Evelyn Cook Bauerle papers on Benjamin Gruskin

Collection

Identifier: MSS 402

Scope and Contents

The Evelyn Cook Bauerle papers on Benjamin Gruskin date from 1931 and 1951 and represent some of the work done by Benjamin Guskin during the 1930s and 1940s in cancer research. Included in the collection is correspondence between Bauerle and F. B. Hubacheck, President of the Lakeland Foundation; and Bauerle and W. M. Helms, also of the Lakeland Foundation, regarding Bauerle’s visit to the lab in Rockford, Illinois in July 1949, in order to assist with Gruskin’s techniques in creating antigens and serums. A report, likely written by Robert Pagel of the Midwest Extraction Company, and dating to circa 1949, details Gruskin’s methods, although it is unclear whether this was written before or after Bauerle’s visit to the lab. One will also find several reprints of articles written by Gruskin, or by others referencing his work, in this collection. Researchers interested in women working in STEM fields during the first half of the 20th century may find Bauerle’s correspondence especially interesting.

This collection was discovered during a survey in the summer and fall of 2015.

Dates

1931-1951

Creator

Bauerle, Evelyn C. (Evelyn Matthews Cook) (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Evelyn Matthews Cook Bauerle was born in 1910 in Rahway Union, New Jersey. She graduated from Ursinus College in 1930, majoring in chemistry and biology, and soon after went to work with Dr. Benjamin Gruskin in the research lab at Lankenau Hospital, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That fall (1930), Bauerle assisted Gruskin in setting up his new research lab at Temple Medical School, and ran most of tests summarized in Gruskin’s published articles. She remained there until 1939, when she moved away from Philadelphia after getting married to Gordon G. Bauerle. They had two children. Bauerle died in 2002 in York, Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Gruskin was born in 1878 in either Lithuania or Russia (accounts vary). He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1909, the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery in 1910, and did a post-graduate course at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital and College. Gruskin completed preliminary education before arriving in America, and served as an Associate Professor in Pathology in the Medical Department at Loyola University, beginning in 1908. Gruskin married Mary Rosenthal in 1908 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

By 1930, he was working in the research lab at Lankenau Hospital, and by that fall, had moved to a new lab at Temple Medical School. Gruskin’s research at Temple focused on serological and intradermal tests for carcinoma and sarcoma, and intradermal tests for pregnancy and tuberculosis. Much of the funding for the Temple lab, and the research performed there, came from the Lakeland Foundation of Chicago, Illinois. Gruskin’s later research included the possibility of antiseptic and deodorizing properties of chlorphyll, which seemed to have been carried out with the aid of Robert Pagel of the Midwest Extraction Company of Rockford, Illinois.

Gruskin took out a patent in the Foundation’s name in 1938 for the therapeutic use in medicine and dentristy. The Rystan Company were licensed in 1941 to use the patent, but did not release any products until Chloresium, an ointment, was released in 1945. In 1948, they released a chlorphyll toothpaste.

It seems that Gruskin’s health began to decline in the 1940s, and in 1944, the Lakeland Foundation “revived” some of Gruskin’s cancer research, including diagnostic tests and experimental treatments. In 1949, Evelyn Bauerle, a former lab employee of Gruskin’s, was contacted by F. B. Hubachek, President of the Lakeland Foundation, and asked to visit the lab in Rockford to share her knowledge of Gruskin’s work, and demonstrate the correct techniques for creating antigens, from preparing tissue samples to the last step in the neutralization.

In 1950, a year after Bauerle’s visit to the lab in Rockford, Gruskin died near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Extent

.2 Linear feet (1 half document box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Overview

Evelyn Matthews Cook Bauerle was born in 1910 in Rahway Union, New Jersey. She graduated from Ursinus College in 1930, majoring in chemistry and biology, and assisted Benjamin Gruskin in setting up his new research lab at Temple Medical School, running most of tests summarized in Gruskin’s published articles. She remained there until 1939. Bauerle died in 2002 in York, Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Gruskin was born in 1878 in either Lithuania or Russia (accounts vary). He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1909, the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery in 1910, and did a post-graduate course at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital and College. By 1930, he was working in a new lab at Temple Medical School. Gruskin’s research at Temple focused on serological and intradermal tests for carcinoma and sarcoma, and intradermal tests for pregnancy and tuberculosis. Gruskin’s later research included the possibility of antiseptic and deodorizing properties of chlorphyll. In 1950, Gruskin died near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Evelyn Cook Bauerle papers on Benjamin Gruskin date from 1931 and 1951 and represent some of the work done by Benjamin Guskin during the 1930s and 1940s in cancer research. Researchers interested in women working in STEM fields during the first half of the 20th century may find Bauerle’s correspondence especially interesting.