An important part of George Papanicolaou Archives is kept at Weill Cornell University Archives.
This collection was formed in the Medical Archives in separate integrations. The archives consist of material relating to the course of cytologic diagnosis of cancer given by Dr Papanicolaou and also of biographical information, photographs, files of the cytologic laboratory and reprints, provided with generosity from Dr John Seybolt. The remainders were donated from various centers, or were collected by the Archivist as individual elements.
The Papanicolaou Rewards that are kept in Cornell Archives are the following:
Borden Reward (1948)
Amory Reward (1950)
First reward of ACHEPANS (Order 1951)
Honorary medal of American Cancer Society (1952)
The Vienna Reward for Exfoliative Cytology (1953)
The Palm Grand Cross that was granted to him by the King of Greeks (1953)
The Reward of Modern Medicine for distinguished achievements (1954)
The Bertner Reward (1955)
The Passano Reward (1956)
The Lasker Reward of American Society for Public Health (1950)
The Cleveland Reward (1960)
The Cross of Batalion of George the 1st on behalf of the Greek Government (1957).
The Papanicolaou Collection is constituted by certain files that were created during the scientific course of Dr Papanicolaou in Cornell (Boxes 1 and 2, files 1-6), certain from his publications (boxes 3 and 4), reprints relating to cancer and cytology from Drs Nathan Chandler Foot and Irena Koprowska and files concerning events held to honour Dr Papanicolaou (Box 2). The last ones were created or collected by the Medical Archives.
The first line of the Archives (from the Cytologic laboratory), include a file that is named “list of cases” and is dated from to1945-46. This file contains the names of patients, the results of smear and the later determination with regard to cancer. Due to the applied rule of protection of privacy (HIPAA), the access in this file is restricted and nobody can access it without the permission of the Archivist and probably of the Hospital’s institutional revision. There is also a big number ofnon manuscript material, connected with this collection.
Box 6 contains the academic emblems with which Papanicolaou was honoured from the Universities of Athens, Turin and the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. Many photographs of Dr Papanicolaou and his spouse, as well as of the cytologic laboratory and grouped photographs of Exfoliative Cytology were added in the personal photographic collection. The microscope of Dr Papanicolaou is maintained also in the Archives.
In January 1984, Dr. J. Lee Sedwitz, donated to the Medical Archives a 17 minute film on the life of Dr Papanicolaou. This film is kept along with the remainder cinematographic material in the Archives.
