Lawrence Francis Flick, M.D. Papers

Letters and Circulars to Flick and the American Catholic Historical of Pennsylvania.

Lawrence Francis Flick, M.d., was born in Cambria County, Pa., August 10, 1856 and died in Philadelphia., Penna., July 7, 1938. He was the son of John Flick, an Alsatian, and Elizabeth Sharbaugh, a Bavarian. After attending St. Vincent's College, Latrobe, Pa., he went to Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa., from which he graduated in 1879. Subject himself to pulmonary tuberculosis, he made a study of tuberculosis deaths and concluded that the disease was not hereditary but contagious. His campaign to isolate consumptives in special hospitals and to register tlUlberculosis cases provoked opposition within the medical profession. To educate the public, he organized in 1892 the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Aided by the parish sodality, he also founded (1895) The Free Hospital for Poor Consumptives and opened (l90l) a modest sanatorium at White Haven, Pa., which he headed until 1935. When Henry Phipps, a philanthropist, visited White Haven, he offered to finance a tuberculosis institution in Philadelphia; the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Prevention, and Treatment of Tuberculosis was opened in 1903. Flick was president and medical director until 1910, when the institute was transfe~red to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. A prom6ter of the National Association for the Study and nrevention of Tuberculosis (1904) and of its International Congress on Tuberculosis (1908). Flick was also interested in History. :I He was a Founder of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, which heserved as President (1893-96, 1913-14), and he was a Founder and first president (1919) of the American Catholic Historical Association. He published many articles and three books; - Consumptive, A Curable and Prevenable Disease (1903) The Development of Our Knowledge of Tuberculosis (1925) Tuberculosis, A book of Practical Knowledge to Guide the General Practitioner of Medicine (1937).