Theses and Other Student Works

At various times in the past, students at Cooper Medical College and Stanford School of Medicine have been required to submit theses. Lane historical collections include just over 1200 of these theses, most of the early ones handwritten. The collection also includes more than 600 sanitary surveys done by students that provide snapshots of public health in California counties and cities in the 1920s and 1930s.

One thesis of note is The National Parks: A Public Health Problem (With particular reference to Yosemite National Park) by Donald Bertram Tresidder in 1927. Tresidder (AB 1919, MD 1927) successively became the president of Yosemite Park and Curry Company, the youngest president of the Stanford Board of Trustees, and the fourth president of Stanford University (the second with an MD). He married Mary Curry (AB 1915, MA 1917) while he was a medical student. The thesis considers the history of Yosemite, the native Miwok, and the Yosemite Medical Service as well as the issues of water, sewage, garbage, mosquitoes and rodents, food supply and handling, disease, hygiene, and education. In his foreword Tresidder states "During recent years, particularly since the advent of automobiles, travel to the National Parks has increased so rapidly that a definite problem in public health has arisen, which is of sufficient interest to prompt this study." There are many illustrations reproduced from photographs or tipped in from other sources, including depictions of Glacier Point Hotel, Sentinel Hotel, and Ahwahnee Hotel (under construction), Leidig House, Hetch Hetchy before and after O'Shaunghnessy Dam, Yosemite Hospital, campsites, automobiles, and illustrations of many of the topics included in this record. There are also photostatic reproductions of letters from government agencies.