Hospital Infection Society

  • Hospital Infection Society
Date:
1979-1999
Reference:
SA/HIS
  • Archives and manuscripts

About this work

Description

The papers document the work of the society and consist mainly of the papers collected by its officers. They include membership records, council and AGM minutes, and papers from conferences and meetings.

Publication/Creation

1979-1999

Physical description

15 boxes

Arrangement

The collection is divided into sections as follows:

A: MINUTES AND ASSOCIATED PAPERS

Minutes and associated papers of the Steering Group

Minutes and associated papers of Council Meetings

Minutes and associated papers of Annual General Meetings

Minutes and associated papers of Extraordinary General Meetings

B: MEETINGS

Minutes of Organising Committees

Programmes and associated papers

Lowbury Lecture

C: RECORDS OF OFFICERS

Chairman

Secretary

Treasurer

Meetings Secretary

Honorary Archivist

D: MEMBERSHIP

Membership records

Membership booklets

Newsletters and circulars

E: PUBLICATIONS

Minutes and associated papers of the Editorial Board and Sub-Committee of the Journal of Hospital Infection

Correspondence and papers relating to the Journal of Hospital Infection

Books

F: EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Working Parties

Evidence and opinions submitted to or by the HIS

Workshops and Courses

Awards

Relations with other infection control bodies

G: CONFERENCES

1st International Conference, 1987

2nd International Conference, 1990

3rd International Conference, 1994

4th International Conference, 1998

H: PAPERS OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY

Professor A M Emmerson

Dr A J Howard

Dr A Eastaway

Dr F Falkiner

Unidentified

Acquisition note

The papers of the Hospital Infection Society (HIS) were deposited at the library at Wellcome Collection in September 1995. Additional material was received in July 2000.

Biographical note

The Hospital Infection Society was founded in 1979 to provide a scientific forum for medical microbiologists interested in various aspects of infection in hospital. Initially the Society was proposed to be a sub-group of a larger society, to be founded as the Society for Clinical Microbiology. However, a subsequent meeting of the steering committee determined that the new association should stand alone from the start as the Hospital Infection Society. Its objective was to promote the study of and facilitate the dissemination of information about all aspects of hospital infection and the importance of holding meetings and of co-operation with other societies was emphasised from the outset. Membership was to consist of medically-qualified microbiologists, with physicians and surgeons or non-medical microbiologists with a PhD or MRCPath and an active interest in hospital infection admissible on the discretion of the Council.

The Society meets several times a year, often in conjunction with other related societies, such as the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (whose archive is also held at the Wellcome Library), the Surgical Infection Study Group and the Infection Control Nurses Association (see Section B). The annual Lowbury Lecture, sponsored from the first by ICI, was named after Professor Edward Lowbury, the Society's first President, an expert in the field. The Society has also organised large three International Conferences on hospital infection (see Section G).

The work of publicising the issue of hospital infection was aided by the establishment of the Journal of Hospital Infection in 1980, which was associated with the Society from the outset and soon became its official publication (see E.1-2). The Society also undertook to carry out research in the field, by means of ad hoc working parties (see F.1) and to use the professional expertise of the membership to advise, comment on and publicise the work of others (see F.2).

Related material

At Wellcome Collection:

The papers of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, which has held joint meetings with the Hospital Infection Society, are held as SA/AMC.

Archived website

This organisation's website has been archived as part of the work of the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) and can be consulted here: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/110400.

Copyright note

Copyright in the papers is retained by the Hospital Infection Society.

Appraisal note

As ordered on arrival at the Wellcome Library, there were no continuous series, as procedures seem to have varied with changing personnel. Some files represented a roughly chronological arrangement, others were ordered by subject, but there was little consistency to the pattern. It was therefore decided to establish a set of classes which would form a logical arrangement, though attempting as far as possible not to disrupt any existing order. Where papers have been transferred from a series, this has been noted in the list. Some papers had been collected into subject files, though it is not clear by whom; this arrangement has been reflected in particular in sections F and G. It is expected that further deposits will be made and as far as possible the series have been numbered to allow for additions.

Ownership note

The honorary archivist of the Society, Dr. Philip Sanderson, had collected much of the material prior to his retirement in 1992; it had then passed on to Professor Michael Emmerson who had added some of his own papers to the archive.

Permanent link

Identifiers

Accession number

  • 586
  • 845