In 1892, the physician and medical administrator Simon Flexner began research on cerebrospinal meningitis, a meningococcal disease with an untreated mortality rate between 70 and 90%. Experimenting on monkeys, Flexner developed a promising serum treatment for the disease by 1903, which he used extensively during the epidemic outbreaks of meningitis in New York City in 1904-1905 and 1907. For several years, Flexner kept his serum under his close supervision, with the result that the Rockefeller Institute became the primary source for knowledge about meningitis and its treatment. The 8 linear feet of Records amassed at the Rockefeller Institute between 1907 and 1913 document Simon Flexner's deployment of his serum treatment for cerebrospinal meningitis and his on-going interest in the epidemiology, etiology, and treatment of the disease. The collection consists largely of patient records, with data on hospitals and physicians to whom Flexner has dispensed his serum.

The Board of Health in New York City joined with scientists from the Rockefeller Institute to study the poliomyelitis epidemic that struck the city during the summer of 1916. Using a small army of nurses and public health professionals, they canvassed the city for all reported cases of the disease, assessed conditions that might contribute to its spread, and enforced quarantine. The records collected by the Department of Health in New York City during the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1916 were gathered by nurses who canvassed every neighborhood in the city to determine which children were stricken, the conditions that may have contributed to the disease, and whether a quarantine was in force.

Eugene Opie spent most of his career as a pathologist at the Rockefeller Institute engaged in research on the influenza, tuberculosis, blood diseases, poliomyelitis, and viruses. His work at Washington University, St. Louis, is documented, as are his efforts to alleviate tuberculosis in Jamaica, among Philadelphia schoolchildren, and in New York City. The Opie collection contains correspondence, notebooks, lab notes from his days at Rockefeller, articles, reprints, and photographs. Opie's long interest in China is reflected in material on the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China, the United China Relief, and Chinese medicine in general. There is also significant documentation on the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Henry Phipps Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and other institutions. There are also reports of approximately 300 clinical autopsies performed at the Base Hospital, Camp Pike, Ark., of soldiers who died in the flu epidemic of 1918. Also there are notes of Opie's course in pathology at the University of Pennsylvania.