Miles, Wyndham D., 1916-

Wyndham Miles was educated at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy but his antiquarian leanings led to his interest in the study of the history of chemistry and his passion for collecting significant historical texts. He was employed as a science historian at both the Army Chemical Corps and the National Archives. He is an author, editor, past president of the A.C.S. Division of the History of Chemistry and the winner of its Dexter Award in 1971.

Dr. Wyndham D. Miles was Historian of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Miles was Historian with the National Institutes of Health at the time that this work was done.

A history of the National Library of Medicine had been a dream of library directors ever since Dr. Frank B. Rogers began to work on one in the late 1950's, but no book-length history of the library appeared until 1982. In that year Wyndham D. Miles's A History of the National Library of Medicine: The Nation's Treasury of Medical Knowledge appeared. Miles, a historian of chemistry, had been working as a historian for the national Institutes of Health since 1962. At the direction of Dr. Martin M. Cummings, the library's director, Miles began to work on the history of the library. In 1986 Miles donated to the library the material he ahd accumulated during the course of preparing the history.

Former NIH historian.

Biographical sketch: A history of the National Library of Medicine had been a dream of library directors ever since Dr. Frank B. Rogers began to work on one in the late 1950's, but no book-length history of the library appeared until 1982. In that year Wyndham D. Miles's A History of the National Library of Medicine: the nation's treasury of medical knowledge appeared. Miles, a historian of chemistry, had been working as a historian for the National Institutes of Health since 1962. At the direction of Dr. Martin M. Cummings, the library's director, Miles began to work on the history of the library. In 1986 Miles donated to the library the material he had accumulated during the course of preparing the history.

Miles is a former NIH historian.

Shortly after Dr. Wyndham Miles's appointment as the first professional historian of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the early 1960s, Miles undertook a series of interviews with people important to the history of NIH. For the next ten years Miles conducted interviews with current and former NIH employees and with selected other Public Health Service (PHS) officials. He conducted in all at least 76 interviews.

At the time the interviews were conducted the Historian's office did not have the resources to transcribe all the interviews. Instead Dr. Miles prepared detailed abstracts of the contents of each tape. The abstracts were keyed to the counter on his machine. Each abstract was sent to the interviewee for editing and correction, and the corrections were incorporated into a final abstract.

Upon request, Dr. Miles copied the tapes and abstracts. Some researchers had portions of the tapes transcribed and these transcriptions were added to the collection, but the bulk of the tapes remained in abstract form. In 1987 Dr. Miles gave the collection to the National Library of Medicine. Interest in the history of NIH in the 1950s and 1960s had grown over the years, with a concomitant increase in interest in the tapes. As a consequence, the Library began the slow processing of transcribing each of the interviews in order to increase their scholarly usefulness.