Fritz Fuchs, MD Papers

Collection

Identifier: US-NNCORMA-RGPPM-035

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Scope and Contents

This collection along with the original collection from Dr. Fuchs provides an excellent overview of Dr. Fuchs professional life at the medical center. There is not much documentation of his personal life. This collection has been divided into the following series:

General Correspondence (1960-1989) and Foreign Correspondence (1956-1988) are maintained in the order organized by Dr. Fuchs. A third miscellaneous file contains photographs and books organized by the Assistant Archivist.

General Correspondence (1963-1993), Foreign Correspondence (1953-1992), Foreign Personnel Files (1969-1992), Professional Activities (1957-1986), Legal Cases (1980-1989), Speeches, Manuscripts and Reprints (1950-1989), and Miscellaneous (1945-1991).

Dates

1945 - 1993

Conditions Governing Access

Historical records in the Medical Center Archives are protected by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), internal policies requiring protection and confidential handling of PHI (protected health information), FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), or other institutional polices regarding internal or confidential records, and may require additional permissions prior to access. Some records in this collection are restricted and require additional permissions prior to access. View the container inventory for more information and visit the Medical Center Archives website for the most updated policies and procedures regarding access to historical materials containing restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Materials from this collection cannot be reproduced outside the guidelines of United States Fair Use (17 U.S.C., Section 107) without the advance permission of the Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine or the copyright holder. In the event that anything from the collection become a source for publication, a credit line indicating the Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine is required.

Historical records in the Medical Center Archives are protected by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and internal policies which require protection and confidential handling of all protected health information (PHI). Materials containing PHI, personally identifiable information (PII), and/or student information (protected under FERPA) have been restricted and require additional permissions prior to reproduction and use.

Please visit the Medical Center Archives website for the most updated policies and procedures regarding reproduction and use.

Biographical / Historical

Dr. Fritz Fuchs was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark on November 27, 1918. He received a medical degree from University of Copenhagen and Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Sweden in 1944. After working in various hospitals in Demark and Sweden, Dr. Fuchs immigrated to the United States in 1965 when he became the Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Chief at the New York Hospital and the first Given Foundation Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Cornell University Medical College. He married Anna-Riitta Olsson, a chemist and reproduction physiologist from Finland in 1948. In 1977, he became the first Percy Uris Professor of Reproductive Biology. In 1978, he retired from his chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Cornell.

Dr. Fuchs was an internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist. In 1960, in Demark, he worked with Povl Riis to perform the first amniocentesis for diagnosing a genetic disorder in a fetus. He, his wife, and other Danish collaborators also discovered the amniotic fluid could be used to determine the sex and blood type of the fetus. He continued this groundbreaking work with mid-trimester amniocentesis at the New York Hospital.

He also studied the mechanism of labor and the prevention of premature labor. Dr. Fuchs discovered a treatment for the prevention of premature labor by ejecting the mother intravenously with a 10 percent solution of alcohol. His wife was the first to discover that alcohol prevents labor in rabbits by blocking the release of hormone oxytocin. He also opened a family planning clinic at the hospital.

Dr. Fuchs also introduced to the United States the laparoscope, which is used for viewing, or performing surgery on organs. The Queen Margrethe of Denmark knighted him for his medical service in 1978. He died in February 1995 at the age of 76.

Extent

14.32 Linear Feet (33 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

Series 1. General Correspondence (1960-1989) and Series 2. Foreign Correspondence (1956-1988) are maintained in the order organized by Dr. Fuchs. Series 3. Reprints and Publications (1960-1983) and Series 4. Photographs were arranged by Elizabeth Shepard, Assistant Archivist. See series description for additional arrangement information.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Dr. Fritz Fuchs donated his records to the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center Archives on June 20, 1989. Accruals (Series 5 to 11) were donated by the Fuchs family in 06/11 and 8/3/2015 along with papers of his wife Anna Riittas Fuchs.

Related Materials

Anna Riitta Fuchs, MD Papers, 1960-2007

Processing Information

This collection was processed and finding aid was written by Elizabeth Shepard in 2008. Accruals were processed as a separate collection an finding aid by Elizabeth Shepard in 2016, then added as series to the original finding aid in 2024. Additional minor modifications to the finding aid were made during migration to ArchivesSpace in 2024.