mainly in California and New York: 1953-1959]. Thirty-one letters and postcards; nine photographs; [181]pp. of mostly handwritten notes; plus assorted ephemera. Very good. Item #4870

A small but notable archive of materials documenting a portion of Dr. Raymond Feng-chu Chen's experiences as an undergraduate at Harvard and then a medical student at Cornell in the 1950s. Most of the material emanates from the latter, when Dr. Chen was a medical student at Cornell University's medical school in New York City, during which time Chen lived in Long Island City. During his later career, Dr. Raymond Feng-chu Chen (1933-2012) became an important and prominent physician and medical researcher. His obituary in the Washington Post is illuminating and reads, in part: "Raymond F. Chen, 79, a physician and National Institutes of Health scientist whose work helped advance the development of fluorescein angiograms of kidneys, retinas and other organs, died Nov. 14 of cardiac arrest at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville.... Dr. Chen, a Montgomery Village resident, worked at NIH from 1963 to 1993. He specialized in the fluorescence of enzymes and had written extensively about it in medical and scientific publications. Raymond Feng Chu Chen was born in Canton, China, and grew up in New York City. He was a 1955 graduate of Harvard University and a 1959 graduate of Cornell University’s medical school in New York City. He received a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Utah in 1960. In senior Olympic competitions, he won gold medals in tennis, swimming and ping-pong."

The present archive provides a unique window into some of Dr. Chen's time at both Harvard and Cornell. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the current archive lies in Chen's numerous handwritten notes for class or lab work while in medical school at Cornell, which total over 180 pages. Most of Chen's notes are handwritten on small loose leaf lined sheets likely removed from pocket notebooks; a few groups of the notes are paper-clipped together. The notes emanate from a 1956 Public Health class, and some seem to relate to courses or lab work in internal medicine. Interspersed throughout Chen's textual notes are numerous hand-drawn medical diagrams relating to the various subjects he is studying in class or learning about in the lab. The collection also includes a handful of printed student paperwork, including copies of a few of Chen's examinations.

Among the items from Dr. Chen's earlier student days at Harvard are his 1952 Red Cross card datelined in Cambridge, his 1953-54 membership card for the Phillips Brook House at Harvard, and more, with some of the received letters sent to him in Cambridge. His time as a medical student at Cornell's New York City institution is marked by the aforementioned notes, as well as his 1955 health insurance card for the Associated Hospital Service of New York; lab slips for the T.B. Diagnostic Lab at New York Hospital in 1959, with Chen stamped "Medical Student;" personal banking papers, and more.

The collection includes three unsent letters authored by Chen -- one from the summer after he graduated from Harvard and two from his early Cornell years. These letters provide an interesting peek into Chen's personality. In the earliest letter, ostensibly written to his sister Franny, Chen practically psychoanalyzes his own father ("conformity with others' demands is Pop's only ethic"). In the letters from Cornell, Chen comments that "Cornell is no fun at all, but on the other hand, I don't enjoy it" and that his classes are "all taught by the same group of incompetent people, and anything that we may have learned is purely coincidental." The collection also includes nine photographs and a few photographic negatives, most of which feature Chen in his student years, as well as almost thirty letters sent to Chen in the 1950s. The letters are sent from his parents, friends, former classmates, and various school officials. Two letters from a lab supervisor at Harvard relate to a summer job Chen worked in 1956. One letter here was sent to Chen while he was training in the Public Health Service's Indian Hospital at Fort Defiance, Arizona. Another letter, dated December 15, 1954, was sent to Chen by the Yale School of Medicine, prodding Chen to answer whether or not he would be accepting a place at Yale in the coming year. Obviously Chen did not accept his seat at Yale, though it speaks to his exceptional abilities as a student. The collection is rounded out by a few congratulatory cards from family and friends upon Chen's graduation from Cornell Medical School in 1959; assorted personal papers; and more.

Price: $1,000.00