A physician and naturalist, Oswald Hope Robertson worked at the Rockefeller Institute, the Peking Union Medical College, and at the medical school of University of Chicago (1927-1951). With a broad range of research interests, Robertson contributed important work on the transmission of pneumonia, the disinfection of air with glycol vapors, and later in his career, on the physiology and ecology of salmonid fishes. He is best remembered, however, as the creator of the first blood bank, established for use by British and American forces during the First World War. The Robertson Papers contain correspondence, notes, articles, and notebooks on many of Robertson's major research interests, including his work on blood. His early work on salmonid ecology is represented in a journal and eleven notebooks stemming from fieldwork in the lakes of the Wind River Range in northwestern Wyoming, 1942-1951. There is also interesting material on the Research Corporation (New York City) concerning patents on glycol vapors and air sterilizers, as well as notes and manuscripts of papers on morphine experiments, canine pneumococcus, bacteremia, and the effects of hydrocortisone.

This collection is primarily correspondence and also notes on experiments concerning the cytology research of Lewis and his wife, Dr. Margaret Reed Lewis, at Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and finally at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia. There is significant material relating to his professional society activity in the American Association of Anatomists (President, 1934-1936) and the International Society for Experimental Cytology.