Merrill Moore publications, 1938-1944.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

Housed in Small Collections Box 9.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: A small collection containing publications authored by Merrill Moore concerning topics such as bromide intoxication, alcoholism, psychiatry, poisoning, nervous disorders and mental disease. Most of the medical articles in this collection are reprints from professional journals. Also included are a few essays and a poem entitled, "Ego." A few items concern Moore's service in the Medical Corps during World War II, and describe his activities as a psychiatrist in the Pacific theatre. Also included is an essay about Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Cite as: Merrill Moore Publications, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library

Nashville Public Library does not have intellectual property rights to these materials.

Source of acquisition unknown;,Acc. RT-100.

A small quantity of materials about Merrill Moore can be found in the Biography Ephemera Subject Files of the Special Collections Division.

Merrill Moore was born near Columbia, Maury County, Tenn. in 1903, the only son of John Trotwood Moore and his wife, Mary Brown Daniel Moore. The Moores moved to Nashville when Merrill was three years old. Merrill attended Tarbox and Stokes schools, and Montgomery Bell Academy. At age 17, Merrill entered Vanderbilt University in 1924, and two years later he joined a group of literary men and poets which became known as the Fugitives, where he gained recognition for his sonnets. He continued his education by attending Vanderbilt Medical School, and interning at St. Thomas Hospital, receiving his M.D. in 1928. He specialized in psychiatry. He spent most of his medical career in Boston, Mass. where he became known as an authority on alcoholism and taught on neuropathology at Harvard Medical School. During World War II, he served as a major in the Army Medical Corps in the South Pacific where he treated cases of "combat fatigue" and other psychological conditions. In 1946, while in China, he was personal physician to Chinese general Chiang Kai Shek and U.S. General George C. Marshall. He was later promoted to the rank of colonel in the Reserves.

In addition to his work as a psychiatrist and a poet, Moore was also known as an enthusiastic and educated conchologist, or shell collector. He was a member of West End Methodist Church in Nashville for many years, and was also a member of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Neurological Association, the American Medical Association, Sigma Chi, and Phi Beta Kappa.

Merrill married his childhood sweetheart, Ann Leslie Nichol on Aug. 4, 1930 and together they had four children: Hester, Adam, John and Leslie. He died of intestinal cancer on Sept. 9, 1957 in Quincy, Mass., and his body was donated to Harvard University Medical School. By the time of his death, it was said he had written more sonnets than any other poet in the English language.

In English

Unknown provenance.

Process;,2009;,Linda Barnickel;,removed from Biography and Medicine Ephemera Subject Files.

No further accruals are expected.