The cytogeneticist John Belling (1866-1933) developed the iron-acetocarmine staining technique, which facilitated detailed study of chromosomal structures. In his work with Arthur F. Blakeslee at Cold Spring Harbor on Datura (1920-1927) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1928-1933) on lilies, hyacinths, and other plants, Belling made accurate estimates of chromosomal numbers, helped to demonstrate the interchange of segments between non-homologous chromosomes, and proposed that the chromomeres (small condensations of stain that appeared along the length of chromosomes) represented individual, physical genes. Although he was a gifted technician and insightful cytologist, his career was hampered by mental instability and curtailed by frequent hospitalizations before his sudden death in 1933. The Belling Collection consists of four photograph albums, 38 glass slides and approximately 75 glass negatives and positive prints of chromosome preparations made by Belling, primarily during the years at Berkeley, along with an annotated bibliographic card file. The images in the albums are fully identified, but most of the glass slides are not.

A collection of letters, legal papers and financial records of three generations of the prominent Philadelphia family. Spanning 1745-1955, detailed are the legal cases and political advocacy work of John Kintzing Kane (1795-1858), Robert Patterson Kane (1827-1906), and Francis Fisher Kane (1866-1955). Also includes correspondence, architectural drawings, and photograph albums of the Cope family. Robert Patterson Kane's daughter Eliza Middleton Kane (1863-1952) married the Philadelphia architect Walter Cope (1860-1902) in 1893. The APS papers of Elisha Kent Kane are in call no. B K132.

Ernst Krackowizer (1821-1875), father-in-law to the anthropologist Franz Boas (APS 1903), was an Austrian born surgeon who fled Vienna to New York following his involvement as captain of the Academic Legion during the Revolution of 1848. Krackowizer was an active member of New York medical community, helping to found the German Dispensary and Hospital, later renamed Lenox Hill Hospital. During the Civil War, Krackowizer assisted the Union Army as a volunteer surgeon and inspector of military hospitals. Krackowizer is claimed to have been the first on whom the anesthetic effects of chloroform were tested in Vienna and the first to use a laryngoscope in the United States. This collection is comprised of the personal papers of Ernst Krackowizer including diplomas, certificates, correspondence, diaries, and photographs, which document his life and medical career. Krackowizer's experience in the Revolution of 1848 and subsequent flight from Vienna trough Germany to the United States is well detailed in his correspondence to his fiancée and later wife, Emilie Forster, and in his diaries, which make up a significant portion of this collection. Krackowizer firsthand description of the early use of chloroform and the laryngoscope are included, as well as materials documenting his involvement as a volunteer surgeon and hospital inspector during the Civil War. Additionally, the Krackowizer Papers contain material written by others reference the life and work of Ernst Krackowizer.